"When elated Nasa scientists disclosed over the weekend that they had flown a revolutionary aero engine at record-breaking speeds, they chose to portray a future of passenger jets whizzing between London and Sydney in two hours.

In the post-Concorde era the promise of an aircraft that can fly hypersonically (at Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound) on the edge of space would strike a chord with any long-haul flyer.

Lawrence Huebner, Nasa's lead propulsion engineer, invoked the achievements of the Wright brothers when describing the brief flight of the 12-foot X-43A aircraft, powered by the revolutionary scramjet. "A little over 100 years ago a couple of guys from Ohio flew for 40 metres in the first controlled power flight. We did something very similar in the same amount of time but our vehicle under air-breathing power went over 20km."

The misty-eyed romanticism did the trick as the world's media hailed the achievement as a breakthrough for travellers.

But the reality is darker than the dreams of watching the stars rush by on a 40-minute jaunt from Washington to Paris would suggest.

Paul Beaver, a defence consultant with London-based Ashbourne Beaver Associates, said: "The X-43 has everything to do with defence and very little to do with civil aerospace.

"But if this can be dressed up as a commercial aerospace programme it allows Nasa to access more sources of funding."

If everything goes to plan - and that depends on securing billions of dollars from the US government - the first scramjet-powered aircraft would soar into the sky from a US airbase in the year 2025 carrying a much more deadly cargo than business travellers.

Less than two hours later the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle would re-enter the atmosphere over an unsuspecting adversary to drop 12,000lb of guided bombs on missile launch sites or command bunkers.
Warfare propelled to new era