Last month, the United Kingdom announced that it was investing $90 million in what was being billed as the most groundbreaking aeronautical development since the jet engine. The public investment would be used along with private funds to build a prototype of a SABRE engine, a propulsion system that would make the world’s first true “space plane” possible.

This supersonic aircraft, called Skylon, would be able to take off from any runway in the world, accelerate to five times the speed of sound using a hybrid jet-rocket engine, then transition to rocket mode to break through the Earth’s orbit and reach outer space. After dropping off a payload of satellites, astronauts, or tiny screws, the Skylon could return to land on the same runway less than 48 hours later. Used as a traditional aircraft, the Skylon could take 300 passengers from London to Sydney in four hours. This feat would easily surpass the speed and passenger load of the airplane industry’s crowning technological achievement, the Concorde, which retired from service nearly 10 years ago after more than 25 years of transporting travelers across the Atlantic at still unparalleled velocity. News of this British superjet made it seem as though the Concorde’s rightful heir might finally arrive.

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