Skip, Bounce & Soar.

Imagine flying halfway around the world in the time it takes to get dressed and trek to school. "Jet. setting" may take on new meaning if the revolutionary design for a jet called HyperSoar is put to the test. Researchers at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, California, hope to build a prototype or model of a jet plane that flies--and bounces--on top of Earth's atmosphere.

Commercial jets cruise through the atmosphere at an altitude of about 10.6 kilometers 16.6 miles). By contrast, HyperSoar would climb to 60 km (37 mi)--the low reaches of outer space. By flying above the atmosphere, where air is less dense because air molecules are spread farther apart, HyperSoar could reach speeds of 10,720 km/in (6,700 mph), or 10 times the speed of sound.

"Slogging through the atmosphere is like trying to throw a rock underwater," says aeronautical engineer Preston Carter, who developed HyperSoar. Above the atmosphere, the jet would cut its engines and bounce along the denser atmospheric surface, like a rock skimming across a pond. A 90-minute flight from Chicago to Tokyo would require just 25 skips. If it's built, though, HyperSoar may give passengers a rough ride. The skips would subject them alternately to 1.5 times the Earth's gravity and weightlessness. Maybe it should be called HyperSore!