Why are taxpayer dollars being used on this? There are plenty of non-govt outfits which have this ability, if it’s a viable technology.
Yep. Aerion has a supersonic business jet in the works. ‘Boomless Cruise’ up to MACH 1.2
http://www.aerionsupersonic.com/
Good point. Maybe private companies have already looked at the Concorde business model and realized that it isn’t viable.
“Why are taxpayer dollars being used on this? There are plenty of non-govt outfits which have this ability, if it’s a viable technology.”
Sometimes in aerospace, the cost to do the initial R&D is waaay beyond anything you can recoup from doing business in a lifetime.
“Rocket science” is a very inexact science. The scientists get an idea something is mathematically possible but it’s impossible to do such complex fluid calculations on a computer and create a scaled working machine right away. So the engineers build countless iterations of (very expensive) prototypes, test them and watch most of them blow up.
That’s why all the private space firms are using Soviet designs for their rocket engines. The Soviets already spent the insane amount of resources needed to find simple rocket designs that work.
If we depended on private firms do develop a profitable space rocket from scratch without a cent of taxpayer money, we would STILL not be in space. The Russians would be doing circles around us (literally). Capitalism is generally good but it has its limitations and inadequacies.
That was my FIRST thought....a government entity building passenger airlines????