5 ms·
I imagine you can gain a lot of efficiencies with this approach. Just guessing here: 1. You can't leave your seat. Very high seat density. 2. No restrooms.
by Diederich 9y ago
I imagine you can gain a lot of efficiencies with this approach. Just guessing here:
1. You can't leave your seat. Very high seat density.
2. No restrooms.
3. No food or any other services.
4. Very few (if any) cabin staff.
5. Fully automated flight; perhaps no pilot.
6. More reliable flight schedule; only a small bit of earth's weather on either side of the flight matters.
Personally, I'd put up with a lot if the whole flight was <40 minutes.
On the other hand, the vomit. So much vomit. :(
- grondilu 9y ago> 5. Fully automated flight; perhaps no pilot. Almost certainly no pilot.
- Diederich 9y agoI agree; I can, however, imagine some kind of on-flight technician. Maybe.
- bluthru 9y agoTechnician / EMT
- Diederich 9y agoZero G but very short term EMT...a high tech hospital is always close by the landing point. Cool stuff.
- anotheryou 9y agoIs he going to space-walk within the 10min window? I doubt you need a technician (and if you do, he's probably too late).
- dogma1138 9y agoFuel might also be actually cheaper, CH4 costs about 4$ per 1000 cubic feet, LOX is practically free.
- Diederich 9y agoWow, that's (the price of methane) amazingly cheap.
- dogma1138 9y agoWhat more amazing is that 1000 ft^3 of methane is 12 tons, you need 1900 tons (in orbit) of propellant to get to mars based on the ITS design since it's about 5 trips of the ITS tanker to refuel the ITS that goes to mars (350-380 tons per refueling). Lets put E2E propellant requirements for the BFR/Booster and the ITS at 10 times that of the martian transfer that would put the CH4 costs of the trip to less than $6500.... At 100 times that it would be about $65,000. That will still be much cheaper than the most fuel efficient jets we have like the A380 and the 787-9 with the fuel costs of a 15 hour flight being in the range of 150-200,000$ depending on the aircraft.