Scientists launch Scramjet that reaches speeds of Mach 10.

Scientists hope that one day a scramjet aircraft fired into space could cut travelling time from Sydney to London to as little as two hours.

“This technology has the potential to put numerous defence and civilian aerospace applications within our reach during the next couple of decades,” DSTO scientist Warren Harch said.

Butler said they could also slash the cost of sending satellites into space, because their potential payload was much larger than a rocket carrying its own fuel.

With the aging space shuttle raising serious questions about getting satellites into space in the future, this looks promising — and with potentially less technical challenges than something like a space elevator.

Because I am just a guest-blogger, I suck at trackbacks — but I saw this noted on Instapundit.

And, as noted by him, Rand Simberg shoots down the scramjet (for some purposes, such as satellites) in a separate post at the blog Transterrestial Musings.

It’s still cool, though.