In case you missed it, the hypersonic test flight happening over the Pacific–the trial that scientists hoped would lead to cross-country trips in less than an hour–ended in complete failure. Most first steps into the future are missteps, but it’s still important to keep trying to move forward. From W.J. Hennigan in the Los Angeles Times:

“A closely watched test flight of an experimental aircraft designed to travel up to 3,600 mph ended in disappointment when a part failed, causing it to plummet into the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force revealed. 

The unmanned X-51A WaveRider was launched over the Pacific Tuesday from above the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range in a key test to fine-tune its hypersonic scramjet engine.

The aircraft was designed to hit mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, and fly for five minutes. But that didn’t happen. The engine never even lit.

About 15 seconds into the flight, a fault was identified in one of the WaveRider’s control fins, and the aircraft was not able to maintain control and was lost.”