this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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President Trump is ending the ban on supersonic flights over land, which is positive news for the Boom Overture concept.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 weeks ago

That bill was justified based on the fact that the United States needs to compete with China, where Comac is developing the supersonic C949.

If we don't let American made domestic flights make sonic booms over CONUS then China will produce sonic booms over their land first!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I like supersonic jets from the perspective of commercial air travel, but knowing that it uses considerably more fuel bothers me as someone who cares about the environment.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The faster you go in any transport, the more energy it uses. It's not just about the sound barrier. Kinetic energy follows the square of the velocity. Every doubling of the speed requires 4x the energy

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Power necessary to counter air resistance also varies with velocity cubed, so... yeah.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do I even want to know what that equation looks like

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What if I made a vehicle that for every bit faster you wanted it to go, it would dump mass at a fixed speed? Like, if you needed to go 80mph, it would calculate how many seats you'd have to throw out the back per minute.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do you mean dump mass or forcefully eject mass? The former would do nothing except make future acceleration easier, while the latter is the same principle behind a rocket.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I was implying ejection when I wrote "throw out" to make this exactly a poorly-described rocket, but I can see where my humor fell flat on its face.

When I learned as a child that rockets accelerate by ejecting mass, I used to chuckle at the idea of a rocket with a high-value payload, but not enough fuel to maneuver towards Earth, so it launches hardware like seats and beds, bleeds oxygen, and then boots the astronauts.