4 ms·

London -> Sydney takes 22 hours and requires at least one stop. Sub-ortibals will take ~3 hours, saving what amounts to an entire waking day. For an executive m

by lxmorj 12y ago

London -> Sydney takes 22 hours and requires at least one stop. Sub-ortibals will take ~3 hours, saving what amounts to an entire waking day. For an executive making just $10M per year, that's $27k worth of time. Add the cost of First Class or private flight, and the total value of a sub-orbital flight will easily be worth $40k for a larger-than-you-think-it-is subset of the population.

khuey 12y ago
And what the article points out (once you get through the OMG 911!!! crap) is that that's a very small target market. And scheduled commercial air travel generally doesn't serve tiny markets well because the demand is highly variable.
- nine_k 12y ago
  Busy routes, like NYC - London - Tokyo, will likely have enough traffic for a couple flights daily. The jet probably would not have to be as large as a Concorde was to be profitable.
  - notahacker 12y ago
    If it's a couple of flights daily then you're waiting up to 12 hours to get on one, and suddenly the time saving doesn't look so spectacular. Getting the size right is a problem I'm glad I don't have, but best not to make it too small or have too few flights bearing in mind your dollar development costs will be measured in 10s of billions.
VLM 12y ago
"larger-than-you-think-it-is subset of the population." There were about 18000 returns filed with the IRS above that AGI in 2010 according to some google searches. Honestly I don't think there's enough people in the world at that income level to develop and sell. Its also based heavily on the cultural assumption that nothing can be accomplished while traveling. Its not like they're being sedated and put into restraints for all 22 hours of that flight. Its fairly telling about the mentality of the board in general that the only use "we" can discuss for a "magic people mover" is a plaything for the ultra-rich. Because god only knows, they don't have enough favorable treatment over us mere proles, and they don't have enough other playthings to toy with. Kind of like the military industrial complex sycophants can't think of any reason for a vehicle to exist other than to drop a bomb from it or mount a gun on it. Some slightly more socially acceptable ideas for a passenger suborbital would be "extreme medivac" where no matter where you are on the planet if you get horrifically sick you're at the CDC isolation ward in 3 hours, "instant medical supply delivery" when you really really need a donor organ across the planet in 3 hours, and "extreme blue collar" like ship both a special factory floor machine tool part and a technician from the plant to install it because many factory floors cost far more than $40K/day if they're shut down.

by lxmorj 12y ago

khuey 12y ago

And what the article points out (once you get through the OMG 911!!! crap) is that that's a very small target market. And scheduled commercial air travel generally doesn't serve tiny markets well because the demand is highly variable.

nine_k 12y ago
Busy routes, like NYC - London - Tokyo, will likely have enough traffic for a couple flights daily. The jet probably would not have to be as large as a Concorde was to be profitable.
- notahacker 12y ago
  If it's a couple of flights daily then you're waiting up to 12 hours to get on one, and suddenly the time saving doesn't look so spectacular. Getting the size right is a problem I'm glad I don't have, but best not to make it too small or have too few flights bearing in mind your dollar development costs will be measured in 10s of billions.

VLM 12y ago

"larger-than-you-think-it-is subset of the population." There were about 18000 returns filed with the IRS above that AGI in 2010 according to some google searches. Honestly I don't think there's enough people in the world at that income level to develop and sell. Its also based heavily on the cultural assumption that nothing can be accomplished while traveling. Its not like they're being sedated and put into restraints for all 22 hours of that flight. Its fairly telling about the mentality of the board in general that the only use "we" can discuss for a "magic people mover" is a plaything for the ultra-rich. Because god only knows, they don't have enough favorable treatment over us mere proles, and they don't have enough other playthings to toy with. Kind of like the military industrial complex sycophants can't think of any reason for a vehicle to exist other than to drop a bomb from it or mount a gun on it. Some slightly more socially acceptable ideas for a passenger suborbital would be "extreme medivac" where no matter where you are on the planet if you get horrifically sick you're at the CDC isolation ward in 3 hours, "instant medical supply delivery" when you really really need a donor organ across the planet in 3 hours, and "extreme blue collar" like ship both a special factory floor machine tool part and a technician from the plant to install it because many factory floors cost far more than $40K/day if they're shut down.