4 ms·

The first reason is "because terrorism". It's difficult to keep reading, because the logic the author follows does not fit with the title or point the author's

by cryptoz 12y ago

The first reason is "because terrorism". It's difficult to keep reading, because the logic the author follows does not fit with the title or point the author's trying to make. This is a largely list of reasons why sub-orbital airliners aren't already common; it's got baseline assumptions that technology will not rapidly improve, that airports will not innovate, that passenger demand is static, etc. I don't understand the conclusion, given the points. It's a very pessimistic essay about the future, where all air travel is horrible and nobody will want to fly. I don't buy it.

maxerickson 12y ago
I disagree with your take. It says people will either take semi private jets or pay for more room on jumbo jets before they spend money going faster. It's posited that the private jet people derive greater convenience than they would get from going suborbital. The thing with rockets and jets and the like is that they aren't going to rapidly improve, they are fundamentally limited by chemistry and simple hydrocarbons are incredibly energy dense.
Shivetya 12y ago
I don't see the need for them regardless, as the their tech improves so will tech all areas. How much business travel is that require such service? Cannot many transactions be done via teleconferencing? Even product demos, physical interactivity requirements and such will be solved for remote customers long before hypersonic passenger planes. Then comes down to the other point, who does most of the traveling anyway? Those with the money and the time to do so. Hence why I would scoff as much at the LA to SF bullet trains as at hypersonic passenger planes. Neither will be cheap enough for the average person to just hop on and the average person probably doesn't have all that free time not already assigned out to use them. Getting somewhere faster is meaningless when you don't have the time to be there. As for the terrorism angle, until you remove the ability to pilot the vehicle on board it always a possibility, more hollywood than fact though
- mpeg 12y ago
  Telepresence technology is already pretty good, and I don't think it's going to replace in-person presentations. I spend most of my time in meetings or calls and there is always a certain awkwardness that comes with not being in the same room, people are a lot less warm and you lose the little interactions that make us relate to each other. On the other hand, I hate spending weeks in-between airports, and any kind of technology initiatives that improve long-distance travel sound great to me. There's definitely a market for this.
markbnj 12y ago
That was my reaction as well. I was all set up for a scientific objection, and then... 9/11! He does make an economic point about costs, but that's hardly definitive. Just because it will be hugely expensive to travel from London to Sydney in 3 hours doesn't mean nobody will want to travel from London to Sydney in 3 hours. It was hugely expensive to cross the Atlantic or Pacific by air back when that mode of travel began to supplant the ocean liner, and yet, here we are.
Argorak 12y ago
No, the reason is "security considerations" impacting locality. The main point is locality.
DennisP 12y ago
I'm having a hard time seeing how suborbitals would be any better for terrorists. It's only going so fast and high when it's in the earlier stages of the flight, and at that point it'll be computer-controlled just like any orbital rocket. Maybe as it comes in to land it'll be controlled by a pilot on board, but by then it's going a lot slower. It also won't have the large tanks full of fuel that made the 9/11 impacts so damaging.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  > Maybe as it comes in to land it'll be controlled by a pilot on board, but by then it's going a lot slower. Are you sure about that? Landing from orbit consists mostly of deceleration. If you manage to skip that, it's as dangerous as a meteorite. Fuel tanks are not needed when you have sheer kinetic energy.
  - kenrikm 12y ago
    Deceleration is going to happen regardless since you're coming down from much thinner air. The plane would most likely rip apart long before hitting said target, Mach 5 at Sea level does not do good things to airframes.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
      So all possible descent speeds are either 1) slow enough to be relatively safe or 2) fast enough to cause disintegration of a craft designed for atmosphere re-entry. I have no aerospace knowledge, so in the absence of anyone doing the maths, I'm going to go with "maybe so, maybe not".
- falcor84 12y ago
  Let's hope that there always remains a manual override option, since a suborbital could become an incredibly potent cyberterrorism vector.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
There are a lot of basic mistakes. 1. Concorde was on the verge of being replaced by a more efficient Model B version, which was quieter and cheaper to run. That was on the drawing board in the 1970s. Model C, D, E versions would have been cheaper and even more cost effective. 2. Concorde was actually killed by anticompetitive US politics. The story is too complex to detail here, but it's not a mystery in the aerospace biz. 3. If Stross thinks bizjets kill airliners, what's to stop the development of a hypersonic bizjet to give buyers the best of all possible worlds, and also provide the ultimate status symbol for those who care about such things? 4. Trrrrism? This part can be ignored, because the argument is silly. 5. Energy cost remains an issue. But if you're in the (literally) stratospheric biz set, you're not going to care about that. 6. Telepresence may kill some of the market, because I'm guessing 15 years from now it's going to be impressively immersive. But for some applications, including highly secure negotiations and ultra-speedy courier services, there's still no substitute for being there. So in fact there's a perfectly viable, if innovative, business case, and the technology is looking at least potentially feasible. I wouldn't be surprised to see these services running before 2030.
- cjcartlidge 12y ago
  "Concorde was actually killed by anticompetitive US politics." --> Any recommended reading for this?
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    It's not exactly a fact. In my view Concorde was killed by a 'perfect storm': changing market conditions, 9/11, that terrible crash in Paris. Together those three were what caused the towel to be thrown into the ring. Every time I visit Paris and I see it impaled on its stand it reminds me of a butterfly or something trying to escape. Such a sad image.
    - masklinn 12y ago
      > It's not exactly a fact. Yeah, congress only banned SSTs and supersonic civilian flight right as concorde came online, that can't have had any impact on it.
simonebrunozzi 12y ago
Air travel is already terrible. No real improvement in the last 40 years. Flight times have actually increased (to save on fuel), and airlines are playing the trick of "let's make posted flight times longer than needed, so most of our flights we'll land in time".
- Someone1234 12y ago
  > the trick of "let's make posted flight times longer than needed, so most of our flights we'll land in time". I might be alone, but I like that policy. First off flight times are gate to gate (not airport to airport) so while the flight time is known and quantifiable there are a great many "ground issues" which are not. For example, the gate's motor malfunctions, push-back is delayed (while they "manually" move the gate back), and the aircraft misses its take-off slot. The nice part about building in 10 minutes extra is that worst case scenario you arrive EARLY and you have to kick around for 10 minutes. Best case, you arrive on the stated time and your expectations are met. Regardless this seems win/win. They're better meeting or exceeding your expectations more of the time, and the only cost is that you aren't able to min/max your travel quite to the same extent (e.g. build in even shorter transfers between flights). Currently the minimum authorised transfer window is around 30 minutes for most airlines. While at some airports 30 minutes is fine (Dallas) at others it is terrible (Chicago). Arriving on time in the latter type of airports is a "must" if you want to make your second flight at all.
venomsnake 12y ago
I read between the lines and since Mr Stross is lurking here from time could probably confirm or refute me, but I read it - "Not due to real concern, but to comply with the security theater that we put post 9/11 and to calm down the "TV pundit" crazies"
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
I did read this, and the article is nothing of the sort. He assumes that technologically it will be practical, perhaps to a point that it's comparable to existing prices for high-end seats on a plane. Even so, he points out that the security risks mean that it will never happen from existing airports, and that any time saved on suborbital flight will be used up taking the train back to the major city. He gives a real-world example of the Concorde intercontinental routes being ditched... they didn't make enough money. Rich people who can afford this want to go to LA and New York and Paris. Not New Mexico, rural Maine, and Scotland. > It's a very pessimistic essay about the future, where all air travel is horrible and nobody will want to fly. I don't buy it. Have you flown recently?
peterevans 12y ago
Doesn't take much to put you off an idea, does it? You do realize that quite a bit of the security measures one takes to undergo travel by air is "because terrorism", right? And that's also why they scramble jets at the first sign of oddity? Countries have rules that planes must follow if they want to fly in their airspace, and many of them have consequences if those rules are not followed. I can see that being an inconvenience to some, but c'est la vie.

