After turning off the jet and rocket he will deploy an air brake at 800mph, parachutes at 600mph and finally put his foot on a car-type friction brake at 250mph any faster and the brakes could explode.

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The key is a unique motor, the Sabre, which serves as jet engine and rocket rolled into one.

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But then ignition gets going and at full blast the jet and the rocket will each provide about half of the 210, 000 newtons (47, 000 pounds) of thrust needed to break the record.

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It will be powered by a combination of a hybrid rocket and a jet engine from a Eurofighter-Typhoon.

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The latter include, for example: supercomputers, advanced machine tools, fiber optic and other sophisticated telecommunications gear, jet engine hot sections, rocket propulsion and guidance components, "stealth" technology, to name a few.

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Orbital Sciences survived by developing a new rocket launched from a far more reliable platform, a jumbo jet.

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Personally, I have my eye on an even smaller jet, the rumored single-engine, four-seat pocket-rocket from Cirrus Design. (If the one engine fails, pull a lever and a parachute will float you and the plane to a soft landing.) One of the two brothers who founded Cirrus told me the Cirrus jet would go 300 knots, or 345 miles per hour.

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