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NASA Drops $2.3M On Supersonic Aircraft Research
coondoggie writes: This week the space agency said it invested $2.3 million for eight research projects that will address sonic booms and high-altitude emissions from supersonic jets. NASA's Commercial Supersonic Technology Project, which picked the new projects, focuses on developing sonic boom reduction methods and defines the necessary approaches or techniques for objectively assessing the levels of sonic boom acceptable to communities living in the vicinity of future commercial supersonic flight paths.
There is very little (none, really) demand for supersonic passenger transport, and in any case this kind of research has been going on for 30+ years now.
Bose knows how to cancel out sound. Go with Bose or up your nose with a rubber hose.
2.3M isn't much for even one supersonic research project. 2.3M for 8 is 300K. That's less than the cost of 2-engineer years at most companies. If they need an actual lab forget it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They probably spend more than that on kleenex or toilet paper each year. 2 million for supersonic research seems not even worth a press release.
I was wondering how they're getting by with research on a shoe string budget. If they can get any information out of this at all, they should consider it a success in efficiency. Maybe someone is letting them borrow equipment.
When the Concord jet died, some of the manufacturers asked the airlines if they wanted a replacement. None of them did......they wanted planes that used less gas. That's what the market is demanding, cheaper not faster.
(I read that so it must be true)
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Concorde had its issues which only appeared much later due to the small number of aircraft.
But it was amazing to look at.
Its market limitation by congress of the day as it competed with Boeing's products seems to be troublesome.So is supersonic now ok ? or will the villagers be burning witches again?
These are small projects each focused on one specific detail, mostly modelling ways to predict and reduce sonic booms.
Also, the total amount is $5.7 million; I think the $2.3 million might be the first year.
2,3 million on 8 projects is not much. This sounds like grants for single- or two-person post-grad university research. It is not much - but awesome for those who get it.
It seems everybody is talking abount the Concorde and commercial supersonic and comments such as "Neither major manufacturer (Boeing and Airbus) pitched a new supersonic aircraft in any seriousness.". It doesn't take much to go on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerion_AS2
HEY BIG SPENDER!
I'd be much more inspired if the headline read "NASA Lifts Supersonic Aircraft Research by $2.3M" instead of "NASA Drops $2.3M On Supersonic Aircraft Research."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Less than the cost for a single senior engineer or scientist, especially an aerospace engineer. They may only make $100-150k, but the contracts (even with non-profit's like Lincoln Labs) contain a profit margin, overhead costs, employee fringe benefits (401k/health insurance/etc.), Facilities Capital Cost of Money (FCCM), etc.
One can get rid of sonic booms with a hull that is highly electrically charged. Only issue is you will need an exotic power source to supply it like fusion. You've seen these before; they are often saucer-shaped and claimed as impossible-crafts-that-cannot-exist.
My guess is that the 2.3M is for upgrades to their hypersonic windtunnel facility, it was probably more along the lines of if you want these 8 projects to test here you need to make these upgrades. As you said I can't see the money being very useful on a long term research project.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
So there is no demand for getting from point A to point B faster? Simply the most obviously stupid thing said here in a while. Are you still driving 30 miles per hour on the freeway?
The single most dreaded thing about travel is the uncomfortable time it takes wasted in a cramped tube full of people. There are a number of questions of profitability and what naught in this thread to support the idea of "no demand" but those arguments have nothing to do with demand. They are simply reflections on one specific airliner program. If you need to fly from New York to Paris and you get to the counter and they ask you, "Would you like to be on the plane for 7-1/2 hours or for 4 hours?" which are you going to answer? If the price was pretty close you will chose 4 hours.
That is the definition of "demand".
You don't think that these folks who travel all the time do it because they don't like it do you?
You've never traveled a lot for work I take it? I have and it's isn't a grand adventure. "High end hotels and food"? Not working for most companies. Certainly none I've ever worked for unless you consider dinner at Applebee's and a Holiday Inn to be high end. Most people who travel a lot for work do it because it pays well, not because it's particularly fun. Once in a while it has its moments but mostly it's just boring, expensive and tiring. There is a reason most consultants that travel a lot tend to be young. Hard to have a family and be on the road constantly.
So there is no demand for getting from point A to point B faster?
You are asking the wrong question. The right question is how much are you willing to pay to get from A to B faster? Of course people would like to reduce travel time but that doesn't mean there is an economically viable way of doing so.
So in other words: "... doesn't mean there is currently an economically viable way of doing so."
... (wait for it!) ...
So that would mean that with an investment in research maybe you could make it viable. In fact you would actually have to expect that it would become more cost effective with the normal manufacturing economies of scale and the vast improvement in materials science. That just leaves the question of getting past environmental hurdles. That will require
more research!
Seriously, are people really that ignorant? What exactly do you imagine you could actually do with $2.3M?? Do you know what "fully loaded salaries" cost? Do you know how many people would be required to accomplish anything of value? Do you know what capital equipment and operating expenses would be required? Any one of these costs could burn through $2.3M in less than 12 months!!
It's like saying you lost a $100 bill so now your mortgage is in jeopardy - except no mortgage would be covered by or be made-or-broken by $100, nor could you claim you were qualified to get a mortgage with an extra $100 in your pocket.
Shit costs a lot more than $2.3M to do real science or engineering. It's not some fly-by-night dot-com activity that you can do in your den.