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Highly doubt. The Concorde's problem was economics not science and a rocket based solution is even less economical - even a reusable one.

by JustLurking2022 3y ago

thereisnospork 3y ago
For normal people sure, but for VIPs and especially military it will happen. Imagine being able to drop Seal Team Six into Taipei, the Red Square, or literally any other piece of earth with a ~50ft clearing on ~30 minutes notice? That's a capability which is very hard to put a price on.
- vkou 3y ago
  I'd like to not imagine a boots-on-the-ground shooting war, where you are launching a craft that is indistinguishable from an ICBM at a nuclear power's capital. I'd like anyone at the DOD who is imagining it to either be fired or shot, before they drag the rest of us into their geno-suicidal fantasies.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    Starship is worse than an ICBM. ICBM carries a handful of MIRV warheads. Starship potentially carries hundreds of warheads. It is a single rocket first strike. Nobody would put that many warheads on one rocket, but the target needs to act like it could.
- vinaypai 3y ago
  In real life adetachment of a couple of hundred soldiers with very limited support dropped into the middle of enemy territory, with their destination known 30 minutes in advance to anyone with tracking satellites will be very quickly overrun. Said adversary will also be thankful for the gift of the vehicle delivered to them with now way to get it out.
  - SEJeff 3y ago
    You sir, have clearly never met us special forces. A “couple hundred” with combat load would be an absolute force to be reckoned with.
    - Breza 3y ago
      Special Forces aren't great in head-to-head combat against well-equipped and well-supplied soldiers who know they're coming. They lose their advantage. Plus they would need a whole lot of resupply.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      Is there any reason this would be more possible with a rocket than with, say, a plane? It has to land slow enough that the passengers survive, and during that process it can be spotted and shot down, or surrounded. I mean I’m definitely in favor of getting some sci-fi style orbital drop troops, but I think it will require some development beyond the rockets; we’ll need to figure out how to get people who can survive a bunch of extra G’s.
      - thereisnospork 3y ago
        A human being can withstand ~8g's for medium short duration with minimal accommodation, say tens of minutes - see fighter pilots. I would imagine that would be enough to get someone on the ground pretty quickly. 30 minutes door-to-door is also incredibly fast, how much of the world could be covered by AA or a fighter plane in time? As a for instance, imagine if in the initial invasion of Ukraine Russia had the capability to drop a starship heavy's worth of men and supplies onto Antonov airport as soon as it was secure, instead of waiting for transport planes that didn't arrive in time.
        vinaypai 3y ago
        You don't need the whole world to be covered. There is no point dropping special forces into the middle of nowhere. The air force can certainly respond within minutes to threats to major cities and strategic targets. A starship wouldn't have made that much difference in the invasion of Ukraine. You're talking maybe two additional MBTs.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Starship is insanely vulnerable for landings. It starts fast but has to slow down for landing. Which means that is vulnerable to every SAM in Beijing region. I guess it could be done as drop of pods or something. The problem is that target can’t know the pods are troops and has to assume that they are nukes and this is first strike. China has no choice but to launch ICBMs immediately. Plus, this risks the Starship itself. It might be possible to drop pods, now space and recently capable, and change directions. But is more likely that get in range of anti-ballistic missile.
kiratp 3y ago
Concorde was profitable. Accidents + 9/11 pullback killed it. The major factor against supersonic is actually the fact that sonic booms are not allowed over the continental United states. Companies like Boom Supersonic are focussed on eliminating those. https://simpleflying.com/did-british-airways-make-a-profit-flying-concorde/ https://simpleflying.com/did-british-airways-make-a-profit-f... > If British Airways and Air France were looking for more profit, these issues would have to be addressed. And that was the plan. British and French aerospace divisions were looking to create a brand new supersonic aircraft before plans to take the Concorde out of service in 2000 were realized. > Of course, that never happened. With a plethora of odds stacked against it, the 2000 crash in France, 9/11 affecting interest, and Airbus scrapping Concorde part replacements, the Concorde was shelved before its time.
- Breza 3y ago
  Two quotes from the link you provided. > In total, both the French and UK governments put in $1.44bn to get Concorde off the ground. $2.8bn went into realizing the world's first mass supersonic transport. > At the end of it all, British Airways had gained £1.75bn in revenue with the Concorde against an operating cost of £1bn.
- fmajid 3y ago
  The prohibition on sonic booms mysteriously appeared when it came out neither the Lockheed nor Boeing SST would ever become a reality, leading to the embarrassing situation of the only supersonic airliner being a British-French collaboration. NASA's X-59 project is aiming for a very low sonic boom
- wkat4242 3y ago
  > The major factor against supersonic is actually the fact that sonic booms are not allowed over the continental United states. How do military pilots train then I wonder?
  - richiebful1 3y ago
    Only civil aviation above Mach 1 is prohibited by the FAA. Rulemaking to certify quieter supersonic planes is underway. [1] 1. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight
dylan604 3y ago
It was also limited in where it could operate out of. I'm guessing that landing Starship at SFO or JFK or Dulles is not going to happen, ever.
- zamnos 3y ago
  Ever is a long time! In 50 years when travel via rocket between cities on Earth is common, why wouldn't airports build rocket pads for it? When you can fly New York to Singapore in less than an hour, JFK isn't going to just give up that market, they're going to want to capture some of that money.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Probably because the blast radius during lift off is close to the entire JFK property size? Of course, let's not forget the blast radius of a Starship undergoing unscheduled rapid disassembly.

