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| Science & Technology |
| US, Japan to produce supersonic passenger plane |
| 2006-05-07 |
| The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and several Japanese firms will launch a joint project with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Boeing Co. of the United States to develop a next-generation supersonic passenger aircraft, business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported on Sunday. The project, due to start this summer, aims to develop a supersonic jet by around 2020 that could travel at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, carrying 200-300 passengers, the daily said. The Japanese firms involved include Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., Nikkei said. Officials were not immediately available for comment. The paper said the new jet would make only around one-hundredth of the noise produced by Concorde, the first supersonic jet jointly developed by Britain and France in the 1960s. Concorde was retired in 2003. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #2 The Frenchies had to choose between the price-costly, fuel-inefficient/guzzling, traditionalist but fast-moving Concorde; or POTUS Dick Nixon's uglier, bulkier, but all-around better "Space Plane" designs one of which later became the basis for Le'Reusable Space Shuttle. America still has the Space Shuttle and are dev hyper-velocity or extar-orbital crafts to go to the Moon and Mars and beyond, while dubious moneymaker Concorde is now officially junked. America actually have to restrain its space efforts/ventures in order to give our Allies a chance to catch up. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-05-07 22:52 |
| #1 As I recall the concorde lost money from the first flight to the last flaming crash. It was prestege, not good engineering. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2006-05-07 19:14 |