<story><title>NASA to begin historic new era of X-Planes</title><url>http://www.nasa.gov/aero/nasa-moves-to-begin-historic-new-era-of-x-plane-research</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jgeada</author><text>All really interesting &amp;amp; immediately commercially useful. So why aren&amp;#x27;t these research projects being funded by Boeing, Lockheed etc? Why are we using NASA as the R&amp;amp;D division of commercial companies?&lt;p&gt;Shouldn&amp;#x27;t NASA&amp;#x27;s role be more blue-sky research for things we don&amp;#x27;t know yet are feasible or possible?</text></comment>
<story><title>NASA to begin historic new era of X-Planes</title><url>http://www.nasa.gov/aero/nasa-moves-to-begin-historic-new-era-of-x-plane-research</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>watersb</author><text>NASA&amp;#x27;s previous X-Plane initiative seemed to end without making any substantial change to civil (non-military) aviation.&lt;p&gt;We could really use small jets out here in sparsely-populated Western USA. Eclipse Aviation got very close, then ran out of money. How much money would be required to start them up again?&lt;p&gt;We need new engines. My 1966 Cessna 172 required leaded AV gas, which is as rare -- and as damaging -- as the tears from a weeping unicorn.&lt;p&gt;Why invest in supersonic transport? We need low-end disruption, not high-end incremental improvements.</text></comment>