NASA moves a step closer to supersonic passenger flights | CNN
www.cnn.com
A new study by NASA’s Glenn Research Center has looked at the possibility of supersonic passenger jets. Its “high-speed strategy” is mooting commercial flights that travel at up to Mach 4 – over 3,000 miles per hour – starting with transoceanic routes.

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.

  • Chapo_is_Red [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    91·
    1 year ago

    This way NASA can get 95% of the way with research/design then they can sell it cheaply to a chosen private sector firm who can make all the money.

    Which firm? I’d pay attention to where memebers of Congress are investing

    • uralsolo [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      I don’t think NASA sells their research, pretty much anyone can take it and make their own variant. So it’ll probably be an aviation startup that will try to run it like a tech company, collect a billion dollars and deliver vaporware (or if we’re lucky, something extremely dangerous like the oceangate sub) before eventually going bankrupt.