AEROAGE En route on the mach 4.7 supersonic jet, I flipped open my iTV , which connected me to the most advanced space network, spacecast. The usual news was being broadcast; “NASCOM, the space people have started mining a new mineral on the moon which is almost identical to Uranium; the Americans have come out with yet another version of the unmanned X-67 which maneuvers itself at mach 25 (courtesy nuclear fusion engines!); the international space station at Mars has discovered a revolutionary microorganism that can be used to fight multiple cancer, a predominant disease on Earth”. Yes, this is the age I’m living in, and when I look back in time at the history of aviation, it leaves me flabbergasted. The history of AVIATION commenced in the 20th century, and a few lucky people who were witness to the first tentative flight of the Wright Brothers, managed to live through these 150 years (through medical advancement of course!) to witness the hypersonic X-67s as well. As Robert Wall once rightly said (towards the end of the 20th century), “So rapid has been the development of aeronautical science that no one can say with safety that an end has been reached or that there is any limit to the ability of man to develop flight at the same pace in the next century.”1 Today, in 2057, man has traveled a long way in the field of civil and space aviation. Advancements that were merely probable 5 decades ago are possible and practical today. All these developments are a consequence of decades of stupendous achievements in space exploration. Half a century ago, landing human astronauts on Mars was within the bounds of possibility. However, today, successful implementation of hypersonic space travel and use of geodesic domes have not only enabled man to experience the surface of Mars, but have also helped him estabilish cyborg colonies there. In addition to the Moon, even Mars is available now, for scientific exploration! The international space station on Mars, in addition to helping scientists in their research work, has facilitated in mitigating the power crisis, which at present is history! After the establishment of The International Lunar Base Station in 2037, man has passed several milestones in setting up a long term colony on the moon. Today, the hotels on the moon go full with increasing number of world, or rather space, citizens going on lunar holidays! A fleet of spaceships taking space tourists high above the atmosphere is now a routine affair. These spaceships are improved versions of Spaceshiptwo, which took Santosh George of India along with other space tourists to as high as 55000 feet, enabling them to experience the excitement of weightlessness and the thunderous deceleration of aerodynamic drag on reentry, in 20072. In addition, disputes between industries, over the acquisition of lunar land for mining have become fairly common. At the start of the 21st century, the failure of NASA’s Mars lander caused despondency over the failure of its apparently reliable technology and put a question mark over other similar systems3. However, perennial human effort and incessant advancement in hypersonic space travel have led to the innovation of extraordinarily efficient probes which are now meeting the challenge of unearthing secrets about the solar system’s remotest planets. For example: a recent probe that has been sent to Pluto weighs only 570 pounds and stands almost 10 feet tall and 27 feet wide. It is composed of 19 solar panels, an extremely light nano-fission engine, and is controlled by an onboard computer. The probe functions by harnessing the light energy of the Sun. At present the fission engines are taking it close to the Sun. Once it is sufficiently close, the fission engines would shut down and light energy from the Sun would push the probe towards Pluto with a tremendous amount of force. The probe would then constantly accelerate and reach hypersonic speeds enabling scientists to have a glimpse of the details of Pluto within their lifetimes! The innovation of the controlled nuclear fusion engine, after the ion and fission engines, in 2031, was by far the most significant advancement in space travel. It enabled spacecraft to reach astonishing speeds. Many decades ago, scientists deciphered that scarce and expensive raw materials exist in abundance on asteroids in our solar system. Today, aeronautical geeks have succeeded in designing manned aircraft, run by fusion engines that travel at supersonic speeds to these asteroids. They are slowed down, when close to the asteroid’s surface and then are made to land by making use of the asteroid’s relatively low gravity. During this rendezvous, with a suitable asteroid, the spacecraft uses abundant solar energy to extract and refine metals like gold and platinum and then the fusion engines power them back to Earth.4 In order to aid space travel and further exploit the hypersonic travel technology, a set of 5 astronomical telescopes, linked by laser, 100 times more powerful than the antiquated Hubble Space Telescope of the 20th century, was deployed in space in 20255 with the aid of space stations and hypersonic jets. Through these telescopes, we have been able to probe deeper into the universe and directly study details of planets in the Milky Way, without having to study the wobbling of stars. This was just a glimpse of the hypersonic space travel in my age! Now, let’s delve into the advancement of supersonic and hypersonic travel in civil aviation. Civil aviation is governed by practicality and affordability. And when supersonic travel is looked at with these factors in mind, its picture seems somewhat blurred. Although, supersonic and hypersonic travel is easily available for civil aviation, its use is restricted only to the elite class. Four decades ago, hypersonic travel could take you anywhere on the planet in 4 hours6. Today, it can take you in just 2 hours! If the world population is transported from one corner of the globe to the other, then, oh my! The gas guzzling machines and sonic booms, created close to the earth’s surface, would simply attract the ire of environmentalists! Although this is the era of supersonic air travel, there also exists an alternative economic means of transport. No economy can ignore such basic realities. Even today we need economically viable means for mass transportation. So, where speed is not essential, the principles of freight transportation have been applied to mass travel. Non-inflammable gases are used to lift huge airships propelled by turbines7. This technology has made air travel extremely cheap, resulting in a five fold increase in air traffic compared to that of 2007. Although technology is reaching new heights every day, socialism continues to be a speed breaker! In addition to supersonic and hypersonic aircraft being used in civil aviation, air taxis with tilt rotors have also come into daily use. Not needing a runway, these taxis can easily maneuver around the city. They help me land right in the center of a supermarket! In addition to the tilt rotors, which give them the vertical lift, they also make use of the ground effect that reduces the drag experienced by aircrafts8. This, thus, reduces the fuel consumption of the taxis. Bad news for environmentalists; they have one less topic to debate upon! As far as the armed forces go, there is no stopping them! Billions were and are being spent to develop aircraft that are capable of traveling at such hypersonic speeds that they escape even the most efficient of all radars owned by their enemies. With the introduction of hypersonic travel, came the highly sensitive infrared radars that were capable of detecting the infrared radiation produced by the engines of these aircraft9. Technology has constantly moved towards super automation. Way back in 2003, Arlen Rens’, a Lockheed Martin test pilot, describing automation in aviation, said humorously: “Airplanes are now built to carry a pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The pilot’s job is to feed the dog, and the dog’s job is to bite the pilot if he touches anything!”10 Now, the question arises; how did we reach this pinnacle? How did we overcome all the inevitable challenges? The main challenges were: a) Financial: the sums invested to develop this technology dwarfed those involved in making possible the Apollo missions to the Moon! b) Biological: traversing long distances in space meant spending years in space in zero gravity conditions. The human body cannot adapt to stresses greater than 9g and react to situations as fast as machines. The human mind is incapable of making 1 million inferences per second unlike machines! c) Technological: reaching high levels of automation required integrating man and machine, and the functioning of diverse systems in perfect synchronization over longer distances and timescales with a minimum of maintenance.11 d) Environmental and Ecological: sonic booms produced by supersonic and hypersonic aircrafts were a great threat to mankind, and wildlife12. Even if man could somehow artificially adapt his hearing sensibilities to sonic booms, he could possibly not dissuade animal activists from [...]