At NASA, the next great airplane design is taking flight

The X-48C, as seen in a warehouse at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The plane is a prototype of what could be the next great aircraft design.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.--If you want to know what the future of airplane design looks like, you might have to make your way out to the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Tucked away inside a nondescript warehouse building at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center here, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, Boeing, and Cranfield Aerospace are working on an entirely new kind of plane, one which they hope could someday revolutionize aviation.