{"id":296900,"date":"2025-11-20T11:14:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296900\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:14:16","slug":"were-concorde-and-apollo-good-for-the-future-of-aerospace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/296900\/","title":{"rendered":"Were Concorde and Apollo good for the future of aerospace?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Sign up for Big Think on Substack <\/p>\n

\n The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free. <\/p>\n

The Apollo program and Concorde airliner are remembered as two of humanity\u2019s most amazing technological successes: putting a man on the Moon and flying passengers at twice the speed of sound. Both hit their key milestones in 1969, remarkably born out of an era of slide rules, drafting paper, and wind tunnels.<\/p>\n

In 1969, the future of aerospace certainly looked bright. Almost everyone expected a future of mainstream supersonic travel. A 1969 NASA report<\/a> proposed a Moon base and a manned mission to Mars within 15 years.<\/p>\n

Yet, the actual history is far darker. Supersonic flight was stillborn, with just 14 Concordes ever entering service. And the Moon landing marked a literal high point in space exploration. Private astronaut Jared Isaacman and his crews hold the record for farthest distance traveled from Earth since the end of the Apollo era \u2014 and their 870 miles is a far cry from the 239,000 miles to the Moon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a stunning reversal of technological progress, perhaps unlike any since the Dark Ages. Would the most pessimistic person in 1969 have predicted that in 2025, we would no longer be sending people to the Moon or flying passengers faster than the speed of sound?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Glory is a dangerous goal, and when it is pursued without regard to pragmatic utility, much damage is done.<\/p>\n

Concorde and Apollo did not produce the better future we expected. For a staunch advocate of human progress, I believe a heresy: both Concorde and Apollo were mistakes; we would have been better off without them.<\/p>\n

These programs share a common origin: a Cold War-era desire in the West to demonstrate technological superiority over the Soviet Union. Apollo was, of course, championed at the highest levels of the U.S. government and consumed 4% of the federal budget<\/a> at its peak. Concorde was a joint venture between the French and British governments, established via treaty in 1962.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both programs ultimately delivered tech demos \u2014 and both threw off technologies that might otherwise have taken longer to invent \u2014 but neither paved a path toward an enduring future of space exploration or supersonic travel. Both pursued glory without regard to cost or practicality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Glory is a dangerous goal, and when it is pursued without regard to pragmatic utility, much damage is done.<\/p>\n

Ironically, in our desire to show the superiority of the West over Soviet central planning, the West adopted centrally planned big aerospace projects. And it didn\u2019t work out for the West any better than it did for the Soviets.<\/p>\n

Concorde\u2019s fatal flaw<\/p>\n

Before the 1960s, every major new commercial airplane was developed with a market in mind. The Douglas Aircraft Company built the DC-3 because it saw an airplane that passengers would be delighted to buy tickets for at prices that would earn handsome profits for airlines. Similarly, Boeing bet on the 707 \u2014 the first commercial jetliner \u2014 as it expected to open a new, expanded age of faster travel.<\/p>\n

The would-be supersonic age had very different origins. Government-led supersonic projects were started in Soviet Russia, Europe, and America. The Soviet project led to the famously unsuccessful Tupolev Tu-144. In Europe, France and Britain teamed up to create Concorde, and in America, there was the American Supersonic Transport<\/a> (SST). In each case, the aircraft were spec\u2019d for and funded by governments that cared more about beating each other than about producing economically viable products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Concorde\u2019s economics never made any sense. It had about 100 seats \u2014 twice as many as you\u2019ll find in a 747\u2019s first-class cabin \u2014 but the seats were smaller with fares well above first-class (up to $20,000 each in today\u2019s dollars). This basic economic equation never added up, which is why only 14 Concordes ever carried passengers \u2014 and why, across their 27 years of operation, the aircraft often flew half empty, even on the popular New York-to-London route.<\/p>\n

The American SST would have been an even bigger economic disaster than Concorde. Whereas Concorde promised Mach 2 and 100 seats, the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) demanded 300 seats and Mach 3 \u2014 threatening an even bigger economic crater. As taxpayers footed the bill for Apollo, they were also paying Boeing to develop the SST \u2014 a jet that made no sense to develop unsubsidized.<\/p>\n

\"Pan<\/p>\n

A Pan Am ad from 1969 featuring Concorde.\n<\/p>\n

These airplanes ignored what every businessperson knows instinctively: the higher the price, the fewer the takers. Supersonic should have started small, with a 5- to 10-seat business jet designed to carry the most well-heeled passengers coast to coast. Indeed, entrepreneurs in the 1970s were working on just such an airplane.<\/p>\n

Over budget and behind schedule, Congress rightly pulled the plug on the SST. Boeing rapidly canceled the project, which made no sense to pursue unsubsidized. Yet, Concorde was still coming, with Europe paying for its development. In 1973, the U.S. banned supersonic flight over land, ostensibly due to noise, but arguably because, with Boeing\u2019s supersonic subsidy cut, it seemed supersonic was a threat to the American aerospace hegemony.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That decision didn\u2019t just kill Concorde, it killed the product that would have launched the supersonic age: the small supersonic business jet. Had the supersonic business jet come first \u2014 an executive aircraft with coast-to-coast range \u2014 it could have built a thriving market and kicked off an innovation cycle that would have led to progressively faster and larger airplanes. We might all be going Mach 5 by now. If you can\u2019t fly supersonic over the continental U.S., there is no meaningful market for a supersonic executive jet. Those pursuing it went bankrupt.<\/p>\n