by cryptoz 12y ago

maxerickson 12y ago

I disagree with your take. It says people will either take semi private jets or pay for more room on jumbo jets before they spend money going faster. It's posited that the private jet people derive greater convenience than they would get from going suborbital. The thing with rockets and jets and the like is that they aren't going to rapidly improve, they are fundamentally limited by chemistry and simple hydrocarbons are incredibly energy dense.

Shivetya 12y ago

I don't see the need for them regardless, as the their tech improves so will tech all areas. How much business travel is that require such service? Cannot many transactions be done via teleconferencing? Even product demos, physical interactivity requirements and such will be solved for remote customers long before hypersonic passenger planes. Then comes down to the other point, who does most of the traveling anyway? Those with the money and the time to do so. Hence why I would scoff as much at the LA to SF bullet trains as at hypersonic passenger planes. Neither will be cheap enough for the average person to just hop on and the average person probably doesn't have all that free time not already assigned out to use them. Getting somewhere faster is meaningless when you don't have the time to be there. As for the terrorism angle, until you remove the ability to pilot the vehicle on board it always a possibility, more hollywood than fact though

mpeg 12y ago
Telepresence technology is already pretty good, and I don't think it's going to replace in-person presentations. I spend most of my time in meetings or calls and there is always a certain awkwardness that comes with not being in the same room, people are a lot less warm and you lose the little interactions that make us relate to each other. On the other hand, I hate spending weeks in-between airports, and any kind of technology initiatives that improve long-distance travel sound great to me. There's definitely a market for this.

markbnj 12y ago

That was my reaction as well. I was all set up for a scientific objection, and then... 9/11! He does make an economic point about costs, but that's hardly definitive. Just because it will be hugely expensive to travel from London to Sydney in 3 hours doesn't mean nobody will want to travel from London to Sydney in 3 hours. It was hugely expensive to cross the Atlantic or Pacific by air back when that mode of travel began to supplant the ocean liner, and yet, here we are.

Argorak 12y ago

No, the reason is "security considerations" impacting locality. The main point is locality.

DennisP 12y ago

I'm having a hard time seeing how suborbitals would be any better for terrorists. It's only going so fast and high when it's in the earlier stages of the flight, and at that point it'll be computer-controlled just like any orbital rocket. Maybe as it comes in to land it'll be controlled by a pilot on board, but by then it's going a lot slower. It also won't have the large tanks full of fuel that made the 9/11 impacts so damaging.

