Of course being a little no-name company won't help matters much here, but I expect that actual production of this would involve a partnership (or probably buyout) with one of the big name companies that have a lot of congressmen on their payroll.

There has also been a lot of research into minimizing Sonic Booms since the 70s. Military jets typically don't care, but passenger jets could definitely benefit.

It's a good way to kick everyone in a large region out of their zone. If this was a constant occurrence, work may quickly cease, or become greatly diminished.

And I do wish humans where mindful about the noise pollution the dump where 'nobody lives'. The noise emitted by shipping vessels is having a harming effect on sea life.

Concorde was really, really loud --- a lot of that was due to being a really old plane with old engines (aircraft have gotten way quieter since the 1970s), but even back then it was considered loud:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3581192.stm

It was exempt from the usual noise regulations and on takeoff it'd set of car alarms in the airport carparks.

I still miss it, despite the noise. I'd hear the noise and look up, and there'd be this beautiful delta-wing shape slipping through the clouds...

...yeah, yeah, I know, being dull is an accomplishment in itself, and the duller aircraft are the better they are, and the one thing that every passenger pilot in the world wants is a thoroughly uninteresting flight. But, dammit, they're still so dull.

I miss Concorde.

Boom's Kenrick Waithe worked on that same project when he was at Gulfstream and when he was at NASA.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests

This whole "engineering vs physics" question reminds me of the misunderstandings people have of modern radio technology. Yes, in the 1920s they had to divide the spectrum into exclusive-use bands so that any particular use could transmit and receive clearly, but that was a limitation of engineering, not of physics. In the 2010s that is not a limitation we face, in general. Likewise, I expect that with modern materials and engineering software, progress can be made on the sonic boom issue.

If - via engineering, physics, magic or whatever - sonic booms can be minimized to the point of being indistinguishable from general background noise (or even only as intrusive as current subsonic airliners), I could be convinced that an SST project has a bright future. Until then, I don't think that they will - your first post mentioned that "the whole house shaking" didn't really seem to be hardship when it happened during the day; I'm merely commenting that there are some studies that indicate society as a whole isn't so accepting.

I think any design that literally goes "boom" over land, even a little, isn't going to work. It's too much of an open legal target.

The design really does need to be damn near silent, or at least closer to a mild and unobjectionable "whomp", to have any hope of commercial success.

Cruising above 60000 ft the boom from a larger aircraft might be noticed but not be objectionably loud.