Why is nasa researching supersonic flight of lockheed's x59 over the continental us Now that the british concorde is out of service?

Nasa is researching how to minimize sonic booms over the continental us So lockheed can sell it's new x59 commercial supersonic transport to airlines for cross country flights. It seems rather late for that. The british already accomplished commercial supersonic flight 50 years ago with their concorde, but congess promptly banned it from flying over the us Claiming it was too noisy.

that ban made flying the concorde impractical and eventually drove it out of business. But now that lockheed, an american company has caught up with what the british did a half-century ago, now nasa wants to make commercial supersonic flight and sonic booms over the us Tolerable. Why didn't they do that in the 1970s when the concorde was flying? Once again, it is obvious that the ban was nothing more than protectionism for american aerospace companies to prevent foreign competitors from gaining an edge in the commercial market.

If what you state is accurate, you have answered your own question. NASA is working on minimizing the noise problem to make supersonic flight acceptable across the United States. If we agree with your premise that it was protectionism in the 1970's… Who cares?

This is why research is going on - if you can reduce the impact of the shockwave, then you *can* have high-speed flight over the US…

And your point is, that the American aerospace agency has acted in the specific national interest of the United States. Duh!

The first A in NASA is "aeronautics", the science and practice of flying through the air. Why are they researching such a thing? Because it is literally one of their 4 mission directorates.

The Concorde was an expensive way to travel. It had high operating costs. The Concorde didn't fly over populated areas in any country. Even if the sonic boom issue were to be resolved, the cost issue is hard to get around.

NASA had the sonic bang issue when the space shuttle returned to earth. You could sometimes hear it in Jacksonville, FL. It may be by researching the sonic bang issue, it would give them more flexibility in the return flight path.

It was and is just not practical
The Sonic Boom problem is insurmountable
Supersonic flights have been banned over all the nations of the Earth now because of the Sonic Boom problem
Growing up in Northern Ireland though the 1970's were at the height of the "Troubles" and I for one was used to Big booms going off being close to Belfast
I heard the Sonic Boom once as Concorde took a test flight, it wasn't nearly as severe as the IRA Bombs to the Ear
Many Military Aircraft have Super Sonic capabilities
5/7ths of Earth is covered by Ocean anyway
But in dire Military need would you not prefer to hear Sonic Booms than Enemy Aircraft going overhead?
I honestly don't know what the fuss is about
All they can do is make the wings thinner, could Smart Materials make them absorbant to the Speed of Sound shock?
Rockets Break the Speed of Sound before they clear the Tower and nobody notices because of the noise!
If people got over themselves, Supersonic Flight would be the norm

The research into shock wave mitigation requires modeling on computer million of times more powerful than what existed merely 25 years ago.
When I was doing my master degree in aerospace engineering in 1982, the best codes available were 2D, and took forever to run.
Concorde first flew in 1969 and went in service in 1976.

It's research, it doesn't mean it's going to become a commercial product. The Concorde failed for commercial reasons, not technological ones. Given that it lost money on its transatlantic niche, I don't see how US domestic flights would have saved it-especially when Americans figure a plane ticket should cost oh… Fifty bucks or so. Nowadays a SST would have to compete with conventional aircraft with lay flat berths and even suites with showers.

It's research, not reality.

The X-59 isn't an SST. After all, not only is it an experimental aircraft, there's only room for one person. And they're going to do research into minimizing sonic booms so that the aircraft makers can use that information to make SSTs if they find it to be profitable.