NASA Wants To Get Supersonic With New Passenger Jet (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: NASA wants to put a supersonic passenger jet back in the sky that promises to a soft thump or supersonic heartbeat as the agency called it - rather than the disruptive boom currently associated with such high-speed flight. The 'low-boom' aircraft known as Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) will be built by a team led by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. It will cost $20 million to develop baseline aircraft requirements and a preliminary aircraft design.

Comments

What's the market?

[msauve]

...and what sort of fuel economy will it get?

Boeing failed with the SST, due to anticipated fuel costs not meeting market needs. Similarly with the Concorde, which couldn't operate profitably.

Sure, there are some rich folk who would pay for short flight times, but the mass market is price conscious. The problem with supersonic flight is not sonic booms, but efficiency.

Finally, why is NASA wasting taxpayer money designing passenger aircraft for the civilian market?

Re: What's the market?

[Richard_at_work]

I would love for you to back that up - after privatisation, British Airways increased the ticket price, still filled the aircraft (until post 9/11) and made a profit doing so.

From a WSJ article in 2003:

"It was a tough decision to make emotionally but the right decision from a business perspective," said Rod Eddington, chief executive of British Airways.

British Airways has never given figures on Concorde's profitability, but Mr. Eddington said it had been profitable until last year. During the past year, corporate travel on Concorde has declined "massively" as investment banks and other once-heavy users "have been writing Concorde out of their travel plans," he said.

I have never seen any evidence of subsidisation of Concorde post-privatisation.

Re:This will only help the wealthy...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a Republican and I flew on the Concorde.

I remember most of the passengers being Hollywood types, and Rod Stewart flying to New York for his weekly haircut (no shit).

Re: This will only help the wealthy...

[Loether]

It seems slashdotter's aren't the only ones who disagreed about the "E"

Quoted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Naming:
Reflecting the treaty between the British and French governments that led to Concorde's construction, the name Concorde is from the French word concorde (IPA: [kkd]), which has an English equivalent, concord. Both words mean agreement, harmony or union. The name was officially changed to Concord by Harold Macmillan in response to a perceived slight by Charles de Gaulle. At the French roll-out in Toulouse in late 1967,[26] the British Government Minister for Technology, Tony Benn, announced that he would change the spelling back to Concorde.[27] This created a nationalist uproar that died down when Benn stated that the suffixed 'e' represented "Excellence, England, Europe and Entente (Cordiale)." In his memoirs, he recounts a tale of a letter from an irate Scotsman claiming: "[Y]ou talk about 'E' for England, but part of it is made in Scotland." Given Scotland's contribution of providing the nose cone for the aircraft, Benn replied, "[I]t was also 'E' for 'Écosse' (the French name for Scotland) — and I might have added 'e' for extravagance and 'e' for escalation as well!"[28]

Concorde also acquired an unusual nomenclature for an aircraft. In common usage in the United Kingdom, the type is known as Concorde without an article, rather than the Concorde or a Concorde.[29][30]