
NASA to begin historic new era of X-Planes - astdb
http://www.nasa.gov/aero/nasa-moves-to-begin-historic-new-era-of-x-plane-research
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jgeada
All really interesting & immediately commercially useful. So why aren't these
research projects being funded by Boeing, Lockheed etc? Why are we using NASA
as the R&D division of commercial companies?

Shouldn't NASA's role be more blue-sky research for things we don't know yet
are feasible or possible?

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Ankaios
The quiet supersonic transport is potentially commercially viable, but without
a demonstration that the technique actually works in flight, the size and risk
of the investment necessary to try it have seemed to be too large for the
private sector. (The concept has been out there for a while.)

Another motivation is a desire to understand the design principles and
behavior of such concepts at a deep and general level. That's not usually
something industry does—often industry's level of analysis and experimentation
is just "good enough" to get a job done. If that gets repeated a few times, it
leads to both wasted effort and a proliferation of mediocre designs. (As
another example, that motivation also drove the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics—NASA's predecessor agency—to undertake an exhaustive study of
airfoils. NASA still undertakes quite a bit of research from a similar
perspective.)

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chrisatumd
I saw a discussion about a supersonic jet company on HN not too long ago.

[http://boom.aero/](http://boom.aero/)

Discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286)

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Ankaios
As far as I've heard so far, they aren't planning to develop a low-boom design
any time soon. Their first planes will be conventional from that perspective.
(That's confirmed by a post by their founder, Blake Scholl, in that
discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329634.](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329634.))

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rtpg
This makes me think of that idlewords talk[0], where the intro talks about the
failure of the Concorde. The fact that you could fly to NY in 3 hours instead
of in 7 made not much of a difference, because with the airport travel time
included, you're still going to end up losing a day...

Though here they seem to be focusing on effectiveness rather than speed, so
that's good. Just interesting to think about the fact that faster planes are
only useful at this point if they're _much, much_ faster.

[0]:[http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm)

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jdavis703
Let's see. You leave for a London airport at 6am London time. You've finally
gotten off the train, checked in, gotten through security and are at your
boarding gate by 7:30am. Your flight takes off at 8. You fly for three hours
landing at 6am NYC time. You take a train into the city, grab a bagel and
coffee and are ready for your 8am meeting. That's not quite what I'd consider
loosing a day.

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tajen
Wake up at 4. Take the subway to the train station at 4.45. Reach the train
station at 5.15, half an hour earlier in case of subway problems, and walk
through the statin to fund the platform. Take the 5.50 train, reach the
airport at 6.35. Check-in at 6.55. Go through security early, queue 40 minutes
because it's Monday morning, it's 7.35. Submit yourself to the random
terrorist check because you look like below 30 years old and in a hurry. It's
7.50. Run through the airport because you're at gate 167. You get your flight
and be at work by 2pm, babbling because you woke up at 4 and sweaty because
you've _almost missed your flight_. You'd believe you could reduce the margins
for the subway, train, check-in, morning queue and terrorist check, but since
you never know when they happen, they might happen all at once (anecdotic
experience: I almost missed a SYD-LON flight and I systematically get
terrorist-checked), and you don't want to come back to your boss saying you've
missed your $3000 flight.

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johnloeber
Concorde tickets, adjusted for inflation, often ran around $8-10k. No Concorde
passenger would be taking the subway/train. They would use a fast private
driver -- chances are they could even get some shut-eye in the car.

~~~
duncanawoods
After too much international travel, I like the idea of taking a sedative and
have your staff ship you comatose as cargo so you just wake up fully rested in
bed at your new location.

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regularfry
Given the comically unrealistic seating arrangements in cattle class, I'd
genuinely prefer to have a sleeping pill and a cargo coffin.

~~~
lukeschlather
I suspect this is a lot like surgery. Less anasthetic and more activity means
you're physically healthier when you get done with the process, even if it's
more painful.

~~~
duncanawoods
The user experience would be like teleporting making an Uber feel prehistoric.
When its that good it could be irresistible despite drawbacks like... chance
of death and such.

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watersb
NASA's previous X-Plane initiative seemed to end without making any
substantial change to civil (non-military) aviation.

We could really use small jets out here in sparsely-populated Western USA.
Eclipse Aviation got very close, then ran out of money. How much money would
be required to start them up again?

We need new engines. My 1966 Cessna 172 required leaded AV gas, which is as
rare -- and as damaging -- as the tears from a weeping unicorn.

Why invest in supersonic transport? We need low-end disruption, not high-end
incremental improvements.

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ardit33
The main goals are efficiency and pollution, and eliminating the supersonic
boom is a secondary goal.

"Goals include showcasing how airliners can burn half the fuel and generate 75
percent less pollution during each flight as compared to now, while also being
much quieter than today’s jets – perhaps even when flying supersonic. "
"Meanwhile, other experimental aircraft also are under consideration,
including those with novel shapes that break the mold of the traditional tube
and wing airplane, and others that are propelled by hybrid electric power. "

