Going Supersonic!

01The one thing I really love about flying is it's the freedom that you kind of feel flowing through the air.

02You can feel it somewhat when you're in a swimming pool or if you're a scuba diver or something like that.

03There's just something else about that kind of freedom you feel.

04The research side of stuff makes it really cool that, you know, for me it can be the most boring flight I've ever flown, but at the same time it can be exciting because I know what we're getting from this.

05The scientific discovery part of what I get to do as a research pilot can be just as exciting as getting into the airplane and flying it.

06This is NASA's Curious Universe.

07Our universe is a wild and wonderful place.

08I'm your host, Patty Boyd, and in this podcast, NASA is your tour guide.

09NASA's research pilots and scientists are hard at work solving a pretty tricky problem.

10Right now, planes have the capacity to fly incredibly fast, getting passengers and cargo to their destinations quickly.

11However, once planes reach a certain speed, they cause what's called a sonic boom, a burst of energy that can be heard and felt by the people below.

12So flying passengers quickly, also called supersonically, has been for the most part banned for causing quite a ruckus.

13But what if we could change that?

14What we once thought of as a fact of physics is now being reworked.

15NASA and Lockheed Martin are creating and testing an experimental airplane that lessens that loud sonic boom, making it into more of a sonic thump.

16In this episode, we're going to explore that exciting and strange-looking research airplane and figure out what it means to break and now fix the sound barrier.

17When I used to fly the U-2, I used to fly it all over the world on missions when I was in the Air Force.

18And I used to have to remember to look out the window because what I was getting to see was something that most of the people on the planet weren't getting to see.

19A lot of the same pictures you see from the astronauts up in the space station, we sometimes get the same views.

20Hi, I'm Nils Larson.

21I'm a research test pilot at Armstrong Flight Research Center.

22I've been a test pilot for more than most people been alive, probably.

23Nils is a NASA pilot, but not for rockets.

24He stays a little closer to Earth, flying, testing, and studying all sorts of planes and aircraft.

25While people might be more familiar with our rocket launches, NASA has a long history of sending pilots into the skies.

26Neil Armstrong was a test pilot for NASA, so there's a lot of history there.

27But as a research test pilot, it's really cool because I get to look at new concepts early.

28I also do stuff as a research pilot where I'll fly airplanes and will use airplanes to study the Earth.

29One of my friends who's a test pilot says, it's like getting paid to eat ice cream.

30Nils and his aerospace colleagues study the sound barrier and supersonic aircraft.

31The term supersonic means these planes travel faster than the speed of sound.

32Right this moment, you are hearing my voice because sound waves are traveling from your device, through the air, and reaching the complex system of bones and structures in your ears.

33And those sound waves move really quickly, around 760 miles per hour at the ground.

34If we were standing near each other, it would seem like my voice was reaching you instantaneously.

35Now here's a mind-blowing fact.

36Airplanes can fly faster than sound waves.

37Faster than the speed of sound, causing a loud noise called a sonic boom.

38This is known as breaking the sound barrier.

39The first time a plane broke through the sound barrier and caused that sonic boom was October 14, 1947.

40Air Force officer and NASA test pilot Chuck Yeager did what many thought wouldn't be possible.

41He flew faster than the speed of sound.

42Since then, planes have tried to incorporate supersonic flight into their travel plans.

43But when a plane reaches those top speeds, and soars faster than sound waves can travel, to our ears, it sounds like an explosion.

44What ends up happening is there's lots of little shock waves, and you can go on some really cool NASA sites and see these pictures that we've taken.

45They're called Schlieren photography.

46And you can see all these little shocks coming off.

47So what exactly causes a sonic boom?

48Well, airplanes create sound waves as they fly.

49When they're flying slower than the speed of sound, those waves travel out in all directions from the plane.

50When the plane's speed is faster than the sound waves can travel, the sound waves start to compress and pile up, causing a pressure wave and that big sonic boom.

