That... is an incredible straw man argument implying that I think there is a 40 to 30% chance of Boom succeeding.

I’m not saying that’s your odds on their success, I’m saying that putting it as mildly as “more like than not” to fail could lead the uninformed into thinking the situation is far less severe than it actually is—since technically that statement could encompass odds ranging from 51/49 all the way down to 99.9999/0.0001, and Boom’s actual chances of success are far closer to the latter than the former.

That a company pursuing supersonic transport is inherently unethical?

Again, I remind you that I explicitly stated that it would be another thing if Boom was being honest about the costs and difficulty involved, but they’re very much not. It’s the dishonesty that’s the problem, not them being a SST project.

Boom is not publicly traded. Its investors are venture capital and private equity (with minor commitments from airlines).

That doesn’t make stealing from them on false pretenses okay. Much less the aforementioned taxpayers of North Carolina.

Do you really think these people don't understand that this is an extraordinarily high risk investment?

Yes, yes I do. The aforementioned Scott Galloway clearly had no idea the kinds of risks involved when he invested into them, because he doesn’t know very much about aviation. Assuming people have an accurate model of the risks involved when Boom is actively lying to them is just victim-blaming.

Your argument seems so self-important in implying that these investors don't grasp that.

Qualitatively, they may grasp that it’s risky, but quantitatively I think the investors are so caught up in hype they’re clueless. Obviously they should have done better due diligence, but I’m not going to hold Boom blameless for blatantly misleading them.

These are some of the most sophisticated investors in the world, and unless you've seen their disclosures, it seems kind of wild to critique the company for being optimistic in their marketing material.

There’s optimism, and then there’s bullshit. Boom shovels plenty of the latter. For example, I have yet to see anything even remotely justifying how they expect to offer ticket costs competitive with modern business class while burning 2-3 times as much fuel per passenger (their estimate) and using sustainable aviation fuels that are ~4x as expensive as normal jet fuel.

What exactly do you expect?

For them to offer actually realistic numbers and timelines?

Have you considered that, like Concorde, some airlines may be willing to operate a supersonic offering at a loss purely for the "halo" effect?

Regardless of whether the airlines would be willing to eat such losses, that would be cold comfort to the investors in the manufacturer, who actually has to make money building the planes in the first place, and not just operating a few of them. The A380, for example, is able to be profitably operated by a small handful of airlines in the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a massive money pit for Airbus, hence why they cut their losses early.

Let's use your numbers and say a new SST will cost ten times what Concorde cost in current dollars, or $200B. Are you saying there is no ethical way for anyone to ever pursue another SST unless they have $200B lying around?

No, but in such a scenario I do expect the company to go to potential investors and say “we need $200B to do this, $700M is not sufficient.”

That there's no way to start small, demonstrate success on a limited scale, and build from there?

They could have done so by designing a sub-19-passenger supersonic business jet, and thus avoided a truly titanic amount of regulations and certification requirements, but that isn’t the strategy they chose to pursue. They are the ones who decided to go straight to a commercial airliner, don’t get angry at me for pointing out that they’ve bitten off way more than they can chew.

That unless Boeing or Airbus shock the world by pouring their entire market cap into a boondoggle, it's unethical for anyone else to even try?

Again, it’s unethical to lie, not unethical to try.

But I believe there is still room for big dreams in aviation, and I wish them the best. Prove everybody wrong.

I can respect that—hell, I myself am one of the biggest advocates for a return to airships there is—but it’s important to recognize who is and isn’t worthy of trust and respect when it comes to the important project of realizing those big dreams. Cargolifter, for example, is an airship project that has many similarities to Boom—a mismanaged project that never got anywhere close to raising enough money to succeed, even if what they intended to build was in theory technically feasible.

Every charlatan and failed vaporware project only makes it far more difficult for those that are really serious and capable of doing something genuinely innovative from actually accomplishing it. Investors often operate on the availability heuristic—“once bitten, twice shy.” They associate failures with the technology itself, not necessarily the scummy businesses bilking past credulous investors.