With the political dynamics of Concorde leading to the ban of supersonic flight in the U.S., and with Concorde\u2019s economic failure, industry drew the wrong conclusion that supersonic flight inherently made no economic sense. The result was half a century of stasis in commercial flight \u2014 and a gradual exodus of the most ambitious talent out of America\u2019s previously great aerospace companies.<\/p>\n

History\u2019s greatest tech demo: Apollo<\/p>\n

Apollo\u2019s failure was subtler, but ultimately even more damaging. It inspired millions, advanced materials and control systems, and proved what human ingenuity can do under pressure. But it also created a bureaucratic and cultural trap that held back space progress for 50 years.<\/p>\n

When President John F. Kennedy declared, \u201cWe choose to go to the Moon,\u201d he was launching another government-specified tech demo: an all-out sprint to beat the Soviets. The result was spectacular but unsustainable. Every decision was optimized for one purpose: a single victory. Once achieved, the political momentum evaporated, leaving behind a sprawling bureaucracy built to perpetuate itself and a supply chain drunk on lucrative cost-plus contracting with no sense of economics or efficiency.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

President John F. Kennedy delivering his famous speech, \u201cAddress at Rice University on the Nation\u2019s Space Effort,\u201d in 1962. Credit: NASA\n<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s post-Apollo decades were dominated by the institutional inertia Apollo created. Instead of lean, iterative innovation, we got a cost-insensitive supply chain and a risk-averse culture more interested in preserving itself than in delivering sustainable economic value. The Space Shuttle, marketed as \u201croutine spaceflight,\u201d ended up costing $1.5 billion per launch in today\u2019s dollars. The cost per kilogram to orbit barely improved from Apollo, and the launch cadence slowed.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until SpaceX, a private company operating outside the NASA procurement model, that launch costs dropped by an order of magnitude. The Falcon 9\u2019s reusable first stage accomplished what NASA\u2019s vast budget couldn\u2019t: meaningful, enduring progress. And SpaceX found that it couldn\u2019t rely at all on the slow, bloated, and extraordinarily inefficient legacy aerospace supply chain and wasteful defense contracting Apollo left in its wake.<\/p>\n

High-priced tech demos don\u2019t build the future<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an important distinction to be made between government as customer and government as spec writer.<\/p>\n

When the government acts as a demanding but rational buyer \u2014 especially for military-relevant tech \u2014 it can catalyze innovation. World War II production \u2014 built on the back of commercial industry \u2014 was certainly a resounding success. DARPA funding helped seed the internet, driven by a real need for resilient communications. But when the government dictates specs for civil projects \u2014 pouring in billions without market discipline \u2014 the result is often a monumental prototype that can\u2019t evolve into a viable product, and a vast wreckage of a supply chain unsuited to competitive commercial endeavors.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Concorde and Apollo both were: proof-of-concept demonstrations of what\u2019s possible technologically, detached from market economics. Their very success blinded policymakers and engineers alike to the deeper challenge: creating a sustainable, iterative path to make the technology affordable, repeatable, and scalable.<\/p>\n

Real progress happens through customer-driven iteration, not exhibition. The Wright brothers\u2019 Flyer begat the DC-3, which begat the 707. Each step was an incremental advance grounded in commercial reality. Concorde broke this trend \u2014 and the consequence was a half-century of no progress in the speed of flight.<\/p>\n

Progress needs economic pressure, not bureaucratic pressure.<\/p>\n

The real tragedy of Concorde and Apollo is that they convinced generations that progress was something governments demonstrate, not something societies build.<\/p>\n

The right lesson from Concorde wasn\u2019t \u201csupersonic is too hard.\u201d It was \u201csupersonic needs market-driven innovation.\u201d The right lesson from Apollo wasn\u2019t \u201cwe\u2019ve conquered space.\u201d It was \u201cwe\u2019ve just begun.\u201d But instead of doubling down on affordable, scalable progress, both fields were frozen, their myths preserved while their industries stagnated.<\/p>\n

By contrast, look at what happens when we align innovation with markets. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab are lowering the cost to reach orbit by 20x. In aviation, private efforts like my company, Boom Supersonic, are reviving high-speed flight with modern materials, efficient engines, and digital design tools \u2014 and, most importantly, an airplane that makes economic sense, with initial fares a quarter of what was charged on Concorde, delivered in a form factor that will be highly profitable to commercial airlines.<\/p>\n

Progress needs economic pressure, not bureaucratic pressure. The next great leap will come not from government showpieces, but from disciplined, iterative engineering aimed at real markets and real people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When innovation is reborn under entrepreneurial leadership, progress becomes self-sustaining again.<\/p>\n

Just as the death of space exploration and supersonic flight shared a common cause \u2014 unlimited budgets and government-led tech demos \u2014 their rebirth shares a common engine: the return of entrepreneur-led innovation.<\/p>\n

When private founders, not committees, set the vision, constraints become creative fuel.
SpaceX succeeded where NASA stagnated, not because it had more money, but because it had far less and had to make every dollar count. Iteration replaced bureaucracy. The result wasn\u2019t just a cheaper rocket; it was the rebirth of orbital progress after 50 years of stasis.<\/p>\n

The same dynamic is playing out in supersonic flight. Boom is doing what Concorde couldn\u2019t precisely because we\u2019re doing it differently. We\u2019re building for a market, not a political mandate. The goal isn\u2019t to prove what\u2019s possible once, but to make it possible for everyone \u2014 affordably, sustainably, and at scale.<\/p>\n

When innovation is reborn under entrepreneurial leadership, progress becomes self-sustaining again. Space is opening. Supersonic is returning. And for the first time in decades, the future is accelerating.<\/p>\n

\n Sign up for Big Think on Substack <\/p>\n

\n The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Big Think on Substack The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-296900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}