|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Why we need a fast courier rocket service
In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote: The problem is considerably reduced for rockets because of their very short transit time. In particular, that makes it feasible to have a small vehicle that makes ten trips a day, rather than a big one which can only make one trip a day... What about the airspace? I assume that the rockets will launch and land near large cities, but large cities have multiple airports and restricted airspace and air traffic. If the rocket is flying city pairs, not hub and spoke, there's going to be a lot of rocket launches and landings at ten trips a day between city pairs. It's going to mean real changes to airspace allocation and traffic control. Even less-frequent rocket traffic is going to require changes to the latter, because (like really-high-performance aircraft) rockets can't just wait around for a few minutes while ATC sorts out some snafu -- if they are coming in for a 3:47 landing, they're going to land *at 3:47* and ATC will have to be organized to accommodate that. If you adopt my favorite approach -- VTVL -- then one obvious option is to have vertical columns of reserved airspace, off limits to winged traffic, extending from ground level up to the top of winged-vehicle airspace. (The columns don't need to be all that wide: a rocket can't dawdle around in mid-air for a few minutes to shuffle sideways, so it's going to have to be capable of aiming pretty precisely at its landing point quite early in descent, and it can aim at the top of the column instead. Similarly, traffic control within a column will not be a big deal, because whether going up or down, a rocket traverses the full height of the column pretty quickly.) This completely separates rocket traffic from airplane traffic, except in emergencies. -- MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! | |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Is there a market for fast legal documents?
No. Lawyers get paid by the hour.
-- Alan Erskine alanerskine(at)optusnet.com.au Did John Howard lie to the Australian people? "Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message ... |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Why we need a fast courier rocket service
"Bruce Hoult" wrote in message ... In article , "Dave O'Neill" dave @ NOSPAM atomicrazor . com wrote: There's also a huge logistics problem associated with next day air freight which I don't think rockets will help. My brother used to be a logistics manager for the air freight business of a large courier and they had real problems making money with it. The issue being if you have next day contracts signed and your aircraft is at its capacity, you have to take a choice whether or not you miss the delivery or you fly a nearly empty jet. I don't understand. Surely if the plane is full and you have next-day stuff on hand then you bump off some of the stuff that *isn't* next day? My brother worked for the next day business, so the jet fleet only handled next day packages. They had hubs all over Europe and low noise jets so they could fly and ship at night. And if everything on the plane is next-day, and you have more next-day stuff on hand ... well, you *do* charge twice as much for next-day as for lower priority, right? So, either you're not making any money when you fill a plane with low priority stuff, or else you're making so much off an entire plane filled with next-day that you don't *care* if you have to put on another plane. And don't you have lower priority stuff you can put in there too? Not in most business models. If you have a contract to deliver next day, that's what you have to do. If you miss, and, for example, it was a document that had to be at a location by a certain day, you can find you've not just lost a customer but also taken a huge insurance hit. Often, you'd have jets with 20,000kg loads flying with a few kg's in the them, which is why these services are marginal at best. As my brother said, if we could figure out how to make even a 1% margin we'd all be happy. Bear in mind this was a $3bn turnover business. |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Why we need a fast courier rocket service
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message ... In article , Dave O'Neill dave @ NOSPAM atomicrazor . com wrote: I can see the same problems with rockets, either you fly it nearly empty a lot or spend time waiting to make it viable. The problem is considerably reduced for rockets because of their very short transit time. In particular, that makes it feasible to have a small vehicle that makes ten trips a day, rather than a big one which can only make one trip a day. Having to add an eleventh trip is much less costly than having to add a second one. If the rocket can work to those performance issues it could work. But given the charges you need to charge, I'm not sure how the logisitics can be made to work. I'm sure its not impossible, just far from trivial. |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Why we need a fast courier rocket service
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote ...
"John Ordover" wrote: Which explains why we use racing cars to carry packages rather than trucks. Sorry, shooting small things a lot of times is a whole lot more expensive and inefficient then sending one large thing. Can you imagine the fuel cost in the scenario you suggest? The wear-and-tear costs? The costs of having refueling avaiible all over the place? Won't work. Here's a big clue for you John, there ain't no speed limits above the atmosphere. Tell that to the Time-Space Police. I've never yet been able to clock 1.1c without being pulled over. |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
Is there a market for fast legal documents?
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote in message ...
Hello, One thing I know occurs in cities is the fast shipment of legal documents by bike couriers. For reasons I am not clear on there is a market for moving papers back and forth by bike couriers as they are faster than cars in the downtown area. It's not just legal papers - it's a lot of things that are time-sensitive or that people would like to rush. But To answer your question below, it comes down to the price of a same-day service (which is -already- availible from fedex to most metropolitan areas) by rocket plane vs. regular plane. |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
Is there a market for fast legal documents?
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...
"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote: Hello, One thing I know occurs in cities is the fast shipment of legal documents by bike couriers. For reasons I am not clear on there is a market for moving papers back and forth by bike couriers as they are faster than cars in the downtown area. Is this only in the city core or could this be extented to other cities if there was a fast transfer service (ie rockets).? You have to consider not just legal documents that the parties involved in are agreeing to, but also legal documents for which the parties are not the primary parties (if that makes sense, gee, any more of this and I could be a lawyer myself). For example, if I wanted to sign a contract with someone else on the other side of the world, I'd have the option (depending on the legalities in both locations) of doing it by fax or electronically in some fashion, so if I needed speed I'd just do that. But, if I and another person have important business involving a preexisting legal document (such as a contract, a check, an affidavit, etc.) then it might be necessary to move the physical object, especially if it is needed as evidence. Personally, I don't see that as much of a business because the options needed for speed (photocopying, faxing, etc.) have already been developed and become, mostly, accepted as usable standins for the originals. Exactly. |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
Why we need a fast courier rocket service
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...
"John Ordover" wrote: Which explains why we use racing cars to carry packages rather than trucks. Sorry, shooting small things a lot of times is a whole lot more expensive and inefficient then sending one large thing. Can you imagine the fuel cost in the scenario you suggest? The wear-and-tear costs? The costs of having refueling avaiible all over the place? Won't work. Here's a big clue for you John, there ain't no speed limits above the atmosphere. Sure there are. Come back in at the wrong speed and you'll burn up. So unless you want to burn fuel to kill your velocity, which would increase your weight, lower your range and profits, etc., you have to stay below the burn-up speed. Remember, there's also no -friction- above the atmosphere to slow you down. |
#19
|
|||
|
|||
Why we need a fast courier rocket service
"Alan Anderson" wrote in message ... "Paul Blay" wrote: Here's a big clue for you John, there ain't no speed limits above the atmosphere. Tell that to the Time-Space Police. I've never yet been able to clock 1.1c without being pulled over. Alcubierre's warp drive could do it. But the Causality Police won't let me have the negative mass I need to fill mine up! |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Successful test leads way for safer Shuttle solid rocket motor | Jacques van Oene | Space Shuttle | 0 | June 11th 04 03:50 PM |
Private Rocket SpaceShipOne Makes Third Rocket-Powered Flight | Rusty B | Space Shuttle | 10 | May 16th 04 02:39 AM |
Aldrin says we need a larger rocket | bob haller | Space Shuttle | 15 | March 30th 04 01:54 PM |
Rockets not carrying fuel. | Robert Clark | Technology | 3 | August 7th 03 01:22 PM |
Rocket Science Equation Problems | rlv_maker | Technology | 1 | July 11th 03 03:05 AM |