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Yup, that's the big issue. Being able to fly London to NY in 30 minutes is great, but the landing/launch sites will have to be pretty far from the cities to hav

Yup, that's the big issue. Being able to fly London to NY in 30 minutes is great, but the landing/launch sites will have to be pretty far from the cities to have the sonic booms not break windows all the time. That increases total travel time.

ralusek 7y ago
And then you can just travel through Boring tunnels.
deadbunny 7y ago
Some routes would definitely be worth it. Opposite sides of the world would become connected like never before. If I could catch a "flight" to Australia (from the UK) in the time it takes to fly to New York it would be game changing. Hell even 4 hours to LA would be preferable to the 11 hour flight time + 2 hours either side it takes now.
- jandrese 7y ago
  But would you be willing to pay 10x or 20x the cost of a "slow" conventional airline ticket for it? The fuel costs may be low by space launch standards, but they'll be huge by commercial airline standards.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    According to Glynne Shotwell, ticket costs would be less than the price of a first-class ticket on an airliner. Being able to do 12 trans-pacific flights a day rather than 2 makes a big difference for cost reduction.
    - jandrese 7y ago
      That was the same argument people tried to use for Concorde. I'll believe it when I see it.
  - deadbunny 7y ago
    IIRC the plan was for 100 passengers per launch to Mars. Assuming only Earth based point to point travel this could probably be increased as you're not also running supplies & equipment. But assuming 100 passengers and assuming they get the launch cost down to $5MM (as proposed in the article) that is $5000/seat which is easily comparable to a first class ticket. Further (optimistic) extrapolating with more and more Starships available, the tech becoming cheaper/more reliable as time goes on I could see that price dropping over the decades. Just as air travel changed over the years from being out of most people's reach to being routine I could see something like this supplanting planes for those ultra long haul routes.
pintxo 7y ago
The breaking window problem will be gone after the first start. /s

ralusek 7y ago

And then you can just travel through Boring tunnels.

deadbunny 7y ago

Some routes would definitely be worth it. Opposite sides of the world would become connected like never before. If I could catch a "flight" to Australia (from the UK) in the time it takes to fly to New York it would be game changing. Hell even 4 hours to LA would be preferable to the 11 hour flight time + 2 hours either side it takes now.

jandrese 7y ago
But would you be willing to pay 10x or 20x the cost of a "slow" conventional airline ticket for it? The fuel costs may be low by space launch standards, but they'll be huge by commercial airline standards.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  According to Glynne Shotwell, ticket costs would be less than the price of a first-class ticket on an airliner. Being able to do 12 trans-pacific flights a day rather than 2 makes a big difference for cost reduction.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    That was the same argument people tried to use for Concorde. I'll believe it when I see it.
- deadbunny 7y ago
  IIRC the plan was for 100 passengers per launch to Mars. Assuming only Earth based point to point travel this could probably be increased as you're not also running supplies & equipment. But assuming 100 passengers and assuming they get the launch cost down to $5MM (as proposed in the article) that is $5000/seat which is easily comparable to a first class ticket. Further (optimistic) extrapolating with more and more Starships available, the tech becoming cheaper/more reliable as time goes on I could see that price dropping over the decades. Just as air travel changed over the years from being out of most people's reach to being routine I could see something like this supplanting planes for those ultra long haul routes.

pintxo 7y ago

The breaking window problem will be gone after the first start. /s