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NASA Testing Supersonic X-51A Jet Tomorrow

Posted by Unknown on from the but-does-it-go-to-plaid? dept.

First time accepted submitter littlesparkvt writes "The NASA and the Pentagon's experimental aircraft could go from NY to London in about an hour. With a cost of 140 million dollars USD. During the test the X51-A will reach speeds of 1700 meters a second and climb to an altitude of 70,000 feet."

4 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. huray for proofreading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Pretty sure it won't go 1700 miles per second

  2. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Still costs less than a F22 Raptor
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor

    That's probably because the F-22 is an operational aircraft capable of take-off/landing under its own power and houses a human pilot (among many other things).

  3. Re:Cost by amiga3D · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's really just a test bed for scramjet research. It's a long way to an actual manned version.

  4. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    No, you're right, they're not. They're grounded because they're still unusable.