A supersonic jet engine capable of travelling more than six times as fast as the speed of sound has a sucessful over the outback in Southern Australia on Saturday.

The supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet), called HyShot III, was launched by a Terrier-Orion rocket and was in flight for just 10 minutes.

“It was quite amazing.”  “We know that the launch was almost perfect” said University of Queensland scientist Michael Smart.

Some hope to see scramjets used for commercial flights. In theory, they could be used to travel between Sydney and London in just two hours, a journey that currently takes 20 hours.

Personally I have been waiting on a “Star Trek” like transporter, but this looks like it might be the next best thing.  Something about having your method of transportation launched via a rocket does sound a bit scary though.