NASA will use Galveston as a testing ground for the future of supersonic air travel, seeing if residents of the island community will accept a quieter, less startling “boom” from jets flying faster than the speed of sound.

That thunder-like noise, conjuring images of “Top Gun” flybys, has been a major hurdle to supersonic planes in commercial aviation, with regulators not permitting such speeds over land. But NASA is hoping its new technology will be the starting point for the next generation of supersonic aircraft, slashing the time it takes to travel across the globe and realizing potentials never reached by the Concorde, which hasn’t flown in more than a decade.

“I do believe that some time, seven to 10 years from now, we will see a commercial supersonic airplane take flight again,” said Henry Harteveldt, founder of San Francisco-based Atmosphere Research Group. “There is a lot of investment and a lot of research being conducted into supersonic aircraft design.”

NASA’s announcement Tuesday at Scholes International Airport comes two weeks after announcing that Lockheed Martin would build its Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator X-plane, with technology that reduces the loudness of a sonic boom.

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It will be two to three years before that plane flies, so the government agency will use an F/A-18 Hornet aircraft to replicate the softer sonic boom and measure how receptive Galvestonians will be. It’s basically a test for NASA to learn the best way to survey communities once the X-plane is flying.

The planes will take off from Ellington Airport in November and then do supersonic dive maneuvers off the coast of Galveston to replicate the less startling boom.

Here’s how it works: pilots will begin the maneuver at 49,000 feet, diving at a 53-degree angle and accelerating to supersonic speeds during the dive. Most of that sound will go down toward the water. But the plane will still be traveling at supersonic speeds when it starts to pull out of the dive at 42,000 feet, meaning some of the sound will travel toward Galveston. By the time it reaches the island, it will be at the sound level expected from NASA’s X-plane.

If a traditional sonic boom is hearing a thunderstorm directly overhead, then the new reduced sonic boom will be like hearing a storm rumble far in the distance, said Peter Coen, project manager of NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technology Project. The noise has also been described as a neighbor down the street slamming a car door.

NASA is hoping to test this procedure for 10 days over the course of two to three weeks. It will create between one and eight of these reduced sonic booms each day.

The agency will pick 500 people to provide feedback on the sound. Noise monitors will also be placed throughout the community to capture data.

The noise of supersonic flights is just one area that NASA is addressing. It’s also seeking to make supersonic planes more cost-effective for airlines. And Coen said the Federal Aviation Administration’s prohibition on flying supersonic speeds over land would need to be replaced with certification standards. Those would allow planes to fly faster over land if they’re certified as emitting noise levels below a certain threshold.

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The FAA currently permits supersonic speeds to be reached only over water, one of the major reasons the Concorde didn’t reach its full potential. Tickets were also more expensive than the average traveler could afford.

“The story of supersonic flight is a lot of what could have been,” Harteveldt said. “The reality is that Concorde helped pioneer supersonic flight.”

British Airways and Air France flew the planes for a while, but they couldn’t continue operating them when demand faltered after a fatal accident in 2000, when an Air France Concorde hit debris on the runway of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, and an industry-wide drop in air travel following the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, Harteveldt said.

He believes supersonic travel will be better received by today’s airlines and travelers. Lower fuel costs and advances in aircraft engine technology could soon make the planes more viable for airlines. Increased long-haul demand and a society fueled by instant gratification makes them more appealing to travelers.

But the next supersonic airliner won’t necessarily use the low-boom technology being developed by NASA, as that project is still a ways from completion. Harteveldt believes the first of the new generation of supersonic airliners will be small planes limited to flying between the U.S. East Coast and Europe or the West Coast and Asia. These ocean-heavy routes can capitalize on the plane’s speed advantages.

Gradually, the planes will get larger and quieter and will be permitted to fly over land.

“As with everything in aviation, there will be the inevitable crawl-walk-run progressive development of airplanes,” he said.

Ray Jaworowski, senior aerospace analyst with Forecast International, expects a market to develop for private aviation first. Business jets are purchased to reduce travel time, making supersonic flights appealing, and the aircraft are often a status symbol.

“A supersonic business jet would be, perhaps, the ultimate prestige product,” Jaworowski said.

He thinks supersonic airliners are farther off than what Harteveldt expressed. Speed is important, but less important than an aircraft’s operating costs, range and seating capacity. To be successful, he said, supersonic ticket prices would have to be comparable to a full-fare economy ticket on current flights.

Airlines will also have to reduce the noise, he said.

“The demonstrations that NASA is going to be performing … that kind of public feedback is going to play into how the regulatory agencies choose to look at the issue,” Jaworowski said.

The Houston Spaceport is hoping NASA's local tests will spur development for the cluster of aerospace companies it's seeking to create.

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It’s talking with two companies intending to build supersonic planes, said Arturo Machuca, general manager of Ellington Airport and the Houston Spaceport. He said being near the Gulf of Mexico where companies could test their aircraft without bothering people is just one of many benefits Houston could offer these manufacturers.

“If it’s good for NASA,” he said, “it’s good for anybody else to go fly and test their planes out there.”

andrea.rumbaugh@chron.com

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