Lockheed Martin and NASA begin building 'son of Concorde' X-59 plane

Lockheed Martin has begun construction on the next generation of supersonic airliner. Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works will build a prototype of the X-59 QueSST for NASA. The X-59 should produce very quiet sonic booms. It’s unusual shape will dissipate shock waves. Instead of the window-shaking double boom of current supersonic planes, the X-59 will go “pop.” Supersonic flight is banned in the United States. If the X-59 works as designed, that may change.