NASA Claims Supersonic Breakthrough For Biz Jets

If a big proportion of business-travel-miles are flown over oceans (which seems reasonable between the most common routes like New York-London, SF-Tokyo, SF-HK...), would it not be cost and time efficient to use low-drag but noisy planes and just hit the speed of sound over the ocean? Flying .9 Mach over the land and 1.5 (or whatever was reasonable) would still save a lot of time and wouldn't disturb anyone.

Don't editorialize the headline. The article is much more nuanced than the headline suggests and it belittles an amazing achievement.

Perhaps we'll officially acknowledge the existence of the Aurora :-).<p>There has been great progress in the open literature about developing super-sonic craft which mitigate and possibly eliminate the 'boom' effects. The MIT paper [1] was worth a read as well.<p>[1] <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/supersonic-biplane-0319.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/supersonic-biplane-0319.h...</a>

At 70PNLdB, I doubt anyone in their car could hear it. In fact pretty much only rural quiet areas will hear it. Though I'm sure there's going to be some "concerned citizens" that claim that the sonic booms are causing their children migraines, or something similar.<p>Still, living at one end of Canada and having friends at the other end, I'm excited for the possibility quiet overland supersonic flight.

I assume the reduction in sonic boom is a result of the shape of the aircraft. Does anyone have any ideas on what these new shapes could look like? Links?

The jets are aimed to become available around 2025.<p>On a some what unrelated note, does anyone here know what the evolution of commercial planes is in terms of fuel sources?<p>Sources i've seen put non-traditional peak oil at 2030, so it would seem that by the time this technology is developed the fuel could be prohibitively expensive. Will alternative energies provide enough power for super sonic flight?

&#62; <i>it is possible to design configurations that combine low sonic boom with low cruise drag, characteristics once thought to be mutually exclusive</i><p>Why mutually exclusive? (just curious) What was the justification previously offered?

"Boom is proportional to weight, and a small supersonic business is likely to meet that level"<p>Really? I would expect it to be relaated to size and shape.