NASA Building Experimental Plane That Could Change The Way We Travel

NASA is currently building an experimental airplane that could help push electric-powered aviation to reality, especially for small aircraft.

In a conference last Friday, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Washington had NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. announce plans for an all-electric airplane, called X-57 (AKA Maxwell) as part of the Agency's efforts to make aviation more efficient, at the same time less of a polluter for the environment.

In a report by Fox59, the project is said to be part of NASA's $790 million "New Aviation Horizons" initiative, a decade-long program that wants to see the replacement of gas-guzzing commercial jetliners used today, for a greener alternative.

While the steps taken by NASA will not translate to an all-electric cross-country trip, The New York Times noted that the tech could be useful for smaller, general aviation and commuter aircraft a few years from now.

The Verge noted that the X-57 is NASA's first plane in a decade, so they plan on developing technologies that can help improve fuel use and emissions, as well as reduce noise while paving the way to faster and more efficient aircraft.

Named after 19^th-century Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, the plane will be buildt with the help of the Scalable Convergent Electric Propulsion Technology Operations Research (SCEPTOR) project. It will be a modified Tecnam P20006T with 14 electric propulsion motors that could help reduce the amount of energy required to reach a plane's cruising speed of 175 miles per hour.

NASA has been doing research for X-planes for some time, but it will take longer for these experimental ones to g=be ready. However, the agency hopes to one day have these efforts be the future of air flight.

If successful, this technology could take Maxwell to the skies and could help transform travel as we know it.