51Just like when you see waves on the ocean, sometimes you see two waves come together and make a bigger wave.

52It's very similar to that.

53All those little shocks tend to kind of come together and form bigger shocks.

54If you've ever seen an air show, you may have heard a sonic boom from a plane breaking the sound barrier.

55But you've also heard a sonic boom when bad weather rolls in.

56Most people don't realize it, but you've heard a sonic boom before.

57Thunder is a sonic boom.

58It's just created by lightning.

59You know, it is a pressure wave, so you can feel it if it was a really big sonic boom.

60It can rattle glass.

61That's what a normal supersonic airplane makes.

62One of the longest-running commercial planes to fly at supersonic speeds was called the Concorde.

63According to British Airways, it flew more than 2.5 million passengers from 1976 to 2003.

64The Concorde offered faster international flight to everyday passengers, but it was only allowed to reach those top speeds over the ocean.

65Right now, the only people that can fly supersonic over land in the United States and much of the world is the military or NASA or people with special permission.

66And the special permission is not you and me.

67Well, I guess it's me, but it's not the average person.

68And, you know, it's not the airlines.

69We had airplanes before, like the Concorde, that went supersonic, and they were only allowed to go supersonic over the water.

70But once they got to land, they had to slow down, and they weren't as efficient there because they were designed to be going fast.

71Plus, you still wanted to get there fast.

72The reason we have that restriction is the boom, the sonic boom that the aircraft makes.

73Well, over the years, we've learned that we can shape an airplane to change that.

74Why don't we make the restriction for sound based on sound, not on speed?

75That way we can go faster.

76The plane Nils is studying now is called X-59.

77This new, exciting aircraft will change the way planes break the sound barrier.

78The X-59 is designed to be that research craft to go make that shaped sonic boom, or as we call it, a sonic thump, because it doesn't sound like a boom anymore.

79But how exactly can NASA researchers change the sound of a sonic boom?

80It takes not only years of study, but also new technology and new ways of thinking.

81In a lot of ways, I've worked on X-59 ever since I got to NASA.

82I got to NASA in 2007 when I retired out of the Air Force, and I have always been working on sonic boom research ever since I came to NASA.

83And a lot of that was looking at how the sound moves through the atmosphere.

84What we're trying to do is make it less loud, and then also make it so that it doesn't rise so quickly.

85So it spreads that noise that you would hear over a longer period of time.

86So you don't get that startle effect like a firecracker that goes bang.

87It'd be more like a boom.

88The X-59 is the latest in a long line of exciting and innovative experimental airplanes.

89NASA has been working on these fascinating and sometimes wacky planes for a while now.

90And they often don't look like anything you've seen before.

91So in general, an X-plane is a research aircraft.

92Sometimes it's to test and prove a concept or a technology.

93Sometimes they're prototypes for future aircraft.

94Lori Ozorosky is one of the project managers for the X-59 mission, who is working to design this experimental airplane to test out new concepts in physics.

95The X-1 was our first X-plane.

96It was the aircraft that broke the sound barrier.

97We've been working on these for a very long time, but we think they're pretty exciting.

98I think for a long time people thought that a sonic boom was just a given fact with a supersonic aircraft.

99People started thinking, well, maybe we can design the airplane to reduce this initial high pressure that's created, which becomes your sonic boom.

100We are really challenging the physics here.

101It is a pretty amazing thing that we can do this, kind of break the physics.

102At NASA, you often have to think outside the box when it comes to science.

103And innovating around what we thought was a fact of physics is just one of those instances.

104But that outside the box thinking means the X-59 airplane doesn't really look like a 747, or any kind of passenger plane you might be familiar with.

105In fact, it looks more like a lawn dart, or a large paper airplane.

106So the X-59 is a very long and slender aircraft.

107It is about 100 feet long and has a wingspan of about 30 feet.

108Definitely different than anything you've probably ever seen flying before.

