The Japanese are testing their "Scaled Experimental Supersonic Transport" next month

I've written before about the embarrassment of having to explain to my four-year-old that we used to be able to fly from London to New York fast enough to "arrive before we left", but that his Dad's generation mucked it all up and you can't do that any more. Men landed on the moon before we even had colour TV to watch it on, but, er, we can't do that any more either. Somewhere along the way we decided that art needed no justification other than progressing the achievement of the human species, but science ...well, that had to pay for itself, preferably by next Tuesday.
So I'm delighted that my son may be able to fly supersonic after all when he goes off on his university gap year in 2019 (we'll conveniently forget the fact that neither he nor his Dad will be able to afford it). The Japanese are testing their "Scaled Experimental Supersonic Transport" next month over the Australian outback, the first step towards building a new passenger aircraft which would make even Concorde look pedestrian. The engine has already been tested to Mach 5.5, and the unmanned plane they're testing will be launched by booster rocket and flown at Mach 2.2 before parachuting back to earth. I'm not holding my breath that this'll eventually lead to a commercial product, but we must all surely wish the Japanese team well. You never know, perhaps my son's current career plan, which (naturally) is "to be an astronaut and go to the moon" may be back on the agenda one day too