Leroy Chiao

As astronauts know better than anyone else, risks, incidents, and mishaps are inevitable in the development of any high-performance vehicle. The emergence of supersonic flight during the 1940s and of the Century Series of fighters in the 1950s came with the loss of several test pilots. Still, it was a glorious time.

American Astronaut

Susan Orlean

To my great surprise, Twitter is not housed in a silver pod that orbits Earth at supersonic speeds, vacuuming up and then dispersing digital bits of worldwide chitchat; it's in a big, bland office building in downtown San Francisco, near a bowling alley and an Old Navy.

American Journalist

Richard Smalley

After a few years of intensive research, we found a way to use a pulsed laser directed into a nozzle to vaporize any material, allowing for the first time the atoms of any element in the periodic table to be produced cold in a supersonic beam.

American Scientist

James Gleick

One measure of twentieth-century time is the supersonic three and three-quarter hours it takes the Concorde to fly from New York to Paris, gate to gate. Other measures come with the waits on the expressways and the runways.

American Author

Elon Musk

Boeing just took $20 billion and 10 years to improve the efficiency of their planes by 10 percent. That's pretty lame. I have a design in mind for a vertical liftoff supersonic jet that would be a really big improvement.

South African Businessman

Chuck Yeager

Later, I realized that the mission had to end in a let-down because the real barrier wasn't in the sky but in our knowledge and experience of supersonic flight.

American Aviator

Jonathan Bailey

My toothbrush is analogue all the way. There's a supersonic Oral-B in the cabinet but I like an old-fashioned DIY to get a full clean. Firm bristles.

English Actor

Carrie Preston

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer sunscreen makes me feel like I'm getting supersonic protection because I am so, so pale and need all the help I can get!

American Actress

James Stockdale

I was commanding officer of a supersonic fighter squadron, F-8 Crusaders.

American Soldier

Ozzy Osbourne

I couldn't be a royal. It's like living in a supersonic goldfish bowl.

English Musician

Used to describe objects moving faster than sound, usually in aerospace and military contexts.

Speed Context

A technical term often found in science, engineering, and aviation.

Technical Term

Despite 'sonic' in the name, it means faster than sound, not simply the speed of sound.

Not Sonic Speed

Mostly used in contexts of aerospace, travel, and transportation industries.

Industry Specific

Associated with advanced technology and innovation.

Cutting-edge

Implies expensive technology or high cost of operation and development.

High Cost

 the friction as we come through literally burns a hole in the upper atmosphere. The heat shield in the front of our Rover gets to about the surface temperature of the Sun 1600 degrees centigrade. At this point we're going to start what I like to call reverse origami. We're going to pull up a parachute, this is a supersonic parachute and that's going to start changing our angle

The Curious Life of a...

 steer our way through the atmosphere this is the first for this expedition and that's where you see those rockets going off we're actually maneuvering in the atmosphere and then when we've slowed down to about Oh a little less than a thousand miles now we open up a parachute in our case the world's largest supersonic parachute we opened

How to Touch Down on...

 which was a supersonic passenger airplane went twice the speed of sound chased an eclipse across Africa and they got over 70 minutes of totality minute and of course NASA just right now is actually chasing it what kind of plan it's called a WB 57 it's a old Air Force

Watch the Total Solar...

 Aircraft traveling at supersonic speed create a shock wave with a thunder-like noise known as a sonic boom, which can cause distress to people and animals below or even damage buildings. For this reason, scientists around the world have been looking at sonic booms,

The sonic boom problem -...

 is not sufficient to cover these costs. So while military aircraft conduct high speed flights over water and at high altitudes, supersonic commercial flights seemed like a brief and failed experiment. But recent advances may make them feasible again.

Why are airplanes slower...

 as absurd and complex as it is. The first paradox is that we love speed, and we're thrilled by its intensity. But our prehistoric brains aren't really built for it, so we invent roller coasters and race cars and supersonic planes,

The unforeseen...

 this is Mars this is my favorite video of the surface of Mars actually the only video of surface of Mars taken by the Marti imager strapped to the world's largest extra s triol rover hanging underneath the largest supersonic

To Mars and back, a...

 Fahrenheit this extreme heat creates the booming thunderclap as excessive pressure within the lightning path expands at supersonic rates on return strokes in the u.s. lightning occurs most often in Florida it's hot moist

The Science of Lightning...

 Fahrenheit this extreme heat creates the booming thunderclap as excessive pressure within the lightning path expands at supersonic rates on return strokes in the u.s. lightning occurs most often

Lightning Strikes PIPE...

 10 kilometers a year slow by our standards supersonic in geological terms

Supersonic