Get an inside look at NASA’s Quesst mission and the effort to bring supersonic flight back over land, without the disruptive sonic boom.

For more than 50 years, civil aircraft in the U.S. have been effectively barred from flying supersonic over land, not because of speed, but because of noise. NASA aims to change that paradigm with the X-59, a purpose-built experimental X-plane designed to reshape shockwaves so they reach the ground as a quiet “sonic thump” rather than a window-rattling boom.

We’re joined by Cathy Bahm, Low Boom Flight Demonstrator Project Manager at NASA Armstrong, who leads the design, build, and flight test progression of the X-59, and Lori Ozoroski, Commercial Supersonic Technology Project Manager at NASA, who oversees mission planning, acoustic validation, and community response testing, and how that data is delivered to regulators.

Host Rick Crandall brings us along to explore how the X-59 works, why community overflights and public surveys are critical, and how this research could support a shift from a speed-based rule to a sound-based standard for future aircraft.

Why it matters: if regulators adopt a noise-based limit, commercial supersonic routes over land could become realistic again, potentially cutting long U.S. flights nearly in half.

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