
Nasa awards initial design contract for new quiet supersonic passenger jet - akiselev
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/01/next-concorde-nasa-kickstarts-quesst-for-new-supersonic-passenger-jet
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hackuser
Why are tax dollars paying for research on a commercial plane? Couldn't
Lockheed, Boeing, and Airbus fund it themselves, even if they are giving
grants to academic or other researchers?

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gozur88
Probably mostly because there isn't a commercial proposition for supersonic
passenger planes. Fuel is the biggest single cost driver in commercial
aviation, and aircraft use more fuel per unit distance the faster they go.
This is why passenger jets are slower today than they were in 1965.

I'm not sure why NASA's even bothering, unless the idea is to make supersonic
aircraft for important government officials (cost being no object when tax
dollars are used) and leave the the cramped cattle-car air travel to the
plebes.

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arcanus
> Fuel is the biggest single cost driver in commercial aviation, and aircraft
> use more fuel per unit distance

> the faster they go. This is why passenger jets are slower today than they
> were in 1965.

True, but this is misleading: the fuel economy of planes today are enormously
improved over their 1960s progenitors and this is only in part because of
reduced speeds. Computational fluid dynamics, improved engine design, superior
material properties, etc. have resulted in significant improvements in
aircraft design and efficiency. All of these factors have resulted in
massively cheaper and safer travel (which lower costs through risk-
adjustment).

> make supersonic aircraft for important government officials (cost being no
> object when tax dollars are used)

The unit cost of a new Gulfstream G650 is $64.5 million. Sounds as if cost is
no object for more than just government officials.

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gozur88
>True, but this is misleading: the fuel economy of planes today are enormously
improved over their 1960s progenitors and this is only in part because of
reduced speeds.

It's not misleading at all. The reason planes are slower today is because it
saves airlines money. The other stuff is true, but irrelevant. The reason we
are not going to get supersonic commercial aviation, and the reason the
Concorde failed, is that it's just too expensive.

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xbmcuser
One of the major reasons for Concorde failing was the sonic boom. As that boom
restricted the routes it could travel on. Not the expense of fuel as their is
market for fast and luxury travel.

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jacquesm
We have an old supersonic passenger jet that had all of its development costs
already absorbed. You can see it mounted on a pedestal at Charles de Gaulle
airport. There was nothing wrong with the aircraft other than that the economy
just wasn't there. Before addressing the technological challenges of
supersonic passenger jets it'd be nice to first see why this time around the
economy has changed so dramatically that it is feasible now when it was not in
the past.

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dragonwriter
> There was nothing wrong with the aircraft other than that the economy just
> wasn't there.

Part of the reason that "the economy just wasn't there" is that commercial
supersonic flight was (and remains) generally prohibited over the US, a policy
directed at managing sonic booms.

That limited the potential market for SSTs, and critically cut out many of the
potential routes on which there were passengers who would have been willing to
pay the premium for high-speed flight.

This is _directly_ aimed at that issue.

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tobylane
Supersonic flight isn't permitted over UK land either. Concorde got to the
Irish Sea/Atlantic Ocean for the boom, and could do similar with the Atlantic
or either side of Long Island. LAX to anywhere not in NA/Europe would also
work.

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bobwaycott
I'm pretty ignorant here—why does coming up with a design require $20M?

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justinhj
17 months of work by a team at Lockheed Martin. It doesn't seem unreasonable.

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navls
Hate to sound anti-innovation here, but wouldn't this hypersonic plane be
significantly less fuel efficient than subsonic aircraft?