109The interesting characteristic of this aircraft is it has a very long nose, which is really how we shape our sonic boom, which is ultimately the goal of this aircraft.

110The long and thin design of the X-59 helps disperse the sound waves that add up to the sonic boom.

111This particular plane is not a prototype for a commercial airliner.

112It is a one-of-a-kind experimental airplane equipped with quiet supersonic technologies that aircraft manufacturers may choose to include in their future designs.

113There wouldn't be room for additional passengers.

114You see aircraft, the pilot's pretty much up very close to the front of the nose.

115The pilot on the X-59 actually sits very far back on the aircraft.

116It's a little bit cramped.

117The only time you really feel cramped is when you first get in.

118And then eventually you kind of build your nest and it doesn't really feel like it's cramped anymore.

119Nils hasn't gotten to fly the X-59 yet.

120It's still in its final months of ground testing.

121But part of his job as a test pilot is to try out lots of other planes and plane components that we can use to design and build the X-59.

122And most planes that go really fast don't have a lot of room for the pilot to stretch out.

123Plus there's another feature that makes the X-59 very different from a regular passenger plane.

124Probably the biggest thing that most people will notice with the X-59 is there's no windshield.

125There's no front window.

126We have some really smart people at Langley.

127They built me a windshield that's a virtual windshield.

128So they said we're going to put a high resolution camera on the top of the airplane.

129That's going to be your ability to see forward.

130Oh, by the way, we'll take a certified camera that we use in other airplanes and we'll put that on the bottom of the airplane.

131And that'll allow you to see what's underneath the airplane as well.

132It's kind of like playing a video game.

133So I'm going to have to land the airplane based on a picture out the front.

134Now, I can see out the sides really well.

135But generally speaking, the field of view that you have is somewhat restricted, but we're enhancing it by having a virtual windscreen.

136Just like the X-59 is specially designed to do its job, Nils needs specially designed gear in order to do his job.

137Engineers test out all sorts of potential problems before the plane ever takes off.

138But there's still the possibility that something could go wrong.

139So to stay safe, Nils has to suit up.

140Generally, I'm wearing a flight suit.

141I'll have a G suit on.

142The G in G suit refers to G forces or multiples of the force of gravity pulling on your body.

143You hear about people flying in fighters and they say, you're pulling nine Gs so you weigh nine times what you used to.

144Well, the problem is your blood wants to go to the bottom.

145So your G suit has these air bladders in it that squeeze your legs and squeeze that blood so that it hopefully stays up in your head and not down in your feet so that you don't pass out.

146In the X-59, those same bladders are built to squeeze against my body that if we were to lose pressurization, it helps keep the oxygen essentially in my blood cells.

147What was it that Nils said before about this job being as fun as eating ice cream?

148We're just glad NASA's test pilots enjoy a good adrenaline rush from time to time.

149Then I usually wear a harness in the X-59.

150Underneath that harness, I'll actually have a vest that's part of that compression garment that would blow up and squeeze me if I lost cabin pressurization to give me time to get down.

151I have a helmet that I wear, you know, with an oxygen mask and all that.

152If you ever watched the movie Top Gun or something like that, it looks remarkably like that because most of the gear is like that.

153We have gloves on and then usually wear boots because I'm strapped to a parachute.

154Nils may be sitting by himself in the cockpit, but he's not alone.

155On the day of a flight, Nils stays in constant contact with crews on the ground.

156You have your helmet on and normally we are what we call hot mic.

157They're hearing everything I'm saying, so watch what you say.

158Airborne.

159Gear's coming.

160Flaps coming.

161Usually the crew chief, the lead maintenance guy when you're going to go start up the airplane, he's on the other end of the cord.

162NASA 1 copy.

163I believe they're a little bit stronger, higher up.

164You might be transmitting to the control room, so they probably are hearing you.

165NASA 846 is turning in.

166Run one, ops check 8.6.

