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The author of this slop seems to believe Boom's pitch deck that they can use AI to only boom into space and thus do supersonic overland. The only thing his arti

by plorg 9mo ago

The author of this slop seems to believe Boom's pitch deck that they can use AI to only boom into space and thus do supersonic overland. The only thing his article suggests though is that you could do it under certain atmospheric conditions, and more likely this is just cover for "do it all the time and blame the computer when we rattle peoples' windows".

kllrnohj 9mo ago
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/20160007348.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160007348/downloads/20...
- labcomputer 9mo ago
  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.
  - kllrnohj 9mo ago
    Right but Mach 1.0-1.3 is all that "Boom Supersonic" is claiming to hit, though, so the paper is in line with the marketing pitch. The speed advantage of "up to Mach 1.3" might not be worthwhile, no, but that's orthogonal to the claims of "boomless" supersonic. Now the article randomly pulls Mach 1.7 out of seemingly nowhere, and I have no idea where that came from or how that is justified. But the company isn't making that claim as far as I can tell ( https://boomsupersonic.com/boomless-cruise https://boomsupersonic.com/boomless-cruise the "FAQ" section even specifically says: "Boomless Cruise is possible at speeds up to Mach 1.3, with typical speed between Mach 1.1 and 1.2.")

by plorg 9mo ago

kllrnohj 9mo ago

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/20160007348.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160007348/downloads/20...

labcomputer 9mo ago
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.
- kllrnohj 9mo ago
  Right but Mach 1.0-1.3 is all that "Boom Supersonic" is claiming to hit, though, so the paper is in line with the marketing pitch. The speed advantage of "up to Mach 1.3" might not be worthwhile, no, but that's orthogonal to the claims of "boomless" supersonic. Now the article randomly pulls Mach 1.7 out of seemingly nowhere, and I have no idea where that came from or how that is justified. But the company isn't making that claim as far as I can tell ( https://boomsupersonic.com/boomless-cruise https://boomsupersonic.com/boomless-cruise the "FAQ" section even specifically says: "Boomless Cruise is possible at speeds up to Mach 1.3, with typical speed between Mach 1.1 and 1.2.")