A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created by an object traveling through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding much like an explosion. The crack of a supersonic bullet passing overhead is an example of a sonic boom in miniature. Causes When an aircraft passes through the air it creates a series of pressure waves in front of it and behind it, similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. These waves travel at the speed of sound, and as the speed of the object increases, the waves are forc...

Virgin Galactic is an America-based, British-owned commercial spaceflight company within Richard Branson's Virgin Group which plans to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists, suborbital launches for space science missions, and orbital launches of small satellites. Further in the future, Virgin Galactic hopes to offer orbital human spaceflights as well. Virgin Galactic's spacecraft is launched from a large aeroplane, giving the spacecraft more initial speed and altitude than if it were launched from the ground. Mothership The White Knight Two is a special aeroplane that func...

{| |} The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the proposed B-70 nuclear-armed deep-penetration strategic bomber for the United States Air Force's (USAF) Strategic Air Command. Designed by North American Aviation in the late 1950s, the Valkyrie was a large six-engined aircraft able to fly Mach 3+ at an altitude of , which would have allowed it to avoid interceptors, the only effective anti-bomber weapon at the time. Improved high-altitude surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), the change to low-level penetration bombing, the program's high development costs, ...