Will the investment flood happen?

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 03:15:01 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

True, but I considered that part of getting it there. The key thing to
note here is that not only the survival but the schedule is critical: a
substantial fraction of the things people ship by fast-package service are
things that *must* get there on schedule, on pain of dire consequences.
This will be especially true of a premium-priced extra-fast service. Such
a service cannot tolerate any significant number of non-trivial delays.

Exactly. One of the more amusing aftermaths of 11 Sept 01 was the
fuss about a bunch of election candidates whose filing paperwork had
been being send FedEx Next Day Air. All the aircraft were grounded,
of course, and the paperwork missed the filing deadline. Big uproar,
naturally. A one-time exemption was granted by the various state
authorities. No one had given any thought to the possibility that
FedEx might fail in putting their entire political future in FedEx's
hands, er, airplanes and trucks.

The chances that the reliability requirements can be met by an expendable
seem to me to be essentially zero. Thorough testability, and thus full
reusability, are simply part of the ground rules to have any hope of
qualifying a vehicle for this job. But the issues certainly go far beyond
merely being able to label the thing "reusable".

It will be interesting to watch the progress of such a service. It
may be able to re-create "those thrilling days of yesteryear" if one
of its vehicles misses Heathrow. We'll have to get the Meteors back
in service.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Turn to kill, not to engage." LCDR Willie Driscoll, USN

On Wed, 09 Jul 2003 22:26:40 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz"
wrote:

Mary Shafer wrote:

It's not just dispatch reliability but post-takeoff, pre-landing
reliability. It's rare that a FedEx or UPS airplane or truck has an
accident in transit, and if it happened often customers wouldn't use
their services. It doesn't take many "Destroyed in transit" notices
before folks stop shipping irreplaceable objects.

I received an item by FedEx once that was destroyed in transit.
It was replaceable, though -- a computer from HP. It arrived
in an anonymous brown cardboard box (clearly not the original),
with the shipping sticker on a separate square of cardboard that
was taped onto the box. The computer itself had a major dent --
the back of the case was bashed in, with the steel bottom pushed
forward about an inch. Fragments of electronics rattled around
inside. Something had clearly clobbered it at the bottom of
a conveyor ramp somewhere in the bowels of FedEx.

Well, it wasn't FedEx, but several of our canceled checks came back
scorched around the edges and stamped "Damaged in airplane accident"
once. The banks use check-transfer services that fly checks around
the country in small aircraft at night, so they'll clear faster.
Apparently, they have the occasional accident (this one was a hard
landing, as I recall).

And UPS once re-wrapped and re-boxed Christmas presents I'd sent to
Iowa and delivered them, with a note about a traffic accident
involving the truck somewhere in Kansas (I think).

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Turn to kill, not to engage." LCDR Willie Driscoll, USN

For the intercontinental runs, suborbital flight does gain enough time to
be really interesting. BUT...

Depends on where you're going, and what the condition of their ground
transportation is. The smaller the percentage of the travel time the
airflight is, the less it helps. What Fedex would really like is
special "fedex" lanes in major cities that only their trucks can drive
on. That won't happen, but it would be a lot more to their benefit
than suborbital flights.


It's rare that a FedEx or UPS airplane or truck has an
accident in transit

True about the airplanes, not about the trucks. Their trucks break
down and have accidents at about the same rate as other human-driven
vehicles. They are just ready for it happening, or for a driver
getting sick, and are prepared to send out a new truck to grab the
packages and keep going.



The chances that these constraints can be satisfied by a first-generation
reusable rocket are nearly zero. A second-generation system... perhaps.

I agree, entirely. However, reusability probably isn't the primary
issue in success or failure.

Problem is that the return on increasing speed isn't worth it for
fed-ex - I mean, it's not like they bought a fleet of Concordes to get
mail to the U.K. and France in half the flight time.

Henry Spencer wrote:
FedEx and similar companies have made considerable efforts to minimize
the ground overhead, with some success. That said, it remains
significant, and suborbital package delivery would be interesting
mostly for the real long-haul runs, mostly intercontinental.

I'm skeptical that it would be allowed. The US federal government
doesn't like planes within a half hour's flying time of DC. For
something going close to orbital speed, a half hour encompasses all
of the US, Canada, and Europe.
--
Keith F. Lynch - - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.

Keith F. Lynch wrote:
Henry Spencer wrote:
FedEx and similar companies have made considerable efforts to minimize
the ground overhead, with some success. That said, it remains
significant, and suborbital package delivery would be interesting
mostly for the real long-haul runs, mostly intercontinental.

I'm skeptical that it would be allowed. The US federal government
doesn't like planes within a half hour's flying time of DC. For
something going close to orbital speed, a half hour encompasses all
of the US, Canada, and Europe.

That's a somewhat silly concern; we launch almost all our
spacecraft out of somewhere much less than a half hour's
flight time for the rocket out from DC. The whole *country*
is less than a half hour's rocket flight from DC. Most of the
western hemisphere...

