NASA believes its supersonic X-Plane will slice our cross-country flight times in half

Most of the pricey machines NASA outlined in a 2019 budget proposal this week — a 32-story mega-rocket, moon landers, and Mars rover — will be launched to Earth’s orbit or beyond. 

But aside from those big-ticket items, the space agency’s budget also requests funding for a curious airplane that currently exists only in sketches and the minds of NASA engineers: The X-Plane. 

This aircraft is designed to travel faster than the speed of sound, and to do so relatively quietly, without sending sonic boom sound waves into unsuspecting neighborhoods thousands of feet below. If it works, NASA’s X-Plane could revolutionize flight, cutting flight times in half and changing the way we fly.  Read more…

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