167It's rare that you're ever alone with your thoughts.

168Even if you're the only person in the airplane, there are so many people that are with you when you fly.

169Whether it's the people that got the airplane ready at oh dark 30 in the morning.

170Go ahead, Bill.

171To all the people, the 50 people or whatever it is, sitting in the control room monitoring your every move.

172Run one, ops check 8.6.

173Make sure you're safe.

174Make sure we got the data.

175It's a huge sea of people.

176Looks a lot like what you see, you know, control room during a launch.

177The purpose of the X-59's test flights is to collect data on how we can break the sound barrier without causing a loud boom.

178In fact, the team behind the X-59 thinks that its flight will sound more like a sonic thump.

179Imagine a car door slamming across the street.

180And once this quiet plane flies, the goal is to take those findings public.

181Supersonic planes can't currently fly over land because the sound causes an annoyance for people down below.

182So a big aspect of this mission is to measure, well, annoyance.

183After the X-59 goes through a series of rigorous test flights, Lori and her team will take it out to communities.

184There, they'll collect responses from people on the ground.

185The goal of this experimental mission isn't to be a top secret development.

186It's designed to be brought out to the community in order to get feedback.

187I don't know of any other instance where we have built an X-plane and gone out to do a test such as this, getting community response data.

188This is a culmination of a 30 year career for me.

189The day that I heard that we had been approved to move forward with the X-59, I think was probably the most emotional day I've ever had at NASA.

190And I think it will probably become the second most emotional day I have at NASA when this aircraft actually flies.

191I think that's going to be the most emotional thing I've ever experienced.

192And I can relate to all of our space missions when they actually get a launch.

193And I'm just so looking forward to that time.

194So I'm pretty excited about the future and getting this airplane flying.

195The first flight of the X-59 is set to take place in 2022.

196The eventual goal is to give people like you and me the option to hop on a plane and travel to distant destinations in half the time.

197In order to discover and perfect the technology that can make that happen, we're building on years of research and countless hours in the cockpit.

198X-planes are the research airplanes, planes that are purpose built for research.

199The first X-plane was the X-1.

200There's an X-1 that sits outside of NASA Armstrong.

201It was built to go faster than the speed of sound, to be the first airplane to go faster than the speed of sound.

202I'm working on X-59 now.

203It's this whole heritage of X-planes and it's really cool.

204For me, it's a dream job.

205It is a culmination of a career.

206Getting to do this is just, you know, this is it.

207I hope young people hear the exciting work that we do at NASA, not just on the space side, but the aeronautic side and all over NASA.

208And be motivated to go do this really cool research and technology advancement.

209We joke sometimes we said, well, you know, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the X-1.

210And now with the X-59, we're trying to fix it.

211We're trying to fix it.

212We're trying to fix it.

213We're trying to fix it.

214We're trying to fix it.

215We're trying to fix it.

216We're trying to fix it.

217We're trying to fix it.

218We're trying to fix it.

219We're trying to fix it.

220We're trying to fix it.

221We're trying to fix it.

222We're trying to fix it.

223We're trying to fix it.

224We're trying to fix it.

225We're trying to fix it.

226We're trying to fix it.

227We're trying to fix it.

228We're trying to fix it.

229If you liked this episode, please let us know by leaving us a review, tweeting about the show at NASA, and sharing NASA's Curious Universe with a friend.

230Still curious about NASA?

231You can send us questions about this episode or a previous one, and we'll try to track down the answers.

232You can email a voice recording or send a written note to nasa-curiousuniverse at mail.nasa.gov.

233Go to nasa.gov slash curiousuniverse for more information.

234So I think the speed of sound up there at that time is somewhere in the 700-ish miles an hour.

235600, 700.

236Yeah, I'd have to go do the math, but public math, it's dangerous.

237I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

238I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

239I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

240I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

241I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

242I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

243I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

244I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

245I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

246I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.

247I think the speed of sound is a little bit easier.