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
> Maybe as it comes in to land it'll be controlled by a pilot on board, but by then it's going a lot slower. Are you sure about that? Landing from orbit consists mostly of deceleration. If you manage to skip that, it's as dangerous as a meteorite. Fuel tanks are not needed when you have sheer kinetic energy.
- kenrikm 12y ago
  Deceleration is going to happen regardless since you're coming down from much thinner air. The plane would most likely rip apart long before hitting said target, Mach 5 at Sea level does not do good things to airframes.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
    So all possible descent speeds are either 1) slow enough to be relatively safe or 2) fast enough to cause disintegration of a craft designed for atmosphere re-entry. I have no aerospace knowledge, so in the absence of anyone doing the maths, I'm going to go with "maybe so, maybe not".
falcor84 12y ago
Let's hope that there always remains a manual override option, since a suborbital could become an incredibly potent cyberterrorism vector.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

There are a lot of basic mistakes. 1. Concorde was on the verge of being replaced by a more efficient Model B version, which was quieter and cheaper to run. That was on the drawing board in the 1970s. Model C, D, E versions would have been cheaper and even more cost effective. 2. Concorde was actually killed by anticompetitive US politics. The story is too complex to detail here, but it's not a mystery in the aerospace biz. 3. If Stross thinks bizjets kill airliners, what's to stop the development of a hypersonic bizjet to give buyers the best of all possible worlds, and also provide the ultimate status symbol for those who care about such things? 4. Trrrrism? This part can be ignored, because the argument is silly. 5. Energy cost remains an issue. But if you're in the (literally) stratospheric biz set, you're not going to care about that. 6. Telepresence may kill some of the market, because I'm guessing 15 years from now it's going to be impressively immersive. But for some applications, including highly secure negotiations and ultra-speedy courier services, there's still no substitute for being there. So in fact there's a perfectly viable, if innovative, business case, and the technology is looking at least potentially feasible. I wouldn't be surprised to see these services running before 2030.

cjcartlidge 12y ago
"Concorde was actually killed by anticompetitive US politics." --> Any recommended reading for this?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  It's not exactly a fact. In my view Concorde was killed by a 'perfect storm': changing market conditions, 9/11, that terrible crash in Paris. Together those three were what caused the towel to be thrown into the ring. Every time I visit Paris and I see it impaled on its stand it reminds me of a butterfly or something trying to escape. Such a sad image.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > It's not exactly a fact. Yeah, congress only banned SSTs and supersonic civilian flight right as concorde came online, that can't have had any impact on it.

simonebrunozzi 12y ago

Air travel is already terrible. No real improvement in the last 40 years. Flight times have actually increased (to save on fuel), and airlines are playing the trick of "let's make posted flight times longer than needed, so most of our flights we'll land in time".

Someone1234 12y ago
> the trick of "let's make posted flight times longer than needed, so most of our flights we'll land in time". I might be alone, but I like that policy. First off flight times are gate to gate (not airport to airport) so while the flight time is known and quantifiable there are a great many "ground issues" which are not. For example, the gate's motor malfunctions, push-back is delayed (while they "manually" move the gate back), and the aircraft misses its take-off slot. The nice part about building in 10 minutes extra is that worst case scenario you arrive EARLY and you have to kick around for 10 minutes. Best case, you arrive on the stated time and your expectations are met. Regardless this seems win/win. They're better meeting or exceeding your expectations more of the time, and the only cost is that you aren't able to min/max your travel quite to the same extent (e.g. build in even shorter transfers between flights). Currently the minimum authorised transfer window is around 30 minutes for most airlines. While at some airports 30 minutes is fine (Dallas) at others it is terrible (Chicago). Arriving on time in the latter type of airports is a "must" if you want to make your second flight at all.

venomsnake 12y ago

I read between the lines and since Mr Stross is lurking here from time could probably confirm or refute me, but I read it - "Not due to real concern, but to comply with the security theater that we put post 9/11 and to calm down the "TV pundit" crazies"

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

I did read this, and the article is nothing of the sort. He assumes that technologically it will be practical, perhaps to a point that it's comparable to existing prices for high-end seats on a plane. Even so, he points out that the security risks mean that it will never happen from existing airports, and that any time saved on suborbital flight will be used up taking the train back to the major city. He gives a real-world example of the Concorde intercontinental routes being ditched... they didn't make enough money. Rich people who can afford this want to go to LA and New York and Paris. Not New Mexico, rural Maine, and Scotland. > It's a very pessimistic essay about the future, where all air travel is horrible and nobody will want to fly. I don't buy it. Have you flown recently?

peterevans 12y ago

Doesn't take much to put you off an idea, does it? You do realize that quite a bit of the security measures one takes to undergo travel by air is "because terrorism", right? And that's also why they scramble jets at the first sign of oddity? Countries have rules that planes must follow if they want to fly in their airspace, and many of them have consequences if those rules are not followed. I can see that being an inconvenience to some, but c'est la vie.