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The Company Trying To Make Supersonic Travel A Reality | Blake Scholl #487 | The Way I Heard It

2026-06-03 Entertainment
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Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe
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Description

For most of my life, I've been told that progress is inevitable. Faster planes. Better technology. Smarter machines. So why does it feel like we've been standing still for the last 50 years? I recently sat down with Blake Scholl, the founder of Boom Supersonic and a guy who looked at modern air travel and asked a question most of us stopped asking a long time ago—why are we still flying slower than we should be? One minute we were talking about airplanes. The next minute about nuclear power, Star Trek, and the strange habit we have of talking ourselves out of ambitious things. Blake thinks we've spent decades confusing caution with wisdom, regulation with progress, and fear with foresight. He makes the case that the future we've been promised is still out there, waiting for people willing to build things again. I don't agree with everything Blake says. But I love talking to people who make me question things I've accepted for years, and this conversation did exactly that. By the end of this conversation, you might find yourself looking at the future a little differently than you did when it started. #podcast #aviation #travel My foundation is awarding millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships to men and women willing to learn a skilled trade. Apply now at: https://bit.ly/mrwscholarships If you like me, and even if you don't, subscribe to my channels and follow me. Much obliged. https://www.youtube.com/@therealmikerowe https://www.youtube.com/@therealmikeroweshorts https://www.youtube.com/@PYSKshow http://instagram.com/mikerowe http://facebook.com/TheRealMikeRowe https://twitter.com/mikeroweworks 00:00 Supersonic flight 04:01 The supersonic race 14:11 Apollo's legacy 18:12 Boom's vision ️ 21:48 AI power needs 30:52 Concorde vs Overture 34:33 Blake's career path 38:28 Boom's impact 42:27 Boom’s talent distillery 47:21 Boom's need for tradesmen ️ 55:58 Anti-progress views 01:00:04 Social media's duality 01:03:57 Aviation rules

Top Comments (10)

@Annalee_DalleStelle 2026-06-03

"What has happened to make us so reflexively frightened of progress?" - Distrust in anything a government says or does, which continually deceives, inveigles, and obfuscates.

59 11 replies
@GF_Burke 2026-06-04

I miss sonic booms, as a kid we'd hear them often from jets. *Bring back sonic booms.

27 3 replies
@timm1139 2026-06-06

Put the data centers in the middle of nowhere?? Some of us live out there because we don’t want to be bothered. To live our lives away from the city chaos. To raise our children in peace and quiet, hunt, fish grow our own food and be left alone. Land grabbing, power hungry data centers help with none of this.

26 4 replies
@stevehanley5875 2026-06-06

It's not that Americans are afraid of progress. We have been lied to for so long about everything by the government, ( no matter which party is in charge) lied to about everything !! We, don't trust anything "they" say. COVID, was just the latest....and won't be the last. Bring on progress, just leave the government out of it.

19
@dougturner1468 2026-06-04

Mike, you should do a long form interview with Blake to expand on the manufacturing of the engines. The story of why and how of bringing the manufacturing of all of the components in house is a perfect Mike Rowe Works episode.

16 2 replies
@fredzacher4968 2026-06-05

What used to be our greatest freedom was "Freedom to fail" Without that freedom we can't have any progress.

14
@WolfDaddy81 2026-06-05

The biggest problem with the lack of energy progress is the greed and corruption of the current energy providers and politicians. There is so much that can be accomplished if we disallow those people from controlling our country.

12 1 replies
@claudiametzger306 2026-06-06

I miss flying but dread having to go through airports now. For the last 22 years we flew our own small plane to small regional airports. Sadly, it was time for us to let someone younger to be our pilot. It was a sad day when the plane was sold. But I'm happy that it will have an owner to love it like we did.

6
@lestero5576 2026-06-05

Mike, love the shirt. I've seen this on and off over the years. 47 year retired lineman. No college, just the school of hard knocks. Finished in the field as outside IT tech who still climbed poles Keep up educating the next generation.

3
@HeavyHex 2026-06-08

Never comply with government. Centralized government is evil

3

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