Nasa has awarded $100,000 in funding for a team designing a new 'sideways' super-sonic plane.
The aircraft, which looks like a four-point ninja star, was developed at the University of Miami.
The new plane could fly much faster than traditional commercial jets, with a greatly reduced 'sonic boom' when it reaches super-sonic speeds.
The idea is essentially to lay two 'flying wing' planes on top of each other, at 90 degrees.
One configuration is designed for sub-sonic flight, the other for super-sonic flight.
The aircraft would rotate by 90 degrees when travelling faster than sound, with the result that it would avoid making the loud 'sonic boom' which resulted in the Concorde commercial aircraft being banned from large swathes of American airspace.
It would fly fast enough to travel from Tokyo to New York in four hours.
Ge-Chen Zha, the engineer behind the design, says that the rotation would not be unpleasant for passengers, and would create less of a G-force pull than during take-off.
Nasa doesn't expect the design to take off (in any sense) for at least 20 years, but said it wanted to fund concepts that might represent the future of air travel.
"We are inventing the ways in which next-generation aircraft and spacecraft will change the world and inspiring Americans to take bold steps," said Michael Gazarik, director of Nasa's Space Technology Program.