alt Hacker NewsSaying it requires or uses AI seems to be just... modern marketing bullshit. But the technique itself seems sound enough. NASA studied the phenomenon already: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160007348/downloads/20...
Saying it requires or uses AI seems to be just... modern marketing bullshit. But the technique itself seems sound enough. NASA studied the phenomenon already: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160007348/downloads/20...
But if you actually, you know, read that NASA study, it mentions that the maximum practical speed (from theory) for “boomless” flights is less than Mach 1.3, and they only demonstrated “boomless” flights at Mach 1.1.
That would result in far, far less time savings that what is posited by the commentary on HN. Compared to Cessna Citation X, for example, that would reduce time in the air by just 15%.
Total travel time savings would be even less… so a private Citation X at M0.95 would still be beat a commercial M1.1 flight in door to door travel time.