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Tangential, but I've wondered about the opportunity for a company like Fedex to send freight on rockets between Fedex's major hubs, like Memphis to Guangzhou, s

Tangential, but I've wondered about the opportunity for a company like Fedex to send freight on rockets between Fedex's major hubs, like Memphis to Guangzhou, so that you could get literal 'next day' service to the other side of the globe. Obviously very expensive, but also, at just $2,200/lb, there might be plenty of things that would be viable, like rushing an organ transplant or delivering an iPhone prototype, cutting out the 14-16 hour flight from Memphis to Guangzhou. Surely there are some scenarios where it starts to make sense, even at $10,000/lb

dannyw 7y ago
There’s usually a fixed overhead cost to offering such a service, especially across large orgs. Think about training customer support staff to know about it, developing procedures on how to handle it, etc. So if it’s used 2 or 3 time’s a year, you might be looking at $2,200/lb plus $1 million divided by 2 or 3.
- darkmighty 7y ago
  Plus the last mile problem. If the journey to/from spaceports each side takes a few days, the hours of savings w.r.t. air travel won't matter.
pkaye 7y ago
> rushing an organ transplant I don't think currently organ transplants happen between countries. Even in the US the transplant centers are on a regional basis and any shift in regions to even things out becomes highly contentious.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
Most rockets don't launch on time edit: It will be interesting to see the results of the DARPA responsive launch competition though— https://www.darpalaunchchallenge.org/ https://www.darpalaunchchallenge.org/
avmich 7y ago
If you launch a parcel from Japan in the morning of Wednesday on a rocket (a suborbital shipment), you may still deliver the package to US customer - say, Hawaii, or even San Francisco - before the end of the business day of Tuesday. The motto is "when the shipment is really needed to arrive yesterday". Hat tip to Michael Wallis, erps.org.
ehsankia 7y ago
Sounds fairly similar to Musk's Starship "Earth to Earth" plan [0]. Though he was actually talking about sending humans too, not just packages. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0

dannyw 7y ago

There’s usually a fixed overhead cost to offering such a service, especially across large orgs. Think about training customer support staff to know about it, developing procedures on how to handle it, etc. So if it’s used 2 or 3 time’s a year, you might be looking at $2,200/lb plus $1 million divided by 2 or 3.

darkmighty 7y ago
Plus the last mile problem. If the journey to/from spaceports each side takes a few days, the hours of savings w.r.t. air travel won't matter.

pkaye 7y ago

> rushing an organ transplant I don't think currently organ transplants happen between countries. Even in the US the transplant centers are on a regional basis and any shift in regions to even things out becomes highly contentious.

Rebelgecko 7y ago

Most rockets don't launch on time edit: It will be interesting to see the results of the DARPA responsive launch competition though— https://www.darpalaunchchallenge.org/ https://www.darpalaunchchallenge.org/

avmich 7y ago

If you launch a parcel from Japan in the morning of Wednesday on a rocket (a suborbital shipment), you may still deliver the package to US customer - say, Hawaii, or even San Francisco - before the end of the business day of Tuesday. The motto is "when the shipment is really needed to arrive yesterday". Hat tip to Michael Wallis, erps.org.

ehsankia 7y ago

Sounds fairly similar to Musk's Starship "Earth to Earth" plan [0]. Though he was actually talking about sending humans too, not just packages. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0