NASA to change air travel with quiet supersonic jet

By Sean Dowling, Buzz60

NASA is testing what some people are calling "the new Concorde," the supersonic passenger jet that could take people from London to New York in just around three hours.

When supersonic jets are traveling faster than the speed of sound the sonic boom gets pretty loud, but this isn't the case with NASA's quieter supersonic jet.

They're aiming for silence this time around.

See more on planes:

The space agency and Lockheed Martin teamed up to start the first high-speed wind tunnel tests for the Quiet Supersonic Technology or QueSST, X-Plane.

They blasted a scale model with wind speeds up to 950 miles per hour to see what the plane could handle.

The takeaway is that the jet's design will create a revolutionary low-impact sound which will be more of a soft thump or heartbeat, rather than a boom.

When talking about the quiet X-plane, former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden jokingly said, "In scientific and technical terms, I think that's what they call, a big deal!"

They'll be testing the model for the next eight weeks and the QueSST design is one of a series of X-planes from NASA. The goal is to reduce fuel use, emissions and noise.

Start factoring supersonic jets into your future travel plans because the new X-plane model could take to the skies as early as 2020, assuming the money keeps rolling in.