Aviation startups with backing from major industry players like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are hoping to once again make supersonic travel a very real possibility, and soon.
Colorado-based Boom Technology Inc. wants to cut travel time of transcontinental trips in half. According to The Wall Street Journal, round trips for business travelers who are really in a hurry between the west coast and Asia could be completed within the same day. It remains to be seen if people would pay a premium for that speed, however.
Concorde, a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner that operated from 1976 until 2003, was shut down because of safety issues highlighted after a July 2000 crash that killed 113 people — but also because the tickets cost $12,000, which would be about $16,642 today.
NASA hasn’t been deterred by the prices though. In early April, the space agency awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build and test a supersonic airplane that reduces a sonic boom to a “gentle thump,” according to Town & Country.
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