New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins

Re:New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins by jandrese on Tuesday April 10, 2018 @09:27AM (#16801154)

Sonic Booms wern't the only problem. It's hard to get around the cost element since jet fuel is a significant chunk of an airline ticket and SSTs are necessarily going to burn a lot more of it. Ultimately people largely chose to save the $1,000 and take the extra 3 hour penalty to their trip. Even for people willing to pay more you have to consider competition like the luxurious Emirates A380s that give you a small bedroom for the trip vs. the coach seats on the Concorde.

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Re:New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins by ghaff on Tuesday April 10, 2018 @09:56AM (#16801356)

It's probably worthwhile to continue researching the space, but it's hard to see the economics working out--especially outside of small business jets. There just aren't that many people who care enough about extra hours that they can already travel in a fair bit of comfort if they're willing to pay for it. This is especially true if the design can't handle truly long distance travel like trans-Pacific.

Although it's not quite the same thing, I'd observe that British Airways has even cut back on its business class-only flights from London to New York. There just aren't that many people willing to pay thousands of dollars to either save a few hours or to travel in more comfort for a few hours.

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Re:New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins by melling on Tuesday April 10, 2018 @10:59AM (#16801825)

The United States spent $20 billion for air conditioning during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-m...

Perhaps in the near term it only makes sense for business jets, but it is a step forward. It isn’t money down the drain and the research will pay future dividends.

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Re:New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins by loeg on Tuesday April 10, 2018 @01:36PM (#16803273)

> The United States spent $20 billion for air conditioning during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

What does that have to do with the discussion at hand? I am struggling to see the relevance.

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Re:New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins by chrisseaton on Tuesday April 10, 2018 @01:52PM (#16803438)

> The United States spent $20 billion for air conditioning during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Do you think this is some kind of luxury? Have you got any idea how hot it gets in an operations room tent in Afghanistan? And some of those tents are hospitals.

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Re:New NASA X-Plane Construction Begins by melling on Tuesday April 10, 2018 @03:56PM (#16804689)

I was going to simply say that we spent $1 trillion on the Iraq War (another trillion in Afghanistan).

I was only trying to show how little the research costs in the big scheme of things.

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