In July, Lockheed Martin completed the build of NASA’s X-59 test aircraft, which is designed to turn sonic booms into mere thumps, in the hope of making overland supersonic flight a possibility. Ground tests and a first test flight are planned for later in the year. NASA aims to have enough data to hand over to US regulators in 2027.
Whose going to be able to afford this? Air fare is already expensive.
Also, why is NASA doing this with tax dollars?
Is this stupid or am I stupid and missing something obvious?
I’d hate to live in a world where just because something isn’t immediately useful it shouldn’t be researched.
Being able to demonstrate the ability to suppress a sonic boom would be huge.
Nah, there must be a reason to fund research. Then, publicly funded research must align with the public’s good.
People fly first class, people fly businees class. Some have the money.
Also, for some, the time saved is worth much more than what the ticket costs, especially in business (expensive consultants?).
The resulting aircraft/technology can be sold to commercial aviation and/or be used for military purposes
NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so it’s kinda in scope
Sold at a loss?
taxpayer money is free, no there’s no loss to begin with
Huh? What kinda question is that?
I know right? Of course it’s sold at a loss, that’s why NASA is paying Boeing to do the research.
Can’t have Boeing waste money on R&D, that would hurt their shareholders.
How would you know? It hasn’t been sold yet.
If NASA was a profitable enterprise, it wouldn’t require external funding, and Lockheed and co would be doing that research themselves to keep that profit for themselves.
NASA isn’t like CNSA or Roscosmos in that they don’t make their own rockets. It exists first and foremost to funnel money to aerospace contractors by either directly contracting with them or providing R&D in cases where cost/risk is greater than expected profit.
A similar relationship exists with publicly funded universities selling patents to pharma.
The fact that it’s not profitable overall doesn’t mean there can never be any profit from anything.
Just because a river flows south doesn’t mean you couldn’t find an eddy in the currents that flows north for a few seconds.
But the water still has nowhere to flow but south. If the cost was less than expected return, these companies would do this research internally. Even if for just one moment, one tiny aspect of the program did make a profit, it wouldn’t change the nature of the system.
That is what companies like Boeing and Lockheed are for.
NASA has no business making airplanes for rich passengers.
NASA invented much of the modern age.
And take a look around. Maybe they shouldn’t have the reigns.
I imagine the same was asked when jet planes were first invented, now look at where we are.
NASA is likely doing this with tax dollars because private industry has little reason to push forward research that does not yield an immediate ROI. Not yielding an immediate ROI is a very myopic driver of priorities.
In the west, jet engines were developed to kill fascists and communists. The ROI was good.
I don’t see the parallel
Weren’t jet engines developed by the Germans to kill the Allies?
Both sides developed jet engines. The allies didn’t get them into a fighter until after the war though.
They were in development in various countries simultaneously, Spain would have likely gotten there first if not for Franco. Germany did manage the first jet fighter and bomber though, with Britain not long after
Everyone was developing them, more or less. The thing is, the enemy doesn’t usually share their tech with you so you’ve got to develop programs independently.
Are you claiming that the idea of the jet engine, prototyping, and finalization of the jet engine was entirely sparked by what you’re referring to? I would argue that there’s a long line of research leading up to what you’re referring to that would’ve resulted in the questions you’re asking.
Yes, I am. Although the concept of a jet engine was known about for a long time it was only prototyped and finalized for the war effort. Since the Germans knew they were going to war first, they had a head start and finished first.
Everyone else launched reactionary programs. The goal of America’s program was to kill fascists, but they didn’t finish before the war’s end. Afterwards they pivoted to communists.
And what of the folks who developed the concept of a jet engine?
The Egyptians? What of them?
Nevermind the increasingly feasible steps between the Egyptians and the folks of WW2, I imagine even the Egyptians had some naysayers commenting on the lack of practicality for the little spinning ball. Where was the ROI there?
What would’ve happened if whoever invented precursors, at any stage, of modern jets listened to naysayers whose main argument was “the common man cannot afford this”?
I understand what your trying to say, I just don’t think it’s true. The capitalist class came up with the intermediate steps, for profit, during the industrial revolution.
This way NASA can get 95% of the way with research/design then they can sell it cheaply to a chosen private sector firm who can make all the money.
Which firm? I’d pay attention to where memebers of Congress are investing
I don’t think NASA sells their research, pretty much anyone can take it and make their own variant. So it’ll probably be an aviation startup that will try to run it like a tech company, collect a billion dollars and deliver vaporware (or if we’re lucky, something extremely dangerous like the oceangate sub) before eventually going bankrupt.
NASA does a lot of aviation experiments actually. They’re not making an airliner, they’re just making a test vehicle to learn how to reduce sonic boom noise.
This is the only way to remain competitive when the US’ largest rivals are able to tap state funding for research.
You don’t see the military applications of large-scale supersonic flight?
Then it goes from “waste of money” to “actively bad”. God knows the last thing the US needs are new technologies with “military applications”
We definitely can’t afford this.
Thus will only further drive the climate catastrophe
This is not for regulars doing 9-5 jobs. Its for the elite class , not for peasants.
Back to work peasant!
NEVER!
I’m pretty sure one of the A is for aeronautic - it’s kinda what they do, the n is for naughty tho so maybe that’s why?