Highly doubt. The Concorde's problem was economics not science and a rocket based solution is even less economical - even a reusable one.

thereisnospork 3y ago

For normal people sure, but for VIPs and especially military it will happen. Imagine being able to drop Seal Team Six into Taipei, the Red Square, or literally any other piece of earth with a ~50ft clearing on ~30 minutes notice? That's a capability which is very hard to put a price on.

vkou 3y ago
I'd like to not imagine a boots-on-the-ground shooting war, where you are launching a craft that is indistinguishable from an ICBM at a nuclear power's capital. I'd like anyone at the DOD who is imagining it to either be fired or shot, before they drag the rest of us into their geno-suicidal fantasies.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Starship is worse than an ICBM. ICBM carries a handful of MIRV warheads. Starship potentially carries hundreds of warheads. It is a single rocket first strike. Nobody would put that many warheads on one rocket, but the target needs to act like it could.
vinaypai 3y ago
In real life adetachment of a couple of hundred soldiers with very limited support dropped into the middle of enemy territory, with their destination known 30 minutes in advance to anyone with tracking satellites will be very quickly overrun. Said adversary will also be thankful for the gift of the vehicle delivered to them with now way to get it out.
- SEJeff 3y ago
  You sir, have clearly never met us special forces. A “couple hundred” with combat load would be an absolute force to be reckoned with.
  - Breza 3y ago
    Special Forces aren't great in head-to-head combat against well-equipped and well-supplied soldiers who know they're coming. They lose their advantage. Plus they would need a whole lot of resupply.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Is there any reason this would be more possible with a rocket than with, say, a plane? It has to land slow enough that the passengers survive, and during that process it can be spotted and shot down, or surrounded. I mean I’m definitely in favor of getting some sci-fi style orbital drop troops, but I think it will require some development beyond the rockets; we’ll need to figure out how to get people who can survive a bunch of extra G’s.
    - thereisnospork 3y ago
      A human being can withstand ~8g's for medium short duration with minimal accommodation, say tens of minutes - see fighter pilots. I would imagine that would be enough to get someone on the ground pretty quickly. 30 minutes door-to-door is also incredibly fast, how much of the world could be covered by AA or a fighter plane in time? As a for instance, imagine if in the initial invasion of Ukraine Russia had the capability to drop a starship heavy's worth of men and supplies onto Antonov airport as soon as it was secure, instead of waiting for transport planes that didn't arrive in time.
      - vinaypai 3y ago
        You don't need the whole world to be covered. There is no point dropping special forces into the middle of nowhere. The air force can certainly respond within minutes to threats to major cities and strategic targets. A starship wouldn't have made that much difference in the invasion of Ukraine. You're talking maybe two additional MBTs.
ianburrell 3y ago
Starship is insanely vulnerable for landings. It starts fast but has to slow down for landing. Which means that is vulnerable to every SAM in Beijing region. I guess it could be done as drop of pods or something. The problem is that target can’t know the pods are troops and has to assume that they are nukes and this is first strike. China has no choice but to launch ICBMs immediately. Plus, this risks the Starship itself. It might be possible to drop pods, now space and recently capable, and change directions. But is more likely that get in range of anti-ballistic missile.

kiratp 3y ago

Concorde was profitable. Accidents + 9/11 pullback killed it. The major factor against supersonic is actually the fact that sonic booms are not allowed over the continental United states. Companies like Boom Supersonic are focussed on eliminating those. https://simpleflying.com/did-british-airways-make-a-profit-flying-concorde/ https://simpleflying.com/did-british-airways-make-a-profit-f... > If British Airways and Air France were looking for more profit, these issues would have to be addressed. And that was the plan. British and French aerospace divisions were looking to create a brand new supersonic aircraft before plans to take the Concorde out of service in 2000 were realized. > Of course, that never happened. With a plethora of odds stacked against it, the 2000 crash in France, 9/11 affecting interest, and Airbus scrapping Concorde part replacements, the Concorde was shelved before its time.

Breza 3y ago
Two quotes from the link you provided. > In total, both the French and UK governments put in $1.44bn to get Concorde off the ground. $2.8bn went into realizing the world's first mass supersonic transport. > At the end of it all, British Airways had gained £1.75bn in revenue with the Concorde against an operating cost of £1bn.
fmajid 3y ago
The prohibition on sonic booms mysteriously appeared when it came out neither the Lockheed nor Boeing SST would ever become a reality, leading to the embarrassing situation of the only supersonic airliner being a British-French collaboration. NASA's X-59 project is aiming for a very low sonic boom
wkat4242 3y ago
> The major factor against supersonic is actually the fact that sonic booms are not allowed over the continental United states. How do military pilots train then I wonder?
- richiebful1 3y ago
  Only civil aviation above Mach 1 is prohibited by the FAA. Rulemaking to certify quieter supersonic planes is underway. [1] 1. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/supersonic-flight

dylan604 3y ago

It was also limited in where it could operate out of. I'm guessing that landing Starship at SFO or JFK or Dulles is not going to happen, ever.

zamnos 3y ago
Ever is a long time! In 50 years when travel via rocket between cities on Earth is common, why wouldn't airports build rocket pads for it? When you can fly New York to Singapore in less than an hour, JFK isn't going to just give up that market, they're going to want to capture some of that money.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Probably because the blast radius during lift off is close to the entire JFK property size? Of course, let's not forget the blast radius of a Starship undergoing unscheduled rapid disassembly.