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Several US based companies have been working on developing a supersonic transport (SST). Private companies such as the Aerion Corporation, Boeing, Gulfstream, Lockheed Martin, Supersonic Aerospace International, and NASA are all working on and testing different concepts related to supersonic flight. These American companies seem to be focused on supersonic business jets capable of carrying approximately a dozen passengers at speeds of up to Mach 1.5. In fact, NASA is working with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Gulfstream on a successor to the Concorde, a retired SST.

A challenge in developing supersonic transport is that the Federal Aviation Administration forbids supersonic flight by a commercial transport over any part of the US, in part due to the destructive nature of sonic booms. Military aircraft are allowed to fly supersonically over the US. This is because military aircraft fly less frequently and over less populated areas than commercial jets, and only fly supersonically for short periods. Flying at Mach 0.98, a supersonic business jet (SBJ) would cut forty-one minutes off the coast-to-coast travel time of a normal jet airplane. A trip from New York to Paris, normally over seven hours in duration, would take just over four hours with an SBJ traveling at supersonic speeds.