EDWARDS AFB - If your house shakes and you hear a mysterious boom during the next nine days, look up.

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center will be experimenting with sonic booms today through July 20 to assess the impact on modern housing construction.

Called the Housing Structural Response to Sonic Booms Test, the experiment consists of an F-18 research aircraft flying at supersonic speeds to subject an Edwards base house to sonic booms.

Engineers from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., will operate more than 100 sensors inside and outside the house to measure both pressure and vibration.

Dryden officials say the sonic booms will be focused away from surrounding communities, but they are notifying the public that there will be up to six sonic booms on each mission, six minutes apart. No more than two missions will be flown on one day, officials said.

The purpose of the experiment is to find ways to make overland supersonic travel possible.
Comment: Sure it is. Nothing to do with all the mysterious booms the planet has been experiencing recently.

Since the 1950s engineers have tried but failed to achieve supersonic flight with low-impact sonic booms. As a result, the usefulness of supersonic flight outside of military purposes has been severely restricted.

The Concorde was one of only two supersonic passenger jet designs ever operated, and it flew only transoceanic flights so that the sonic booms would not disturb anyone. Concorde flights ended in 2003.

NASA officials have been studying ways to mitigate sonic booms throughout the past decade.

Noise-related questions should be forwarded to Air Force Flight Test Center public affairs at (661) 277-3517.

Matthew C. Durkee may be reached at 951-6226 or mdurkee@vvdailypress.com.