351–360 of 545 posts
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This is only true from the point of capital - if a startup changes the world in a way you like it can be a success to you. Profitability brings a certain approval and sustainability, but don't confuse that with your goals in what you are working on.
It’s fine to have multiple aims, but asking for investments without trying to be profitable is fraud.
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Yes, I'm sure for the rest of human history we're never going to break supersonic flight commercially, after having done it already for many decades. Because "regulation." It's not like we'd have the power to change that if we wanted. Now let us chant the HN pessimists rejoinder in unison. LLMs are a fad. Bitcoin is a fad. Saas is a fad. Dropbox will never work as it can be trivially replicated on Linux using FTP, cu…
The regulation exists because of the sonic boom sound
Why are some camera shots so dull? Is that a HDR problem?
It's basically just missing half of the image processing, normally you'd only output to that to a recorder if you were going to apply all the grading later in post production (which obviously they're not doing here).
See this random article for a bit of a rundown - https://pixflow.net/blog/difference-between-raw-log-and-rec-...
Why are some camera shots so dull? Is that a HDR problem?
Likely LOG settings in the cameras, a color profile aimed at color correction. If LOG footage is not color corrected it looks like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ap8k564N_w https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_profile
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Neither of those planes made more money than they cost. The Tu-144 was famously not reasonable at all.
Hence why everyone thinks supersonic passenger planes are a bad idea. Lots of profitable military supersonic planes, but every existing example of a civilian supersonic plane is only justified as a Cold War dick-measuring contest.
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My metric for success is simply making more money than they spent. Supersonic planes are already proven technology. We made the Concorde and the Tu-144 in the 70s, and have plenty of supersonic military planes in active service. The assumption was simply that you can't make a profit by selling them as civil aviation planes. That's the assumption Boom is challenging, and to be proven correct they have to turn a profit…
Neither of those planes made more money than they cost. The Tu-144 was famously not reasonable at all.
The TU-144 made 102 commercial flights, with 55 of those carrying passengers -- the others I assume were cargo.
Not 102 flights per day or month -- 102 flights TOTAL between the first commercial flight in December 1975 and retirement from passenger service in 1978 and from all commercial service in 1983.
With 16 built, that's an average of 6 flights each in their lifetime.
SpaceX has Falcon 9 rocket boosters with 4x as many hypersonic flights on them.
Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286 I remember seeing this post about Boom going through YC, 9 years ago. It's really cool to see the founder laying out what he wanted to accomplish in the comments and then seeing it happen today. Especially fun looking back at those comments saying it couldn't be done and all the haranguing over the name "Boom" :) Congrats to…
It’s a good start but I wouldn’t say the critics are proven wrong already. Even getting the full-scale version flying won’t be enough, you need to make the whole operation economically viable so it actually makes sense to operate it. I’m not saying they won’t manage to do it, but they haven’t proven that they will be able to do it today.
[0]: https://bsky.app/profile/rutherdan.bsky.social/post/3lgstwvv... -> 2021 NASA assessment https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20205009400
Remember that the biggest technical challenge to passenger supersonic flight is hacking Congress. People really don't like plutocrats in private jets cracking their windows and scaring their dog.
Over land, sure, but over the ocean, I don't really see the problem? Just wait until you're clear enough of the coast and then floor it.
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It’s a good start but I wouldn’t say the critics are proven wrong already. Even getting the full-scale version flying won’t be enough, you need to make the whole operation economically viable so it actually makes sense to operate it. I’m not saying they won’t manage to do it, but they haven’t proven that they will be able to do it today.
You also have to make it environmentally sustainable like they did when they talked about a partnership with Prometheus fuels back in 2019, even then what's the point compared to regular planes if these "are likely to burn between 4.5 and 7.5X more fuel than subsonic aircraft in 2035." [0] [0]: https://bsky.app/profile/rutherdan.bsky.social/post/3lgstwvv... -> 2021 NASA assessment https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/2020…