Factoring Progress into our stories.....

[Writer61]

When Boom is actually selling planes we can talk.

Fair enough, but their ability to attract investment suggests that some people think they can do it.

FWIW, as somebody who has done many long-haul flights (including on Concorde), I understand the use case. The questions are affordability and noise.

Lots of companies have come and gone promising economical supersonic travel.

Lots? I can't think of any except Boom.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Not really, it was a dead end.

Maybe economically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an astonishing technological achievement.

 

[Voboy]

Such as?
The promise of the Space Shuttle was cheap, reliable, reusable access to space. It was going to be reliable and cost effective.
It wasn't.
I realize a certain generation has a romance with the Space Shuttle, but it was over sold and under delivered by any reasonable metric.

I wouldn't call it "cheap," I'd call it "cheaper." And it was, and is.

STS proved concepts we use now and will continue to use, however we get up there; it also provided the lift capacity to build and maintain Hubble and ISS. Its R&D taught us a lot about launch and recovery of all sorts of cargoes.

The dead end were multistage rockets that weren't recoverable. STS gave us a path away from that.

ETA: It's STS, not SST. Voboy is a moron.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Fair enough, but their ability to attract investment suggests that some people think they can do it.

FWIW, as somebody who has done many long-haul flights (including on Concorde), I understand the use case. The questions are affordability and noise.


Lots? I can't think of any except Boom.

Boeing tried their own SST, amongst others.
Investors pour money into plenty of projects that never pan out. That was the whole dot com boom in a nutshell.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Maybe economically, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an astonishing technological achievement.

Which isn't the same as progress.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I wouldn't call it "cheap," I'd call it "cheaper." And it was, and is.

SST proved concepts we use now and will continue to use, however we get up there; it also provided the lift capacity to build and maintain Hubble and ISS. Its R&D taught us a lot about launch and recovery of all sorts of cargoes.

The dead end were multistage rockets that weren't recoverable. SST gave us a path away from that.

But it really wasn't the path away from that. NASA is right back to big one shot rockets.
SpaceX actually accomplished what the shuttle set out to do in terms of meaningful reusablity.

 

[Writer61]

Boeing tried their own SST, amongst others.

That is one company, and it hasn't "gone" yet, despite its best efforts.

Investors pour money into plenty of projects that never pan out. That was the whole dot com boom in a nutshell.

Yes, they do, and while many fail, some work out.

 

[Voboy]

But it really wasn't the path away from that. NASA is right back to big one shot rockets.
SpaceX actually accomplished what the shuttle set out to do in terms of meaningful reusablity.

I mean, depending on your point of view, you could argue almost any technological achievement that fell short of 100% success was "a failure" on some level. That doesn't mean we're worse off that it happened.

Anyway. In my SF series, they've long since solved all these kinds of tech issues. My heroine speaks of taking her first space flight as a teenager using a secondhand spacecraft her brother fixed up in the garage, which was a fun image to write.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Which isn't the same as progress.

It is, relative to what went before, when passenger aircraft were turboprops and subsonic. You seem to measuring "progress" from a 2025 perspective, not a 1962 one, which is when development funding began.

 

[old_prof]

It was at the time, which is the point being made. The fact that nobody wants SST now is another thing entirely.

I think the Concorde is a great analogy for the current AI fever. It “solved” a problem very few cared about, only mostly worked, had innumerable unaccounted for externalities, was a result of a national pride race, and had no path to profitability

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It is, relative to what went before, when passenger aircraft were turboprops and subsonic. You seem to measuring "progress" from a 2025 perspective, not a 1962 one, which is when development funding began.

I just recognize a dead end when I see it.
The Hindenburg was progress, then it was a dead end. Concorde is no different.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I mean, depending on your point of view, you could argue almost any technological achievement that fell short of 100% success was "a failure" on some level. That doesn't mean we're worse off that it happened.

Anyway. In my SF series, they've long since solved all these kinds of tech issues. My heroine speaks of taking her first space flight as a teenager using a secondhand spacecraft her brother fixed up in the garage, which was a fun image to write.

It fell WAAAAAY short of 100% success. You are moving the goal posts.

 

[Writer61]

While you may consider X or Y to be a failure, you cannot discount how they encourage others to seek something better. Would SpaceX exist without the Shuttle? Would Boom exist without Concorde?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

While you may consider X or Y to be a failure, you cannot discount how they encourage others to seek something better. Would SpaceX exist without the Shuttle? Would Boom exist without Concorde?

