Texas startup making history with revolutionary rocket engine 

A Texas-based startup just made aviation history, completing the first U.S. flight test of a next-generation rocket engine

that could be transformational for both hypersonic weaponry and commercial travel. Based in Houston, Texas, the mines behind Venus Aerospace recently took their Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine, or RDRE

and demonstrated its airworthiness during a test flight at Spaceport America in New Mexico

Venus's co-founder and CTO, Andrew Duggleby, said even though his engine uses detonation

the only thing explosive about the tests were the results. Yeah, in fact, we sort of laugh that our marketing team has work to do with the word detonation

But the scientific word really just means supersonic combustion. And so if I were to pour a strip of gasoline on the ground and then light it on one end

the gasoline doesn't move, right? But that flame would sort of go from one end to the other

And normally it's that flame front is moving slower than the speed of sound. And that's what

we think of as normal burning or deflagration is a scientific term In the right conditions that flame front can go faster than the speed of sound and that detonation If you ever seen the movie Backdraft you familiar with the scientific process of detonation

Check that door for heat, Tim. Which results in not just heat, but a positive pressure gain

When it comes to avionics, the increase in pressure from an RDRE is substantial

You know, detonation engines have been theorized for many, many decades. And to really frame this in the right perspective

the SpaceX rocket engine is only about 2% better than the Apollo engines that took astronauts to the moon

And that 2% was fought over for decades. This technology is a 10% to 30% jump

So it's just, just massive. Duggleby says now that Venus's RDRE is proven flight worthy

the company will work to develop it into two main product lines

The first, a standalone rocket engine that could be used in existing weapon systems

put on new ones, or used on different sorts of vehicles. Duggleby says since it's short and compact

the engine would work great on moon landers as well. However the military decides to use the engine duggleby says venus wants to make sure the DOD can afford to buy enough He says the new RDREs are pricing out to be 10 times cheaper than the hypersonic engines currently in use by the U Navy and Air Force

And like, boy, that's that's got to make a difference. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that would change how we would fight in a coming world where hypersonic weapons are reality

Hypersonic weapons are typically defined as maneuverable missiles capable of traveling at five times the speed of sound or faster

Russia and China both say they fielded hypersonic weapons. The U.S. is playing catch up but is closing the gap

The Army and Navy both helped develop the Dark Eagle weapon system, which will have a sea-launched variant soon

And while the U.S. military will no doubt need plenty of hypersonic engines, the commercial sector could also benefit from hypersonic flight

That why the second product line Venus is developing combines the new cutting rotating detonation rocket engine with older technology known as Ramjet Ramjet is basically when the vehicle is flying fast enough the vehicle itself is compressing the air And so when you let that air kind of compress into the engine

you now have all the pressure and temperature just in the air that all you have to do is spray fuel

into it and it combusts. In this new design, an RDRE sits in front of a Ramjet in one enclosed

unit. It's that combination of new and old, which Duggleby says will allow the technology

to be used on commercial airliners one day. You know, this kind of flight to

across the Pacific or flight across the Atlantic is now right at one to two hour endeavor. And that

really ultimately changes the world. Duggleby is a former college professor and Navy reservist

He says he was inspired to build the new rotating detonation rocket engine while repairing U.S

Navy ships in Japan. His wife and Venus co-founder, Sassy, was the only cousin who wasn't able to make

it to her grandma's 95th birthday back in the States. Now, we may just be a few years away from

being able to cross the world's largest oceans in the time it takes to watch a movie. For more

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