Starship Asterisk*

The first "A" in NASA stands for aeronautics, and the agency is leading a host of federal programs and initiatives that aim to develop a fleet of environmentally friendly aircraft

It took 24 years for humankind to advance from the first powered flight in 1903 to Charles Lindbergh's famous crossing of the Atlantic (and even less time for the U.S. space program to go from launching the first American astronaut into suborbital space to landing men on the moon). NASA officials are now hoping 25 years into the future is enough time for the nation's aerospace engineers to come up with more ecofriendly airplanes.

The agency's main initiative in this arena, N+3, calls for ideas that look ahead three generations into the future of aircraft design—from 2030 to 2035. NASA also has a similar program, N+2, which focuses more specifically on making airplanes more environmentally friendly in the nearer future, from 2020 to 2025. Through N+3, the aerospace agency is funding research into "green" planes that would use 70 percent less fuel than today's airliners while generating at least 75 percent less nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas) as well as less noise pollution. These future aircraft are also expected to require less real estate and air space for takeoffs and landings, which could help alleviate air congestion and flight delays. (The N+2 initiative has a somewhat more modest fuel consumption target, a 50 percent reduction, but also shoots for a 75 percent cut in nitrous oxide.)

A number of aircraft-makers and aerospace engineers are bidding to become part of N+3. NASA has already awarded $12.4 million in contracts to Boeing, GE Aviation, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) to support their research and design efforts. NASA expects to hand out the next round of grants in April 2011.

neufer wrote:You've got to think Green in the sense
of the Flintstone Green Car, Orin.

orin stepanek wrote:Art! Did you notice? The Jetsons are in a green machine.

• You've got to think Green in the sense
  of the Flintstone Green Car, Orin. =>

orin stepanek wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:That Moller M 200 X reminds me of the Jetsons

I haven't seen the Jetsons for a long while.

BMAONE23 wrote:That Moller M 200 X reminds me of the Jetsons

BMAONE23 wrote:To See This Picture Please Visit www.weirdomatic.com

BMAONE23 wrote:Interesting concept but highly impracticle to divide the cost of an Atlantic crossing between 12 passengers.

bystander wrote:Back to the Future: New Supersonic Passenger Jet Set for Takeoff
TechNewsDaily | Space.com | 22 July 2010

Click to view full size image

Supersonic passenger travel was grounded in 2003 when British Airways and Air France cancelled their transatlantic Concorde service because of falling revenues and rising maintenance costs. The Aerion Supersonic Business Jet (SBJ) promises to help travelers break the sound barrier again.

Named after a fleet-of-foot horse in Greek mythology, the Aerion SBJ will be able to carry a dozen passengers at speeds of up to Mach 1.5 for more than 4,000 miles. It is currently undergoing proof-of-concept aerodynamic testing of critical components in NASA wind tunnels and under the belly of a NASA F-15 supersonic jet.

This Aerion SBJ will make it possible to fly from Paris to New York in four hours and 14 minutes, shaving three hours off the trip compared to conventional jets.

And even in the United States, where supersonic flight is banned because of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sonic boom restrictions, the SBJ will be able to fly at a high subsonic speed of Mach 0.98 because of its unique, patented wing design, reducing coast-to-coast travel by 41 minutes vs. conventional aircraft.

The Aerion SBJ's wing represents a breakthrough in supersonic design and is the key to why the SBJ will be able to avoid the fate of the Concorde. Drag — the resistance caused by air as an airplane flies though it — is the enemy of speed and the enemy of economical operation. The Aerion SBJ’s magic sauce is the use of supersonic natural laminar flow (SNLF) technology in the design of the wing. SNLF reduces drag.
...
Aerion’s design completes a virtuous circle — it satisfies environmental regulations while providing economical operation and high performance. [Separately, Lockheed Martin is working on a new aircraft that would fly faster than the speed of sound but without making a sonic boom.]
...
Aerion also sees a supersonic future that involves larger commercial passenger jets. The design of the SBJ, Barents said, “is very scalable. That’s clearly a point we’ve discussed with potential partners. This is not a single point design. We consider it to be a family of aircraft.”

Image Credit: Aerion

Click to view full size image

Supersonic passenger travel was grounded in 2003 when British Airways and Air France cancelled their transatlantic Concorde service because of falling revenues and rising maintenance costs. The Aerion Supersonic Business Jet (SBJ) promises to help travelers break the sound barrier again.

Named after a fleet-of-foot horse in Greek mythology, the Aerion SBJ will be able to carry a dozen passengers at speeds of up to Mach 1.5 for more than 4,000 miles. It is currently undergoing proof-of-concept aerodynamic testing of critical components in NASA wind tunnels and under the belly of a NASA F-15 supersonic jet.

This Aerion SBJ will make it possible to fly from Paris to New York in four hours and 14 minutes, shaving three hours off the trip compared to conventional jets.

And even in the United States, where supersonic flight is banned because of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sonic boom restrictions, the SBJ will be able to fly at a high subsonic speed of Mach 0.98 because of its unique, patented wing design, reducing coast-to-coast travel by 41 minutes vs. conventional aircraft.

The Aerion SBJ's wing represents a breakthrough in supersonic design and is the key to why the SBJ will be able to avoid the fate of the Concorde. Drag — the resistance caused by air as an airplane flies though it — is the enemy of speed and the enemy of economical operation. The Aerion SBJ’s magic sauce is the use of supersonic natural laminar flow (SNLF) technology in the design of the wing. SNLF reduces drag.
...
Aerion’s design completes a virtuous circle — it satisfies environmental regulations while providing economical operation and high performance. [Separately, Lockheed Martin is working on a new aircraft that would fly faster than the speed of sound but without making a sonic boom.]
...
Aerion also sees a supersonic future that involves larger commercial passenger jets. The design of the SBJ, Barents said, “is very scalable. That’s clearly a point we’ve discussed with potential partners. This is not a single point design. We consider it to be a family of aircraft.”

Image Credit: Aerion

cmflyer wrote:On the other hand, Terrafugia is about to deliver a flying car ...

Henning Makholm wrote:I had the impression that this formula starts to break down seriously when you reach Mach speeds, with the drag coefficient bouncing up and down in not quite intuitive ways. Going faster is still more expensive, as far as I understand, but not by a v² factor.

AeroBob wrote:Load of horse hokey. TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Drag is still 1/2ρv^2CDA, period, as in increasing with the square of velocity.

grump wrote:1) I thought aerodynamics/streamlining were pretty much irrelevant for supersonic flight (or not so important as it is for subsonic flight) ... oh, I figured it out - the thing has to go through subsonic before and after it goes supersonic

2) Since ordinary jetliners fly at an altitude where the atmospheric pressure is about 30% of that at sea level, they could just as easily 'fly' in space as long as there was a means to get them there and back, and steer them while there.