An experimental jet that aerospace company Lockheed Martin is building for NASA as part of a half-billion dollar supersonic aviation program is a “climate debacle,” according to an environmental group that is calling for the space agency to conduct an independent analysis of the jet’s climate impact.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an environmental advocacy organization based in Silver Spring, Maryland, said supersonic aviation could make the aviation industry’s goal of carbon neutrality unobtainable. In a letter sent to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Thursday, the group called on NASA to conduct a “rigorous, independent, and publicly accessible climate impact analysis” of the test jet.
“Supersonic transport is like putting Humvees in the sky,” PEER’s Pacific director, Jeff Ruch, said. “They’re much more fuel consumptive than regular aircraft.”