NASA moves a step closer to supersonic passenger flights
In July, Lockheed Martin completed the build of NASA’s X-59 test aircraft, which is designed to turn sonic booms into mere thumps, in the hope of making overland supersonic flight a possibility. Ground tests and a first test flight are planned for later in the year. NASA aims to have enough data to hand over to US regulators in 2027.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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But now, the thought of supersonic travel has been mooted again – by none other than NASA, which reckons that New York-London flight could take as little as 90 minutes in the future.
The space agency has confirmed in a blog post about its “high-speed strategy” that it has recently studied whether commercial flights at up to Mach 4 – over 3,000 miles per hour – could take off in the future.
In the same way, she added, the new studies will “refresh those looks at technology roadmaps and identify additional research needs for a broader high-speed range.”
The next phase will also consider “safety, efficiency, economic and societal considerations,” said Mary Jo Long-Davis, manager of NASA’s Hypersonic Technology Project, adding that “It’s important to innovate responsibly.”
In July, Lockheed Martin completed the build of NASA’s X-59 test aircraft, which is designed to turn sonic booms into mere thumps, in the hope of making overland supersonic flight a possibility.
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Atmospheric based praise have always been within their purview. Space just gets all the press.
What does this have to do with exploring space, which is what I thought was NASA’s mission?
And you can add 1billion for the previous attempt
!The American government cancelled its SST project in 1971 having spent more than $1 billion without any aircraft being built.[299]!<
Technology filters down. Once upon a time only the rich could afford corrective lenses, but that wasn’t a waste of resources. How many of non-wealthy people will read this comment and wear glasses or contacts? I do. BEVs were limited to the wealthy at first too, and now are solidly affordable to much of the middle class: dependent more on their access to charging and their driving requirements than on their budget. The first residential fridges cost more than a brand new Model T when they came out: the inflation adjusted price was ~$13,000 in 1922. Was inventing fridges worthless?
It’s NASA developing new technologies. New stuff starts off more expensive, which means it will start off limited to the wealthy. If you don’t want any new tech to come out that starts with rich people being the primary users, then you should go find your local luddite club to join.
"You should be thankful that the rich get to destroy the planet at the literal expense of the rest of us"
Don't you bootlickers ever get tired of the taste of leather?
This is wrong. NASA from the beginning was co-opted by the MIC owned by the original billionaires with a tissue thin veil about civilization advancement. Any discussion about super-sonic flight has already dismissed environmental impact and economic accessibility even if it’s ostensibly NASA doing it.
IF there was a supersonic capable flight technology that somehow wasn’t reliant on fossil fuels or other externalities and was cheap enough that a minimum wage worker could use them as often as they use the Subway in the top 10 largest cities in the world, then I’d be 100% behind it. But that isn’t the case, that is not the intended case, and that will never be the case.
First point there is carbon neutral jet fuel because NASA have been working of jet fuel chemistry for decades.
Secondly flying isn’t commuting, people don’t need to go to new cities twice a day but being cheap enough to allow people on minimum wage to have a holiday a few times a year would be a great benefit to all.
Aviation is one of the smallest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions as-is: in 2016 it was 1.9% of global emissions.
The danger the rich pose to the planet isn’t being first in line for the second generation of supersonic transoceanic flights.
The danger the rich pose to the planet is them keeping coal and natural gas plants open longer because they personally profit from it. It’s them keeping their taxes low, reducing our ability to fund renewable energy. It’s them fighting tooth and nail against any new energy efficiency regulation (remember the incandescent lightbulb ban fight?) because it “hurts profits.” It’s them fighting against public transportation.
This? This isn’t even in the top 50 of their ills against the climate. The hate for the rich is well placed. Applying that hate to basic science is dangerously misplaced. The rich love when people push-back on funding science efforts.
There are already ways of making jet fuel from captured carbon, as the chemistry continues to evolve we absolutely will see carbon neutral flights becoming more common.
I know doom feels good and I’m very susceptible to it myself but the reality is we’re probably going to make it through this, it kinda sucks really because it means we do need to plan for the future after all.
I see where you’re coming from. Battery electric vehicles I think are a good example of trickle-down. It seems the R&D for electric cars affordable to wealthy people leads to new infra and tech for a changing power grid, buses, trains and bicycles.
But two examples you raised:
have clear quality-of-life and health benefits. Supersonic passenger flights feel more like a luxury and convenience compared to food preservation.
