Passenger planes of the future

NASA gave away contracts to three teams to come up with the perfect plane for the year 2025. The three teams had to design a plane that was silent, fuel efficient, can fly up to 85% of the speed of sound, cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles, and carry between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds of payload – either passengers or cargo. The three teams that took part were Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Each team came up with very different designs, none looking like the other, which shows how minds think differently and despite all three teams facing the same challenge, they all had their own ways of solving it. The teams will spend this year exploring, testing, simulating, their designs to eventually come up with a winner. What we see now might be very different from the final product, but at least we have a starting point to see their progress. Stay tuned to the NASA website to watch the development of the planes. Hit the break for more pictures.