this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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In launch event on Friday, agency shared plans to test over US cities to see if it’s quiet enough by engaging ‘the people below’

Nasa has unveiled a one-of-a-kind quiet supersonic aircraft as part of the US space agency’s mission to make commercial supersonic flight possible.

In a joint ceremony with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, on Friday, Nasa revealed the X-59, an experimental aircraft that is expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound – or 925mph (1,488 km/h).

The aircraft, which stands at 99.7ft (30.4 metres) long and 29.5ft wide, has a thin, tapered nose that comprises nearly a third of the aircraft’s full length – a feature designed to disperse shock waves that would typically surround supersonic aircraft and result in sonic booms.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (5 children)

pretty neat that the image of the plane for the article is shot from so close that you can only see 1/3 of it, but to be fair it does include the screens of people's phones as they take a picture of the thing. kind of like going to a concert.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Haha I wonder about the ungodly amount of fuel it burns.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

The website blasted me in the ass with ads, while simultaneously begging for donations

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but with the pictures on the phones, we actually end up with more picture per picture with this method.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yo dawg, I heard you like pictures

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It's proportions make it hard to frame it for an article headline picture. This is cropped to show a colorful array of the fun parts: cockpit, landing gear engine intake with a clear X-59. It's like trying to make a cover picture feature a pencil.

This other article uses a dramatic background to fill the space. It's from NASA though, so they're not limited to the conference. They don't have to have their own picture to say "I was there"

https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/758938

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (17 children)

Please don't. We need to be reducing air travel, not increasing it. Go invent a quiet supersonic train or something.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

the transatlantic railway is feeling less and less like a funny absurdist joke by the hour

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Let's get started on the Snowpiercer too

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

What is your plan for intercontinental travel? Increased ship travel, taking a week and burning massive amounts of crude fuel oil? Just cut off the Americas and Australia from Europe, Africa and Asia for non-commercial purposes? The supersonics have mostly been used for trans-atlantic and trans-pacific travel.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Less and more efficient airplanes. Supersonic aircraft will consume more fuel.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Let's get weird with blimps

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

These kinds of comments only say it’s wrong; they never make a valid contribution to finding a solution.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That is not said often enough, thank you !

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Now the fuel efficiency problem needs to be reckened with. The sonic boom was the main reason why supersonic planes were shelved but poor fuel efficiency was the other 800 pound gorilla in the room.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Pierce said the X-59’s job would be to “collect data from the people below, determine if that sonic thump is acceptable and then turn the data over to US and international regulatory authorities in hopes to then lift that ban”.

Why can’t commercial airlines fund the project, then? Why is NASA investing public money to deregulate private industry?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Huh? NASA is providing thought leadership to expand the possibilities of human travel, but has no interest in running a commercial airline.

Many technologies you use every day started as NASA research

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago

The first A in NASA is aeronautics. They just do the science. I would say deregulation is a fairly strong word here. It's more like they'd be updating the laws to reflect modern tech.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (3 children)

This is literally how every expensive R&D project gets done. Private companies won't dump this kind of money into good R&D, but the government will because they don't care about ROI.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Except this ignores the existence of bell labs, you know the private R&D lab with ten Nobel prizes and a laundry list of inventions that quite literally shaped our modern world.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Deregulate is not the same as engineering a solution to solve the problem that was previously solved by regulations.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

This is probably defense spending, tbh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

American is a Socialist country for those wealthy enough.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's what we really need right now. Faster air travel for fewer people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

But how else will the ultra-wealthy jet over to their summer homes in new Zealand when wet bulb temperatures exceed human survival in the Northern Hemisphere?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Looks to me like a climate change accelerator for rich people. Fewer people per flight, spending more fuel to go faster.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This is pretty amazing! This thing could take people from Los Angeles to NYC in 3 hours. The science behind the noise baffling is really cool.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I would be disappointed if the prototype isn't nicknamed Pinocchio.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Wouldn't suborbital flight be a lot more fuel efficient?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't look like it can hold a lot of people. What's the commercial application? Enabling the ultra wealthy to fly private at mach 1.4 from New York to California?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They are still in the prototype stage. If they can prove the physics on small planes, they can scale up for commercial ones.

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