Rocket-propelled hypersonic jet from New York to Paris in 2 hours while travelling on the edge of space

If you wanted to get from New York to Paris before your on-flight movie finishes, you may soon be in luck.

A futuristic rocket-propelled hypersonic jet has been proposed that could cross the Atlantic in two hours.

In addition to being a quick trip, it could treat passengers to a view like no other as it takes flyers up to the edges of space.

READ MORE: This Cessna is the fastest private jet in the world with mind-blowing top speed

Crossing the Atlantic in a New York minute

Many companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have toyed with the idea of space tourism in the past.

But you would need to be a billionaire to afford a ticket aboard one of their flights.

Fear not – a more affordable alternative could be on the way.

Spanish designer Oscar Vinals has conceived a futuristic jet that would offer passengers sub-orbital flights around the world.

Called ‘Iron Speed’, the SXT-A is a mix of space tourism and commercial flying in one place.

It looks like a perfect blend of a fighter jet and a space shuttle, with three types of propulsion engines to be deployed at different stages of the flight.

Up to 80 percent of the structure is taken up with the engines and the fuel tanks which feed the propulsion units, leaving 20 percent for the passengers’ cabin.

Vinals has said that the SXT-A would have two low-bypass turbofan engines with afterburning or next-gen superjet engines with Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology.

The hope is that combining turbojet and turbofan engines would allow the aircraft to hit supersonic speeds whilst maintaining fuel efficiencies.

Once the plane reaches 65,000 feet and hits a speed of Mach 2, a hybrid rocket engine would take over and shoot the aircraft up to an altitude of 100km.

At this point, the reusable and retrievable protector cone would be ejected from the rocket engine and parachuted to an uninhabited area on Earth.

In the final stage, the rocket engine would push the plane to a speed of Mach 4 before reaching Mach 6 once at 120,000ft.

As the plane starts descending, it would revert back to using jet engines and function as a normal passenger plane.

The passengers could view space via the space balcony – a pair of glass pods that would pop out when the aircraft reached the edge of space.

This would give those onboard the opportunity to observe an unparalleled view of the Earth and the outer reaches of our atmosphere.

Onboard the aircraft would be three ejectable ’emergency capsules’ that could bring five crew members and 15 passengers safely back to Earth in the case of an emergency.

But, we’re a long way from this type of technology yet.

Still, it’s nice to dream about what the future of travel might be like, right?