Why we need passenger rockets

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

Just two minutes ago I was watching the news. They were talking
about new suites/small cabins that will be available for
extended trip travelers. The suite comes with a one person bed,
computer(e-mail ofcourse), small library, and room service.
Costs $5,000 to $9,000 per trip. Why this service? One to
increase sales ofcourse but the other reason is that some trips
still take 13 hours to fly. This is what business people are
willing to pay to arrive well rested and ready to do business.

Unfortunately, it can be argued that a fast trip is even *worse* in
regards to being "well rested and ready to do business". The faster
the trip, the longer it takes to recover from jet lag. So one does
not gain as much from quick trips as one might expect.

Of course, jet lag wouldn't be an issue for north-south travel but
unfortunately the bulk of wealthy humanity is strung out east-west in
the northern temperate zone.

Jim Davis

"Jim Davis" wrote in message
. 1.4...
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

Just two minutes ago I was watching the news. They were talking
about new suites/small cabins that will be available for
extended trip travelers. The suite comes with a one person bed,
computer(e-mail ofcourse), small library, and room service.
Costs $5,000 to $9,000 per trip. Why this service? One to
increase sales ofcourse but the other reason is that some trips
still take 13 hours to fly. This is what business people are
willing to pay to arrive well rested and ready to do business.

Unfortunately, it can be argued that a fast trip is even *worse* in
regards to being "well rested and ready to do business". The faster
the trip, the longer it takes to recover from jet lag. So one does
not gain as much from quick trips as one might expect.

There's a point there where some trips become doable as a day trip. Leave
your home at 7:00 AM, fly 10 timezones away, have a "dinner" meeting, fly
home by 3:00 PM your time.



Of course, jet lag wouldn't be an issue for north-south travel but
unfortunately the bulk of wealthy humanity is strung out east-west in
the northern temperate zone.

Jim Davis

Jim Davis wrote in message .1.4...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Unfortunately, it can be argued that a fast trip is even
*worse* in regards to being "well rested and ready to do
business". The faster the trip, the longer it takes to recover
from jet lag. So one does not gain as much from quick trips as
one might expect.

There's a point there where some trips become doable as a day
trip. Leave your home at 7:00 AM, fly 10 timezones away, have a
"dinner" meeting, fly home by 3:00 PM your time.

Definitely. But on the other hand the less time one has to spend at
the destination the harder the trip is to justify in the first place.

At some point the Law of Diminishing Returns will set in; faster
flight times will offer no overall benefit. It has been argued
(persuasively if not conclusively in my opinion) that we are already
at that point. Any step up in speed will be a huge risk - unless
there is another large market like LEO that can be served as well.
Unfortunately, the LEO market is currently microscopic compared to
terrestrial air travel.

Jim Davis

If business people weren't willing to pay ten times the going rate to
cut the trip from NYC to London in half, why would they pay a lot more
to cut it down further? Besides - once again, the time from the
airport into town on each side won't be cut by faster travel.

On 22 Jul 2003 04:44:05 -0700, (John Ordover) wrote:

If business people weren't willing to pay ten times the going rate to
cut the trip from NYC to London in half, why would they pay a lot more
to cut it down further? Besides - once again, the time from the
airport into town on each side won't be cut by faster travel.

....And that, I think, is what will continue to kill passenger rocket
travel far more decisively than anything else. If it still takes an
hour to get from the office to the spaceport, then the reverse at the
destination end, that's two hours still lost and most beancounters
will automatically nuke the savings of 3-5 hours transcontinental even
if the cost is only double that of a jet airliner. "They can sit and
eat peanuts while we count beans, damn executives!"

The only thing that will get passenger rocket travel off the ground is
for point-to-point shuttling. Which means if that happens we'll all be
living in or near the Tracy homestead...


OM

--

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his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article , OM
om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote:

On 22 Jul 2003 04:44:05 -0700, (John Ordover) wrote:

If business people weren't willing to pay ten times the going rate to
cut the trip from NYC to London in half, why would they pay a lot more
to cut it down further? Besides - once again, the time from the
airport into town on each side won't be cut by faster travel.

...And that, I think, is what will continue to kill passenger rocket
travel far more decisively than anything else. If it still takes an
hour to get from the office to the spaceport, then the reverse at the
destination end, that's two hours still lost and most beancounters
will automatically nuke the savings of 3-5 hours transcontinental even
if the cost is only double that of a jet airliner. "They can sit and
eat peanuts while we count beans, damn executives!"

Actually, IMHO what will "continue to kill passenger rocket travel"--not
to mention supersonic air travel (farewell Concorde!)--is modern
telecommunications. Why travel ten time zones for a meeting when you have
the same meeting in the comfort of your office or boardroom using the
magic of teleconferencing?

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 23:44:29 -0000 (GMT), in a place far, far away,
"Craig Dunsville" made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Passenger rockets would be one hell of a good way to decrease the
surplus population, since they would probably be even less stable than
the "dependable" Challenger and Columbia.

Do you have some basis for that idiotic statement?

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

...And that, I think, is what will continue to kill passenger rocket
travel far more decisively than anything else. If it still takes an
hour to get from the office to the spaceport, then the reverse at the
destination end, that's two hours still lost and most beancounters
will automatically nuke the savings of 3-5 hours transcontinental even
if the cost is only double that of a jet airliner. "They can sit and
eat peanuts while we count beans, damn executives!"


Actually, IMHO what will "continue to kill passenger rocket travel"--not
to mention supersonic air travel (farewell Concorde!)--is modern
telecommunications. Why travel ten time zones for a meeting when you have
the same meeting in the comfort of your office or boardroom using the
magic of teleconferencing?


Why does everyone assume all international travelers are business travelers?

There are two primary markets for hypersonic travel

1) Very Wealthy people who need or want to actually travel. NY-Bangkok
takes 18 hours plus an hour each way to and from the airport. If they
are taking the spaceplane, a 100k for a roundtrip makes the idea of
taking a helicopter to the spaceport at $300 each way becomes reasonable.

2) Very Wealthy companies with time sensitive packages. 20k for a 10
pound package of unique bone marrow is quite reasonable when you
consider the alternative.