Hypersonic flight is flight through the atmosphere at speeds above about Mach 5.5, a speed where disassociation of air begins to become significant and high heat loads exist.
Hypersonic flight has been achieved by the Space Shuttle's orbiter, the Apollo command module, Buran and scramjets.
Read more about Hypersonic Flight: History, Proposed Hypersonic Aircraft, Cancelled Hypersonic Aircraft
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)