On Apr 5, 9:32*am, Robert Clark wrote:
Another suborbital, tourism rocket plane based on a business jet
model:
Bristol Spaceplanes - Ascender.http://www.bristolspaceplanes.com/pr...ascender.shtml
There have been several studies showing just for tourism there would
be a sufficient market for such suborbital flights to be profitable. I
have to think there would be a bigger market for cases where the
traveler would actually want to go somewhere and this method could get
him there in 1/10th the time.
As a point of comparison I did a search on the Japan Airlines site for
round trip business class tickets from my town of Philadelphia to
Tokyo.
It ranged from $6,600 to $21,000:
================================================== =
* * Select Your Flights
* * Philadelphia to Tokyo Thursday, April 9, 2009
* * Tokyo to Philadelphia Tuesday, April 14, 2009
* * Travelers: 1
* * Travel class: Business and First
* * Select your fa Price differences within a fare type may be due
to flight connections or availability. Prices are per adult passenger
and include Taxes and Surcharges.
* * Fare type Fare description Lowest price
* * Business Saver Special Restricted. Bed-style seating on most long-
haul routes -
* * Executive Class. more details $6,672.48
* * Business Saver Restricted. Bed-style seating on most long-haul
routes -
* * Executive Class. more details $7,611.48
* * Business Normal Flexible. Bed-style seating on most long-haul
routes -
* * Executive Class. more details $12,330.48
* * First Normal Flexible. World-renowned service and comfort - First
Class.
* * more details $21,589.48
================================================== =
Note also, that the $200,000 ticket price mentioned for suborbital
flights on SpaceShipOne is only for the first few flights. After, a
few years the price is expected to come down to $20,000.
In their usual good reporting, the BBC discusses directly the safety
issues for these suborbital tourism flights:
Space ships: the next generation - Space Tourist- BBC Science &
Nature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ROk...eature=related
Bob Clark