Faster than the speed of nonsense!

Ok rich people, just try not to look 
shocked when the revolution comes.

At the risk of a hackneyed rant against airlines, I am all for flights being over as quickly as possible. Flying is expensive, stressful, and the industry goes out of its way to reinforce societal disparities. We peasants are crammed into increasingly tighter spaces year by year made more unbearable by the ever-present threat of the jerk in the next row deciding to recline into your actual lap. Meanwhile, first class seats are getting bigger and bigger to the point where some planes now just give rich people hotel rooms. Everything about this is terrible and should stop.

It makes sense then to want to minimize the trauma by making planes faster. Cool. But supersonic? That is, faster than the speed of sound. 

"Flying to Reno ain't like dusting crops boy. Without precise calculations
we could fly right through a flock of geese or bounce too close to
some idiot's Cessna and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"

-Actual concerns I have

Seriously? They had a meeting and
Boom is the name they went with?

United Airlines has ordered fifteen supersonic "Overture" jets from a Denver start-up company called Boom Supersonic and-huh? Yeah. Boom, which I'm sure is a name they hope will suggest a sonic boom--that is, the sound an object makes as it crosses the threshold into super sonic speeds. But for people like me, for whom getting on a plane requires accepting the very real possibility of a fiery death, it just sort of suggests, you know, boom. Like the sound of a plane making an unscheduled rapid deceleration as it plummets to the ground and is consumed in fire.

And yeah, I did say start-up. Because if there's anyone you can to trust with the lives of sixty-six to eighty-eight people (the expected capacity of an Overture jet), it's the kind of people who take risks for a living. And then name that risk Boom. 

"Bussssineeeesss!"

-Business people

Quick! Before someone else has the idea to
take a selfie in front of a recognizable landmark!

Boom Supersonic's planes can travel at Mach 1.7 or one hundred and seventy percent of the speed of sound, or 1,304 mph. Which the company says will mean you can go from New York to London in three and a half hours instead of six and a half. You know, incase you really, really need to get to London in three and a half hours for some reason. Wait, sorry, did I say can and will? Because that should be could theoretically travel and could theoretically get you from New York to London, if it were real. Because none of this is. Real yet, I mean.

Pictured: the Concord, seen
here already being a thing.

Well, ok, the Concord was a supersonic jet that operated between 1976 and 2003, so the basic idea already exists, until it was discontinued due to technical problems and general lack of interest. But Boom Supersonic founder and CEO Blake Scholl told CNN in a phone interview that:

"Either we fail or we change the world."

-Blake Scholl, probably overstating it,

I mean, it could be a middling success

But what the Concord wasn't that Overture is--or rather will be assuming it actually happens and doesn't just vanish in the night like so many start-ups throughout the history of start-ups--is 100% carbon neutral. But how? 

"Well, you see, the uh, plane, um, it could you excuse me for just a-"

-Blake Scholl, shortly before setting off

a smoke bomb and running out the back

So it runs on horseshit?

I'm...I'm still not sure I understand how, oh-maybe the website will clear this point up:

"...sustainability means doing things in a way that leads to enduring value and further innovation. It means being mindful of all the impacts of our work and ensuring that we care to maximize upsides and minimize downsides--building something all stakeholders can value."

-Boom Supersonic, putting words together

Boom estimates that by 2030 the airline
industry will run entirely on yoga.

Ah. So the plane will be one hundred percent carbon neutral by being mindful...or uh, did...hey, was that answer just a string of meaningless phrases or is it just me? Some further digging comes up with a section describing Boom's "exhaustive search of the most promising present and future sustainable aviation fuels" and a partnership with a company called Prometheus Fuels that is working on technology that will convert CO2 into jet fuel using clean energy. Somehow. Eventually. 

Don't get me wrong, I am all for zero-emission everything, but it kind of sounds like these people are taking orders for magical planes that fly at almost twice the speed of sound and produce no pollution whatsoever without having a clue as to how to realize any it. Which might actually be how start-ups work, but is definitely not how air travel works.

Above: An artists rendering.