5 ms·

Also, wont it theoretically speed up and decrease international shipping + travel. We should be able to go from the US to Japan in an hour or two in the future.

Sanzig 3y ago
I am pretty skeptical of Starship ever getting used for suborbital transportation, other than maybe for ultra-elite VIP transport or something like a rapid deployment system for military special forces. It seems highly unlikely they will ever get the price down to where it can compete with commercial airliners, and Concorde's commercial failure showed us that people will happily choose cheap subsonic flight over fast supersonic flight. You can get almost anywhere on Earth in 36 hours' notice with conventional jet travel relatively cheaply on 1-2 weeks of US median income for a return ticket - that sweet spot of speed and cost is hard to beat.
- deprecative 3y ago
  Watch Elon call it something like Airship and have it be fit for tens to hundreds of people per launch with no need for a pilot (though one may be present). It'd take twenty years to get to market, sure, but hey that's progress.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    Getting it to airline-level safety will take at least that much, unless they start flying multiple times a day without any anomalies whatsoever.
- njarboe 3y ago
  I think there is a pretty large market for a trip to space and an hour flight from LA to New Zealand, New York-Sydney, London-Shanghai, etc. for $10-20k. What an amazing combination that would be.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    Add a couple hours for the trip between town and pad, security and so on. Still it's 3-4 hours.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      I don't think there are many cities that have suitable launch sites near them. It's unlikely they'll ever get approval to launch over populated areas, or even from most populated coastal locations. Also, the issue of getting boosters to all of these destinations seems like a problem. Planes don't split in two and have half return to the launch site but Starships do. So you could land the upper stage in Tokyo, but then what? How do you get a booster there for the return journey? Personally I doubt they'll even use these to bring people to orbit anytime soon. I think they're purpose built for launching massive LEO constellations.
      - njarboe 3y ago
        Off shore platforms. Most large cities are on or near an ocean or large lake.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        Yeah the short term approach for crewed Starship seems likely to involve transporting crew to a Starship once it is already in orbit and vice versa for return.
      - sebzim4500 3y ago
        You'd probably have to launch from international waters, after taking a boat/helicopter. >Also, the issue of getting boosters to all of these destinations seems like a problem You launch them, presumably.
        snypher 3y ago
        You're not truly wealthy until you have boosters staged at your vacation homes.
        3y ago
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  Half the point of special forces is to be covert, which is made hard when your transportation is a giant rocket streaking through the suborbital zone.
  - Sanzig 3y ago
    But imagine the PsyOps impact of the enemy looking up and seeing the US raining down literal ODSTs on them ;) Realistically, they'd be dropping into an allied base in-theatre with a pad able to support a Starship landing, and then taking conventional means the rest of the way. Of course, I suspect that when it comes to "drop operators from space" vs. "train extra operators who can be forward deployed," the latter is probably going to be way more cost efficient. Would make for a cool movie though.
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      Imagine how much of a sitting duck is a rocket glowing infrared on a ballistic trajectory to the landing site.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - zardo 3y ago
        Like an aircraft carrier, good at projecting power below a certain threshold of conflict and capability where they turn into a liability.
- PBnFlash 3y ago
  Worth noting that flying to the equator can provide a pretty significant increase of payload mass. Just a quick layover to orbit.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >Concorde's commercial failure I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. I know reentering spacecraft cause sonic booms but thought that they occur high enough to not cause the same problems on the ground.
  - pests 3y ago
    Not just a boom or booms, a continuous boom along its travel.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. Or, if you're more cynical, because the US' own supersonic airliner failed and they wouldn't let those Euros show them up.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      The American SST was cancelled because of the sonic boom problem.
      - lmm 3y ago
        It was cancelled because Boeing were late and over budget; by the time they started work on a prototype, Concorde was already being shown at airshows, and the US Senate voted to stop throwing more money at them. Sonic booms were at most one contributing factor among many to that senate vote.
        philwelch 3y ago
        Concorde was also late and over budget. And until Congress defunded the 2707, it had more pending orders from more airlines than Concorde did. Sonic booms weren’t the only reason for the cancellation but they were probably the single biggest reason. Also, Concorde wasn’t even the first supersonic airliner—that was the Tupolev Tu-144.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  sub-orbital military applications would be risky as they'd look like an ICBM launch to other nuclear powers. Commercial rockets depend on advance public disclosure of launch dates to stave off WW3 from itchy trigger fingers.
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Maybe. The fundamental physics involved in suborbital flights mean that you are likely experiencing sustained acceleration of 3+ Gs minimum. That is a lot, something near the max g force of a roller coaster but lasting for minutes. Combine that with the launch/landing zones needing to be many miles from anything, and it isn't really ready for primetime. Just for reference 1.3 Gs is the max sustained load you will feel in a regular airliner, very rarely 1.5 Gs for terrain avoidance. For cargo, maybe medical stuff like moving organ donations around, but largely I can't imagine a ton of use cases where getting something to an antipode in 3 or 4 hours is that much more valuable than getting it there in 19 hours. Then again, maybe I lack imagination.
- philwelch 3y ago
  So not only do I get there hours sooner, but the ride itself is more fun?
- ghufran_syed 3y ago
  If you’re a military unit about to get wiped out by an enemy force due to running out of ammo, I imagine getting 100 tons of ammo in 1 hour vs in 19 hours would be a big difference?
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    The scenario where you have access to a space launch system, and an LZ at the front, and abundant supplies on the opposite side of the earth, but your logistics have failed to keep supplies in theater doesn't exist. Forces that run out of ammo don't have access to cutting edge ICBMs is a rule that I would bet money on.

