NASA starts mission to beat and get ahead of supersonic air travel trend. This could lead to the realization of the 1947 imagined speed that is faster than sound. Although there is a glitch that has kept its association with the sonic boom - its loud hammering sound everytime a plane breaks through waves of sound horded up in front of it.

Concorde has turned the supersonic passenger dream a reality, but this dream was only allowed in the confines above the ocean due to the sonic boom that could shatter glass. Almost 70 years since Chuck Yeager's sound-breaking moment, at the same airbase in California, NASA has embarked on a mission experimenting with different levels of the supersonic boom. Now, NASA come up with the supersonic thump, iNews reported.

Changing Levels Of Supersonic Booms

An F/A-18 mission support aircraft exhibited four different maneuvers at Edwards Air Force Base to demonstrate the varying levels of sonic booms where each one was observed to be getting quieter. For added information, normal sonic boom is roughly 106 decibels and NASA expects to reduce this down to 75 decibels, iNews added.

The Aircraft Shape

Even though, NASA has not released any specific details about the new technologies it plans to test, it has affirmed that an emphasis will be the aircraft's shape.

"Recent research has shown it is possible for a supersonic airplane to be shaped in such a way that the shock waves it forms when flying faster than the speed of sound generate a sonic boom so quiet it hardly will be noticed by the public, if at all," NASA said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Peter Coen, NASA's supersonic project manager, is convinced that the design can turn the supersonic boom, which has been compared to the sound of outlying thunder, into a soft clout, iNews quipped.

Here is a clip explaining why the Sonic Boom is so loud. Share your thoughts at the comment box below!

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Topics Nasa, NASA Update, NASA News