Hopefully in the development of reduced flight times between other sides of the world we perform research with impact beyond flight. Things like improved materials, fuel, aerodynamics that could be used for trains and trucks. I’m not an engineer but I hope it works like that!
Faster transportation is quality of life too. Just like cars were, or railroads before them. Yeah, this one is currently worthless for anyone that isn’t rich. But if it proves successful it will become useful for more of us. Like you say, there’s also just the material and other sciences being done to make it possible that will filter out elsewhere. So much of early space exploration was Cold War dick waving, and now think about how much we rely on satellites. I couldn’t navigate anywhere without GPS, personally…
People here take their hate of the rich (which is well placed) and aim it at all the wrong things. Don’t like the rich? Tax 'em more. That’s what I want. Higher income taxes and even a wealth tax on the top. And way more meaningful inheritance taxes. Instead they’re bitching about investments in science.
Instead they’re bitching about investments in science.
Agreed. To be fair, I can also see where the frustration comes from. We see “deals with the devil” being made, but the (disappointing?) reality is tech progress often looks like that. Flashy stories with pie-in-the-sky ideas get headlines and funding. Meanwhile the boring, difficult work continues on in the background. From the outside it seems non-sensical and inefficient: why couldn’t they just invest money directly into GPS research without all the military stuff? But, fortunately, some amazing stuff does come out of it too.
it really is like Nixon all over again after Trump ffs.
No, it’s much worse.
This is tax money funding toys for the parasitic criminal billionaires.
What an idiotic and short-sighted take. Research on supersonic aerodynamics is useful for far more than just toys for billionaires. Military applications, rocketry and astrophysics, for example. And even regular commercial aviation, because supersonic shockwaves are a major source of drag even at the speeds airliners fly at. Airlines would kill to have a fleet of planes that burns a few percent less fuel.
Ah yes, the old fallacy of the “I see no value in my life for this development therefore it is only catering to the elite” trope.
Kind of like computers or global communications, electricity…
Thankfully people like you are not smart enough to work in research and development. Otherwise we would all still be rubbing two sticks together to make fire.
That's what they're trying to solve, the sonic boom. The spike in the front is supposed to reduce the boom, which hopefully leads to legal supersonic overland travel.
However, time and time again, the market showed that people value the price tag over anything else. The Concorde didn't make it, the A380 isn't looking good. Anything with a high operational cost doesn't seem like it would last, especially with push for greener tech.
hopefully leads to legal supersonic overland travel
Ah, yes, hopefully! I’m super happy that they’ll be barely below the legal tolerance to be able to let the super rich travel even faster
They’re promising a perceived 75 dB level, equivalent to the volume of a dishwasher. Sonic booms are normally about 110 dB or about a jackhammer or a rock concert
And it’s not like you’d hear it all the time, just once in a while and only if you’re in the flight path.
will it reduce the air pressure difference on the ground? i was in a building and it moved. i felt it. sound is only one problem.
Overpressure
Sonic booms are measured in pounds per square foot
of overpressure. This is the amount of the increase
over the normal atmospheric pressure which surrounds
us (2,116 psf/14.7 psi).
At one pound overpressure, no damage to structures
would be expected.
Overpressures of 1 to 2 pounds are produced by
supersonic aircraft flying at normal operating altitudes. Some public reaction could be expected between 1.5 and 2 pounds.
Rare minor damage may occur with 2 to 5 pounds
overpressure.
As overpressure increases, the likelihood of structural
damage and stronger public reaction also increases.
Tests, however, have shown that structures in good
condition have been undamaged by overpressures of
up to 11 pounds.
Sonic booms produced by aircraft flying supersonic at
altitudes of less than 100 feet, creating between 20 and
144 pounds overpressure, have been experienced by
humans without injury.
Damage to eardrums can be expected when overpressures reach 720 pounds. Overpressures of 2160
pounds would have to be generated to produce lung
damage.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/120274main_FS-016-DFRC.pdf
They’re promising
I guarantee it will be louder than that. Unless the flight path is directly over a senator’s house or an historic golf club (where donors play), it will be too loud.
Literally make the flight path over the richest part of town or I won’t believe it.
NASA has no control of flight paths. The FAA also doesn’t specify sonic-boom allowed flight paths. They just outright ban it (with a few exceptions) for any boom that could reach anywhere in the US.
FAA also doesn’t want to deal with people complaining about sonic booms like they did back in the 50s when this all started (they received tens of thousands of complaints) so they have an interest in making sure NASA lives up to their promises.
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