Air travel for the rich and super-rich. I suggest something for the common folk. So that air travel can be for the not so rich. I guess the poor eventually own a horse, not just the rich knights.

There is air travel for the common folk S Michael, it's called budget airlines! (and I don't know about your part of the world, but where I live - Australia - air travel is actually the cheapest form of transportation between cities by far!)

The blanket ban of supersonice commerical flights over land was the equivalent of banning flights of jet engined aircraft over land because jets were so much noisier than the piston-prop and turbo-prop aircraft they progressively replaced.
Research into reducing the noise from sonic booms, and having official regulation of the noise, is akin to the development of the jet-engined aircraft over the past 50 years, and is long overdue.
In 20 years from now, supersonic commerical flights over land could be no more objectionable than jet flights are today.

Another hurdle, not the least, is operational costs, specially fuel consumption !!!

David F., I read about some of the 'problems' that were supposedly caused by the sonic boom and they rediculous and unfounded. I am glad they are doing research into solving the sonic boom. It would be nice to get from from one coast to the other without having to spend the whole day in the air. Perhaps it will lead to commercially viable super sonic air lines. I believe Boing had one being developed in the past.

My favorite Concorde moment was Phil Collins playing on the London stage for Live Aid, then hopping a Concorde across the ocean and playing on the Philadelphia stage as well.
The most likely replacement for the SSTs of the 1970s will be supersonic business jets. Something the size of a G5 or a regional jetliner, that will be cost-effective for those who want to cut transoceanic flight times in half.

Why is it that the regulations change only when it would benefit the US corporations ? Originally FAA banned supersonic passenger flight when ALL the US aircraft manufacturers fell flat on their faces in designing one ! I must say US is is a very poor loser regardless of the field!

What happened to the biplane idea?

..im sorry to say sonic boom is NOT the most challenging problem in supersonic flight.. on an engineering point of view, that can be solved thru engineering.. its just getting the right design mix to dissipate the sound, instead of a thundering clap.. the most challenging problem is fuel economy and fuel itself... we all know that according to recent studies, world oil reserves will only last 53.1 years, & if we dont change our consumption patterns.. and will be less if we have a yearly increasing appetite for it.. we also know that thrust is a major issue to overcome.. and to increase thrust, we would need an engine that will be able to sustain the thrust traveling at the speed of sound.. this will most definitely consume large volumes of fuel.. we are now at a point that there is no way except to increase prices of fuel.. expensive fuels was also the turning point of the commercial supersonic flights of the 1960s.. it was just more expensive to fly the plane than what they can charge for the ride.. perhaps we shud consider another option..

..in my opinion, the space-x program is a better solution.. traveling in sub-space altitude can overcome most of the problems of a supersonic flight .. which includes sonic booms and fuel economy...