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Concerns about cost per flight aside, how would one go about locating spaceports near enough to urban centers for this concept to be viable? If a fully fueled a
by proggy 5y ago
Concerns about cost per flight aside, how would one go about locating spaceports near enough to urban centers for this concept to be viable? If a fully fueled airliner crashes in an urban area, it’s devastating. Now consider a fully fueled rocket — would the crash be an order of of magnitude worse?
Perhaps I still have the “rockets are inherently dangerous, mitigate bad outcomes by isolating them” mentality. Maybe designs will get the the point where the likelihood of a bad outcome is so remote that it would make sense to locate a spaceport in the same way one locates an airport. Or maybe the spaceport could be way out there and just connected to the urban center with high speed ground transportation. Either way, if spaceports become commercially viable, it’s an interesting thing to consider from an urban planning perspective.
- cookingrobot 5y agoIn the presentation he says one of the main problems is that launches are loud, and so would probably need to be 30mi from anything. The plan is lots of sea based launch & landing platforms.
- jltsiren 5y agoThere are many safety and security issues that must be solved before suborbital passenger flights become viable. Some involve national security. For example, can you imagine a world where the US, Russia, and China keep launching ICBMs at each other all the time? Others involve more mundane risks that are pretty much guaranteed to occur once in a while. Things like losing cabin pressure or something catching fire. How do you deal with such situations, how quickly can you get the rocket to land safely, and how quickly can you evacuate the passengers?
- beambot 5y agoChina is supposedly doing it: "China’s New Winged Rocket Can Soar From New York to Beijing in 1 Hour" https://interestingengineering.com/chinas-new-winged-rocket-can-soar-from-new-york-to-beijing-in-1-hour https://interestingengineering.com/chinas-new-winged-rocket-... And SpaceX won a contract to transport cargo: "SpaceX wins $102 million Air Force contract to transport military cargo and humanitarian aid around the world in a rocket" https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-wins-air-force-contract-rocket-cargo-humanitarian-aid-world-2022-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-wins-air-force-contra...
- cloutchaser 5y agoWhy not start with replacing loads of trans continental freight cargo? There's no risk of human casualties, you can land away from cities and transport it in. And I'm sure there's plenty of business to be had. It's also a great way to fund the development of starship.