Nasa unveils quiet supersonic aircraft in effort to revive commercial flights
Nasa unveils quiet supersonic aircraft in effort to revive commercial flights
In launch event on Friday, agency shared plans to test over US cities to see if it’s quiet enough by engaging ‘the people below’
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10656840
In launch event on Friday, agency shared plans to test over US cities to see if it’s quiet enough by engaging ‘the people below’
Nasa has unveiled a one-of-a-kind quiet supersonic aircraft as part of the US space agency’s mission to make commercial supersonic flight possible.
In a joint ceremony with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, on Friday, Nasa revealed the X-59, an experimental aircraft that is expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound – or 925mph (1,488 km/h).
The aircraft, which stands at 99.7ft (30.4 metres) long and 29.5ft wide, has a thin, tapered nose that comprises nearly a third of the aircraft’s full length – a feature designed to disperse shock waves that would typically surround supersonic aircraft and result in sonic booms.
And exactly how much CO2 emissions does this thing generate?
It makes me so mad we don't just tell the flight industry that by date X no planes that use traditional fuel can be produced, and by date Y that they won't be allowed to fly. Doesn't even need to a global agreement, if the European market is closed, than that could be motivation enough. And it would focus innovation on efficiency instead of frivolous stiff like this.
I hope this is relevant for this community, let me know otherwise
I think it’s close enough and I’m happy to see it.
Astronomy: "a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos"
I suppose anything that happens in the universe is technically "a phenomenon that occurs in the cosmos" but this seems more suited to !nasa@lemmy.world, which could definitely use the content. Would you consider posting it there as well?
Looks pretty damn cool, but supersonic commercial flights will be ridiculously expensive, pollutive and wasteful, there's no going around this. There's zero practical uses for the common man.
Would be nice to see this much time effort and money put into electric planes
"Ok boys, we need ideas. We're fucking the planet up irreparably in a way that will cost many, many millions of lives... but I feel like we could be doing it a lot faster. Get off your ass and invent a way for rich assholes to screw us even more than they already are"
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a joint ceremony with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, on Friday, Nasa revealed the X-59, an experimental aircraft that is expected to fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound – or 925mph (1,488 km/h).
Explaining the configurations at Friday’s launch event, Nasa’s deputy administrator, Pam Melroy, said: “We made that decision to make it quieter, but it’s actually an important step forward in and of itself in advancing aviation technology.
“[With the] huge challenge [of] limited visibility in the cockpit, the team developed the external vision system, which really is a marvel of high-resolution cameras feeding an ultra-high-resolution monitor.”
Melroy added: “The external vision system has the potential to influence future aircraft designs where the absence of that forward-facing window may prove advantageous for engineering reasons, as it did for us.”
Addressing that ban at Friday’s launch event, Bob Pearce – Nasa’s associate administrator for its aeronautics research mission – said: “Grounded flight testing showed us it was possible to design an aircraft that would produce a soft thump instead of a sonic boom.
In the post-launch press conference, David Richardson, Lockheed Martin’s X-59 program director, said that taxi tests of the X-59 were expected to start around late spring or early summer.
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