This flight could take you from New York City to Los Angeles in a half hour

Driving from New York City to Los Angeles would take you about 41 hours. Flying on your typical commercial jet would take about six hours.

But a new engine, which scientists hope could be used for fast jets of the future, could get you between those cities in less than a half hour.

A rocket was launched Wednesday in Australia that reached 5,710 mph, which is Mach 7.5, or seven and a half times the speed of sound. The launch was a part of HIFiRE, which stands for Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation Program, a joint program between the U.S. Department of Defense and Australian Defence Science and Technology Organization.

The program aims to provide sustained hypersonic flight, hopefully applying it to global air travel in the future. Hypersonic is at least five times the speed of sound.

“The success of this test launch takes us one step closer to the realization of hypersonic flight,” Dr. Alex Zelinsky, chief scientist of the Australian Department of Defense, told UPI. “It is a game-changing technology identified in the 2016 Defense White Paper and could revolutionize global air travel, providing cost-effective access to space.”

The rocket’s peak altitude was 172.7 miles.

Commercial flights have actually gotten slower over the last three or four decades, primarily because of the cost of fuel. Even if a jet only goes 10 percent faster it uses about 21 percent more fuel.

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 8:20 AM with the headline "This flight could take you from New York City to Los Angeles in a half hour."