Besides, inbound ballistic cargo vehicles will have a limited
crossrange, and if the Secret Service and FAA declare that the
closest you can come to Washington DC is 1.5 x crossrange
then that will solve the problem nicely.


-george william herbert

(John Ordover) wrote in message om...
FEDEX would love a suborb
package deliverer,


I've heard this said over and over, but it's not true.

The time it takes to go from one airport to another is the least part
of the time it takes Fedex to deliver a package. You could reduce the
travel time from CA to NYC to zero and not make a significant impact
on the delivery time, which is depending on pick up, sorting, delivery
to the airport, sorting at the destination and then physical delivery.
That's even more true in places like Moscow, where on-the-ground
delivery is more complicated.

So you can forget Fed-Ex paying a lot of money to ship things
suborbitally.

You've lost me here! I know about same day delivery within the UK, but
according to your theory we should have same day delivery from the UK
to California and Australia. Can you tell me who does same day
delivery from the UK to California?

(George William Herbert) wrote


Obviously, when attempting to minimize travel time for a
point to point urgent package, placed on a rocket plane
for suborbital delivery etc, not only is it going to be
handled in the same priority manner as they already do with
things like transplant organs, but will also have a delivery
vehicle or vehicles and team ready to go on the far end,
as soon as the rocket touches down. If necessary, helicopters
standing ready to fly from acceptable rocket landing areas
to as close as possible to get with a helicopter, and then
ground vehicles all fueled up and ready to go with the
maps and traffic reports all pre-checked. Multiple ground
vehicles in case the first one breaks down, etc.
For urgent enough packages, a police escort through traffic
lined up.

How close do things get to that model today? Are there
companies that provide such ultra-rush deliveries using
business jets rather than rocket planes? I find some that
offer same-day-in-US/CA, next-commercial-flight-out service,
but that seems a step down from really pulling out all the
stops.

Allen Thomson wrote:
(George William Herbert) wrote
Obviously, when attempting to minimize travel time for a
point to point urgent package, placed on a rocket plane
for suborbital delivery etc, not only is it going to be
handled in the same priority manner as they already do with
things like transplant organs, but will also have a delivery
vehicle or vehicles and team ready to go on the far end,
as soon as the rocket touches down. If necessary, helicopters
standing ready to fly from acceptable rocket landing areas
to as close as possible to get with a helicopter, and then
ground vehicles all fueled up and ready to go with the
maps and traffic reports all pre-checked. Multiple ground
vehicles in case the first one breaks down, etc.
For urgent enough packages, a police escort through traffic
lined up.

How close do things get to that model today? Are there
companies that provide such ultra-rush deliveries using
business jets rather than rocket planes? I find some that
offer same-day-in-US/CA, next-commercial-flight-out service,
but that seems a step down from really pulling out all the
stops.

There isn't much overall speed improvement to be
found over next-commercial-flight-out service,
so no, nobody really offers a routine service of pulling
all the stops out.

You really have to save the 5 hours of plane flight for
saving the hour in transit at the far end to be worth
anything much as a service. But I have read about numerous
instances of airplane parts, chip fab plant parts, and
other miscellania being shipped on a bizjet or commercial
transport next-out with all the bells and whistles set
up on a one-off special deal araingement for a customer
whose factory was losing a million dollars an hour
of downtime and such.


-george william herbert

pamsuX (Allen Meece) wrote in message ...
Or do you think most
investors will wait until the X-Prize competitors actually start turning
profits?
Investors won't be watching for profits, too many variables go into the
profit equation.
They'll be watching for proof of suborb systems reliability. Then they can
apply their own expertise toward the profit scenario. FEDEX would love a suborb
package deliverer, something quite different from suborb tourism.
All it'll take is a reliable system and then the suborb investment dam will
break.

Actually, if the dotcom bubble is any indication, they'll be looking
first and foremost for the "exit strategy". Ie, once space companies
can consistently move from startup to IPO or profitable merger, then
the venture capital will pour in.


Karl Hallowell

Richard Schumacher wrote:

Henry Spencer wrote:

It might be easier to do this than it is with aircraft, because it
won't be necessary to forecast the weather at the destination so far
ahead, as is the case for slower aircraft.

True, you can just hold the takeoff half an hour to wait for that
thunderstorm to leave the airport at the other end. On the other hand, if
if it's pouring down rain and shows no signs of stopping -- bearing in
mind that in Northern Europe, one major terminus for intercontinental
runs, this is far from rare :-) -- you have to be able to fly through it.

A vertical-takeoff vertical-landing rocket ought to be less susceptible to
weather than any airplane, true? It doesn't rely on aerodynamic lift (except
perhaps very early in the re-entry, when it will be miles above the weather
anyway), so there's none of that nonsense about crosswinds or icing.

As we've seen with Apollo 12, there could be issues with cloud
electrical potentials, though. If the exhaust trail enhances
conductivity to ground, it's a path almost directly there, as opposed to
an HTO that may ascend into the clouds at a shallower angle.

Understand, I think VTVL is the way to go in most cases (espically at
very large payloads) but this has to be considered.