~~~
paganel
> The main goals are efficiency and pollution, and eliminating the supersonic
> boom is a secondary goal.

The supersonic boom should be one of the top priorities, also. Just look at
this well-known video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annkM6z1-FE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annkM6z1-FE)
, you can't have that happening over populated territory, meaning land.

Adding to that, just wanted to say that airplanes' sound pollution is a real
and damaging thing. My parents live in a remote Eastern European village but,
apparently, the skies over their house is a commercial airplane highway, as
there were moments when I could count 6 or 7 of them up in the sky at the same
time, including a big, white whale which looked like an A380. Anyway, it's not
fun when it's 5 in the morning, you're surrounded by the four thick walls of
your parents' house but you can still hear the airplane flying above your
house at 30,000 feet.

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maaku
I've been following this program since the beginning and I'm very excited.
This could be the future of high speed air travel -- because it could reverse
laws against overland travel.

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razzaj
AS i look at the rendering on this plane, all i could think of is "gee, this
eerily looks like the SX from black & mortimer"

[http://images.gibertjoseph.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1...](http://images.gibertjoseph.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/058/9782870970058_1_75.jpg)

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trendnet
I thought NASA bought X-Plane (a flight simulator from Laminar Research) to
revitalize it as Lockheed Martin did something like that with Microsoft Flight
Simulator. Oh well...

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m_mueller
You just wait for VR adoption - I'm pretty sure there's going to be a big
revival of sims of all sort.

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erikb
What is an X-Plane? I assumed something like a Star Wars X-Wing, but it
doesn't look like it at all.

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detaro
NASA name for eXperimental Planes of all kinds, testing new designs.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-
planes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-planes)

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ndesaulniers
Pure black screen on mobile

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ljf
What mobile / os / browser? Working great on Android with latest chrome.

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jeromeflipo
Black on Firefox for Android (Nexus 5).

More and more pages don't load correctly on Firefox(e.g Google Finance stock
pages)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Same, black screen, FF on Android 4.3.

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rdiddly
Looks like they've got some x-planing to do.

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KKKKkkkk1
NASA's original mission was to put an American on the moon. Fifty years later,
and it's still going strong, churning out projects to justify its existence.
Perhaps it's time for the US government to let the likes of Milner and Hawking
take the front of the stage.

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Ankaios
NASA stands for National _Aeronautics_ and Space Administration. It was formed
from a pre-existing agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA), that did amazing work advancing the field, and that work never stopped
within NASA.

Also, to be clear: between Milner's two (fantastic) projects, he has committed
$200 M, to be spent over roughly a decade. NASA's budget is about $19,000 M
_annually_. For fast, efficient progress we need both—large amounts of
government resources as well as private-sector funding of ideas that NASA and
NSF are overlooking or not prioritizing for whatever reason.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
So do I understand correctly that you're saying that NASA should keep running
indefinitely because they're spending $19B/pa? Isn't the logic here reversed?

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Ankaios
No. Your claim was that the government should let Milner et al. "take the
front of the stage." Their work is fantastic, but it is focused on some narrow
but important topics. There is a vast amount of other progress continually
being made by NASA. For a healthy ecosystem, we need both sorts of actors
(along with others) building on each other's efforts.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
The job of the DOD is to run the military. The job of the EPA is to protect
the environment. What is the job of NASA? I'm arguing that there is no such
thing, and the $19B could be better spent on other uses (perhaps even by the
NSF).

~~~
Ankaios
This specifies NASA's job:

[http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html](http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html)

(That's actually the original 1958 version. It's been amended occasionally
since, but that will give you the gist.)

There are specific things I would alter about NASA's current course (including
killing two projects worth a total of about $3 B per year) and I would amend
the National Aeronautics and Space Act to alter its long-term trajectory
regarding human activity in space, but much of NASA's job has been clear for
decades.