Sanzig 3y ago

I am pretty skeptical of Starship ever getting used for suborbital transportation, other than maybe for ultra-elite VIP transport or something like a rapid deployment system for military special forces. It seems highly unlikely they will ever get the price down to where it can compete with commercial airliners, and Concorde's commercial failure showed us that people will happily choose cheap subsonic flight over fast supersonic flight. You can get almost anywhere on Earth in 36 hours' notice with conventional jet travel relatively cheaply on 1-2 weeks of US median income for a return ticket - that sweet spot of speed and cost is hard to beat.

deprecative 3y ago
Watch Elon call it something like Airship and have it be fit for tens to hundreds of people per launch with no need for a pilot (though one may be present). It'd take twenty years to get to market, sure, but hey that's progress.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  Getting it to airline-level safety will take at least that much, unless they start flying multiple times a day without any anomalies whatsoever.
njarboe 3y ago
I think there is a pretty large market for a trip to space and an hour flight from LA to New Zealand, New York-Sydney, London-Shanghai, etc. for $10-20k. What an amazing combination that would be.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  Add a couple hours for the trip between town and pad, security and so on. Still it's 3-4 hours.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    I don't think there are many cities that have suitable launch sites near them. It's unlikely they'll ever get approval to launch over populated areas, or even from most populated coastal locations. Also, the issue of getting boosters to all of these destinations seems like a problem. Planes don't split in two and have half return to the launch site but Starships do. So you could land the upper stage in Tokyo, but then what? How do you get a booster there for the return journey? Personally I doubt they'll even use these to bring people to orbit anytime soon. I think they're purpose built for launching massive LEO constellations.
    - njarboe 3y ago
      Off shore platforms. Most large cities are on or near an ocean or large lake.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      Yeah the short term approach for crewed Starship seems likely to involve transporting crew to a Starship once it is already in orbit and vice versa for return.
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      You'd probably have to launch from international waters, after taking a boat/helicopter. >Also, the issue of getting boosters to all of these destinations seems like a problem You launch them, presumably.
      - snypher 3y ago
        You're not truly wealthy until you have boosters staged at your vacation homes.
      - 3y ago
AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
Half the point of special forces is to be covert, which is made hard when your transportation is a giant rocket streaking through the suborbital zone.
- Sanzig 3y ago
  But imagine the PsyOps impact of the enemy looking up and seeing the US raining down literal ODSTs on them ;) Realistically, they'd be dropping into an allied base in-theatre with a pad able to support a Starship landing, and then taking conventional means the rest of the way. Of course, I suspect that when it comes to "drop operators from space" vs. "train extra operators who can be forward deployed," the latter is probably going to be way more cost efficient. Would make for a cool movie though.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    Imagine how much of a sitting duck is a rocket glowing infrared on a ballistic trajectory to the landing site.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - zardo 3y ago
      Like an aircraft carrier, good at projecting power below a certain threshold of conflict and capability where they turn into a liability.
PBnFlash 3y ago
Worth noting that flying to the equator can provide a pretty significant increase of payload mass. Just a quick layover to orbit.
TMWNN 3y ago
>Concorde's commercial failure I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. I know reentering spacecraft cause sonic booms but thought that they occur high enough to not cause the same problems on the ground.
- pests 3y ago
  Not just a boom or booms, a continuous boom along its travel.
- lmm 3y ago
  > I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. Or, if you're more cynical, because the US' own supersonic airliner failed and they wouldn't let those Euros show them up.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    The American SST was cancelled because of the sonic boom problem.
    - lmm 3y ago
      It was cancelled because Boeing were late and over budget; by the time they started work on a prototype, Concorde was already being shown at airshows, and the US Senate voted to stop throwing more money at them. Sonic booms were at most one contributing factor among many to that senate vote.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        Concorde was also late and over budget. And until Congress defunded the 2707, it had more pending orders from more airlines than Concorde did. Sonic booms weren’t the only reason for the cancellation but they were probably the single biggest reason. Also, Concorde wasn’t even the first supersonic airliner—that was the Tupolev Tu-144.
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
sub-orbital military applications would be risky as they'd look like an ICBM launch to other nuclear powers. Commercial rockets depend on advance public disclosure of launch dates to stave off WW3 from itchy trigger fingers.

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Maybe. The fundamental physics involved in suborbital flights mean that you are likely experiencing sustained acceleration of 3+ Gs minimum. That is a lot, something near the max g force of a roller coaster but lasting for minutes. Combine that with the launch/landing zones needing to be many miles from anything, and it isn't really ready for primetime. Just for reference 1.3 Gs is the max sustained load you will feel in a regular airliner, very rarely 1.5 Gs for terrain avoidance. For cargo, maybe medical stuff like moving organ donations around, but largely I can't imagine a ton of use cases where getting something to an antipode in 3 or 4 hours is that much more valuable than getting it there in 19 hours. Then again, maybe I lack imagination.

philwelch 3y ago
So not only do I get there hours sooner, but the ride itself is more fun?
ghufran_syed 3y ago
If you’re a military unit about to get wiped out by an enemy force due to running out of ammo, I imagine getting 100 tons of ammo in 1 hour vs in 19 hours would be a big difference?
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  The scenario where you have access to a space launch system, and an LZ at the front, and abundant supplies on the opposite side of the earth, but your logistics have failed to keep supplies in theater doesn't exist. Forces that run out of ammo don't have access to cutting edge ICBMs is a rule that I would bet money on.