With funding from the European Space Agency, a group of scientists at Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines have come up with a design for the A2, a plane that uses technology similar to that used by spacecraft to carry 300 passengers at speeds of more than 5,000 kmph.

The A2, which could be ready in 25 years if there was enough demand for it, could leave Brussels airport, cross the North Pole and arrive in Australasia in around four hours and forty minutes. To achieve these speeds, it would use liquid hydrogen, the burning of which produces steam and nitrous oxide.