For those of you who’ve dreamt of having dinner in New York and dessert in Paris (or vice versa), NASA has you covered.
The space agency is currently developing a “quiet” supersonic aircraft that can travel up to 5x faster than current passenger jets – which would allow travelers to fly from New York to London in just 90 minutes – it revealed in a press release last week.
🌬️✈️ Background: After investigating the business case for passenger air travel at speeds between Mach 2 and Mach 4 (1,535-3,045 mph) over the past few years, NASA concluded that potential passenger markets exist in about 50 currently established routes to and from the US.
And these routes all have one thing in common: like The Flying Dutchman, they travel over water. Since laws in many countries – including America – prohibit supersonic air travel over land due to the loud noise it produces (think: sonic boom), each of these 50 routes would fly across either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.
NASA hopes the new “quiet” supersonic aircraft it’s developing, called X-59, will provide data to regulators that helps change those rules.
👀 Looking ahead… NASA has issued a pair of 12-month contracts to teams led by Boeing and Northrop Grumman to explore air travel possibilities and identify the necessary technologies to make passenger air travel at speeds between Mach 2 and Mach 4 a reality.
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