Just when you thought the Concorde and super sonic airliner flight was all but dead now the Japanese want to build the ultimate in Super Sonic Airliners to go from Tokyo to Los Angeles or New York in record time and at record speeds.
But they need a little help from NASA to do it.
Luckily we are certainly learning a lot about the subject and the aviation industry has learned a lot from the Concorde as well.
Some of these lessons have not come so cheap and have cost many lives indeed.
The Japanese Space Agency will work with the National Aeronautics and Space Agency to build a new super fast airliner capable of making the trip across the Pacific Ocean in under 3 hours.
But how could that be possible? Well using the newest in technology of course and they want to be able to do 5.
5 Mach or five and a half times the speed of sound.
This is a long-term project and should be done by 2025.
How can anything go that fast you ask? Well using a Scram Jet engine which could allow it to go ten times that of a normal commercial jet airliner of today.
This will be a joint project with NASA and Boeing Technologies in a venture with Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Fuji and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries said the Japanese Space agency.
Excellent indeed and the need for speed is enough to fund the entire project from seed to weed.
Consider all this in 2006.