Both could very well exist without Concorde or the shuttle.
It isn't like Concorde was the only supersonic aircraft. Plenty of research on the aerodynamic has been done in other contexts.
As for SpaceX and the Shuttle, one could make a case that the Shuttle slowed things down.
It was a dead end we poured money into, money that could have gone into other, more useful pursuits.
People have an emotional attachment to those programs.

 

[Britva415]

That was the whole dot com boom in a nutshell

That's a great point, because despite the waste of the dotcom funding boom and subsequent bust and failure of innumerable unprofitable companies, nobody thinks there hasn't been progress in telecommunications, computer science, digital signal processing, and many other fields/business areas as the result of the internet.

 

[Writer61]

Both could very well exist without Concorde or the shuttle.

They might, they might not.

It isn't like Concorde was the only supersonic aircraft. Plenty of research on the aerodynamic has been done in other contexts.

Yet it was the only one that had any success (it was operationally profitable).

As for SpaceX and the Shuttle, one could make a case that the Shuttle slowed things down.
It was a dead end we poured money into, money that could have gone into other, more useful pursuits.

You could, but it doesn't mean that you are right.

People have an emotional attachment to those programs.

Just fancy that, people appreciating progress, how terrible.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

They might, they might not.

Yet it was the only one that had any success (it was operationally profitable).

You could, but it doesn't mean that you are right.

Just fancy that, people appreciating progress, how terrible.

No, the Concorde wasn't the only successful supersonic aircraft. The military was successfully flying supersonic aircraft decades before Concorde.

No, they had an emotional attachment to the PROGRAM which isn't the same as an emotional attachment to progress.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That's a great point, because despite the waste of the dotcom funding boom and subsequent bust and failure of innumerable unprofitable companies, nobody thinks there hasn't been progress in telecommunications, computer science, digital signal processing, and many other fields/business areas as the result of the internet.

Exactly, the internet was a success. Pets dot com was a failure.

 

[Writer61]

No, the Concorde wasn't the only successful supersonic aircraft. The military was successfully flying supersonic aircraft decades before Concorde.

You dismissed Concorde because it wasn't profitable. What profit do supersonic military aircraft show?

No, they had an emotional attachment to the PROGRAM which isn't the same as an emotional attachment to progress.

Those programs WERE progress.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

You dismissed Concorde because it wasn't profitable. What profit do supersonic military aircraft show?


Those programs WERE progress.

No, they weren't. They were dead ends.
Please explain what technology that was created for the Concorde will Boom be building on?

Because Concorde was SUPPOSED to make money, it was a COMMERCIAL airliner. Making money is the whole point.
Military aircraft have a different mission set. Concorde flew really fast and lost money, the exact same thing military aircraft had been doing for decades before it.

To return to the original point of this thread, if you wrote a story 30 years ago, and based on the Concorde you had written about people taking routine supersonic flights from LA to Tokyo you'd have gotten it completely wrong.

 

[Writer61]

Exactly, the internet was a success.

Oh, yes, the internet that was initially developed by the US government as ARPANET and then supercharged at government-funded CERN when Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web,

What a terrible thing.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Oh, yes, the internet that was initially developed by the US government as ARPANET and then supercharged at government-funded CERN when Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web,

What a terrible thing.

Wonderful, but completely irrelevant to your defense of the Concorde. Nice attempt to deflect and change the subject though.

 

[Writer61]

Please explain what technology that was created for the Concorde will Boom be building on?

A whole load of knowledge about supersonic flight.

Because Concorde was SUPPOSED to make money, it was a COMMERCIAL airliner. Making money is the whole point.

One moment you compare Concorde to military aircraft, and the next you don't. Make your mind up.

To return to the original point of this thread, if you wrote a story 30 years ago, and based on the Concorde you had written about people taking routine supersonic flights from LA to Tokyo you'd have gotten it completely wrong.

Yes, you would, but that is the risk of writing about the future. Does it mean that 2001: A Space Odyssey is a bad film? I mean Pan Am was bust by then!

 

[Writer61]

Wonderful, but completely irrelevant to your defense of the Concorde. Nice attempt to deflect and change the subject though.

I was challenging your point about government funding.

 

[old_prof]

While you may consider X or Y to be a failure, you cannot discount how they encourage others to seek something better. Would SpaceX exist without the Shuttle? Would Boom exist without Concorde?

Boom would absolutely exist without Concorde. Concorde was such an abysmal failure that it discouraged further work in the area for a generation. It's biggest contribution was showing what not to do.