President Donald Trump signed a cluster of aviation-focused executive orders on Friday, clearing a path for commercial flights that travel faster than the speed of sound.
The White House seeks to establish the U.S. as the “undisputed leader in high-speed aviation,” according to a summary of the order, and specifically seeks to repeal the ban on overland supersonic flight, which has been in place since 1973.
The order also instructs the Federal Aviation Administration to repeal other regulatory barriers blocking supersonic flight and to create a noise certification standard that accounts for “community acceptability, economic reasonableness, and technological feasibility.”
Noise concerns over supersonic booms have plagued the promise of supersonic travel since the technology’s early days