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NASA Is Building A Plane That Could Cross America In Two Hours

NASA Is Building A Plane That Could Cross America In Two Hours

Double-quick time.

Michael Minay

Michael Minay

The more we advance in this modern world, it's all about getting to your destination as fast as you can. Quicker cars, quicker trains, and quicker planes.

In Britain, there's the HS2 model - aimed at halving the time between London and Manchester.

Currently, it takes just over four hours to fly from Florida to Los Angeles - east to west coast America.

Now, NASA, is looking at halving that and getting across America in two hours.

If anybody knows about speed, it's the space giants. When one of their rockets is leaving Earth, it must be travelling at least 17,640mph (4.9 miles per second), so they are used to big engines and going fast.

Credit: PA

It's no mean feat, America is 2,680 miles horizontally - quick maths will therefore tell you the plane needs to be going 1,340mph.

Therefore, the flight will be 'supersonic', just like concord. That involves enduring the ear-deafening 'sonic boom', which is currently not allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

However, on Monday, NASA aim to complete a preliminary design review (PDR) for a supersonic plane that will be quiet enough for use.

This has looked at design risks, costs, testing verification methods, construction timeline as well as other important aspects.

The project, which has been in the design phase since February 2016, is known as the Low Boom Flight Demonstration experimental plane (LBFD X-plane). The company has teamed up with Lockheed Martin for the process.

Credit: NASA

The pair have already been testing models of the plane in wind tunnels this year, and have approved the construction of a full prototype.

Supersonic flight creates shock waves and expansion waves that usually produce a boom, but the design for the new plane separates the waves and guides them into an arrangement that eliminates the boom.

They've released a video that illustrates the process.

The agencies press release states that, although they hope to get full approval soon, the plane is still someway off being a reality. The earliest we can expect it is 2021.

Once built, NASA will assess how the plane's noise affects real communities, with the agency hoping to gather enough data to get the FAA to allow production.

David Richwine, manager for the project, said: "The real data for regulatory change requires really taking measurements on the ground, and then doing surveys of the population to see what the annoyance of those much quieter sonic booms are."

Credit: NASA

NASA's J.D Harrington spoke to Inverse, adding: "NASA's mission is to provide data to prove a specific technology works effectively. It's up to manufacturers to make the business case and decide whether to implement that technology."

It's a busy time for the North America Space Agency. They've recently spoke how they have not yet found alien life, despite all the research going on at the moment, as well as revealing their five-phase mission to put humans on Mars.

Featured Image Credit: Google Maps

Topics: America, Aeroplane, Nasa