Science: The Flying Scissors

In killing the Nixon Administration's plans to build a supersonic jet transport last year. Congress was influenced by some persuasive arguments against the plane: it would be extremely costly (an estimated $1.5 billion for development of two prototypes), create window-shattering sonic booms all across the countryside, and possibly even leave enough carbon dioxide in the upper layers of the atmosphere to change the earth's climate. Now Robert T. Jones of NASA'S Ames Research Center, near San Francisco, has suggested a radical new SST design that he claims would overcome most of these objections. It...

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