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The Space Race

Speaking at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Colorado, Jeff Ashby, a former NASA astronaut who is director of safety and mission assurance for Jeff Bezos' space firm Blue Origin, said the firm is now 'a year out' from human flights.

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It comes as Richard Branson claimed in October he will travel to space on his Virgin Galactic craft within six months.
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Elon Musk is also expected to soon reveal the launch schedule for a manned version of his Dragon capsule that will ferry astronauts to the International Space station under a NASA contract next year.
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graphics.reuters.com

New Space

Once dominated by government and military programs, space innovation is charging into the private sector.
graphics.reuters.com graphics.reuters.com

dont whant to set it"' said:
www.independent.co.uk

Nasa building supersonic plane that goes as fast as Concorde – without the sound

Plane expected to make sound of a 'a gentle thump' if it can be heard at all
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
Really , has it been about 30 years since Nasa last purposely built experimental aircraft , as there were conversions from other aircraft into research platform ,nameing a few: Boeing 747 , LM skunworks sr-71 ... .
Click to expand...
There's one huge problem with that: low speed maneuverability and payload capacity...

Concorde died because it wasn't economical to operate:
1) It was only cleared to operate between two airports.
2) It could only go supersonic over the Atlantic.
3) It couldn't seat very many people and the cost per flight was high resulting in seats costing over $2000 each minimum.

X59 addresses #1 and #2 at the cost of #3. #3 was the largest factor in discontinuing it. If they couldn't fill the aircraft every time it left the runway, it was incurring debt for British Airways. That pressure to fill seats in an era where more, smaller aircraft were getting popular because it gave commuters more flight options was taking off...yeah...doom.

I really don't see the point of X59. We know how to make supersonic aircraft quieter. The only reason why we haven't done it is because it's pointless. If you're not moving a great deal of stuff with that performance, there's no reason to design around the philosophy.
 
So bring back smoking tobbaco on airlines then?
Asumming it could be ultralight and able to supercruise whilest serving more than just a couple points to a couple points across the pond. Sounds like in today's market the Concord might of turned a profit at 1/4 of today's fuel prices.
Let: I have not factored in A,B,C,... checks.
 
dont whant to set it"' said:
So bring back smoking tobbaco on airlines then?
Asumming it could be ultralight and able to supercruise whilest serving more than just a couple points to a couple points across the pond. Sounds like in today's market the Concord might of turned a profit at 1/4 of today's fuel prices.
Let: I have not factored in A,B,C,... checks.
Click to expand...

In that mindset, some are spending millions on making space tourism and reusable rockets. And it seems viable. As the results and even competition emerges.

Taking that into account making a civil supersonic jet isn't that unreachable as it seems. We have more advanced polymers now, better metallurgy and PC's to make more efficient aerodynamic designs versus the cold war era more like epeen design purpose.

On other hand I agree with Ford, that Nasa is doing stupid with that design. It looks more like a spending money for the sake of spending it and telling the obvious.

It is more easy to make a civil B-1 Lancer design, that already works fine, and instead of the 57t capable bomb bay put a cabin.
 
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