Why we need a fast courier rocket service

(John Ordover) :

What fast package delivery / sub-orbital delivery offers
is *much* faster delivery. Say we're considering delivery
across the continental US. Ground takes maybe a week.
Air takes a day or two, if you use a courier or special
delivery on the ground maybe within the day. Sub-orbital
would take less than a day and depending on pickup and
dropoff or the use of special ground units, could take only
a few hours.

Uh - Fedex routinely delivers overnight, and has same-day service
already (on the sender's end, you have to drop it off at the airport,
because the flight time isn't the problem, it's the ground-time and
sorting. If you go to the airport yourself and put it in the right
bin yourself, no problem getting it across the US the same day).

However, it does not give same day service from the US west coast to Toronto,
Canada. HP JIT shipping offers a fast routing of repair parts for an
additional fee. We have thousands of times received goods the following
morning after placing the order in the late afternoon this way, but if we
order in the morning we still have to wait to the following day.. Time to
order to delivery 16 hours or more. But even with our customers willing to
pay a upfront fee of hundreds of dollars we have not been able to get the
same day delivery that has been requested.

For our small computer store this happens atleast six to ten times a year.
There are alot of service stores in the Toronto area. This type of request
must be happening every day, if the faster service was available I know that
it would be used by the computer industry atleast.

A flight from CA to NYC -already- takes only a few hours, usually
around 5, plus or minus a little depending on weather, which way
you're going, etc. Paying a higher price to cut the five hours to
2.5, say, or even 2, cutting the delivery time from a same-day ten
hours to a same-day 8 hours, isn't likely to be worth it to anyone
often enough to make the advance in technology worth it.

But same day ten hours does not exist for most points in the US or Canada.
And the time cut is not 5 hours to 2.5 hours or 1 hour. It is less than 30
minutes! This means with rush handling of 1 hour at both ends I can order a
part and receive it in three hours time. That means I can go out check a
customer's machine, call in a parts order. Fix another customer machine. Do
lunch and get the first customer equipment running, giving him at least than
half a day's use.

If there are billions of dollars at stake because a factory is missing
a part, it's a simple matter to hire a high-speed private jet to get
you what you need. Heck, with that much money at stake, you can -buy-
a private jet.

When I worked at GM in the truck plant every hour down costed GM 1.5 million
dollars. If a rocket shipment saves even one hour over the jet you bet you
are going to use the rocket. Also note Union rules state that if all the
workers have been in the plant for even two hours they get a full day's pay
even if you have to shut down the plant, it is always in GM's interest to get
the plant running as soon as possible.

That is, in the end, the problem with the Concorde as well. There
simply weren't enough people who wanted to pay between 10 and 20 times
the fare just to cut three hours off a six hour flight.

Sorry, what was wrong with the Concorde was it was not allowed to fly
supersonic over land. So instead of doing a six hour flight in two hours or
less it made it in four hours, the time saving was not big enought. And you
keep leaving out the point that with rockets, that six hour flight now become
30 minutes, that is a big savings. It means having breakfast in NYC, doing
business and lunch in London/Paris, and being back in time for dinner. No
jet, not even the Concorde let you do that.

Earl Colby Pottinger

PS. Note: Advanced rockets will even do CA to London/Paris in 30 minutes too.

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

"G EddieA95" wrote in message
...
across the US the same day).

However, it does not give same day service from the US west coast to
Toronto,
Canada.

International will probably *always* be next-day service. The problem is
not
speed of transport, it's customs red tape.

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 can see the same problems with rockets, either you fly it nearly empty a
lot or spend time waiting to make it viable.

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?

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?

-- Bruce

In article ,
G EddieA95 wrote:
However, it does not give same day service from the US west coast to Toronto,
Canada.

International will probably *always* be next-day service. The problem is not
speed of transport, it's customs red tape.

Not with a well-tuned organization that puts real effort into streamlining
this. I've placed an order (via Internet) in early evening, to a supplier
in Michigan (J&L Industrial Supply -- tools and cutting bits), and been
woken up by the UPS man the next day. That's about 12hr service, and it
probably spent half of that time in transit.

Some smart outfits have figured out that if they really work at making the
delivery fast and painless, people will find it less hassle to deal with
them than to visit a local supplier.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

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.

(Mitch Burnside Clapp once pointed out that a 30-passenger rocket plane
with fast turnaround can carry the same number of passengers between LA
and Sydney every day as a 747... and might well be cost-competitive.)
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote in message ...
(John Ordover) :

What fast package delivery / sub-orbital delivery offers
is *much* faster delivery. Say we're considering delivery
across the continental US. Ground takes maybe a week.
Air takes a day or two, if you use a courier or special
delivery on the ground maybe within the day. Sub-orbital
would take less than a day and depending on pickup and
dropoff or the use of special ground units, could take only
a few hours.

Uh - Fedex routinely delivers overnight, and has same-day service
already (on the sender's end, you have to drop it off at the airport,
because the flight time isn't the problem, it's the ground-time and
sorting. If you go to the airport yourself and put it in the right
bin yourself, no problem getting it across the US the same day).

However, it does not give same day service from the US west coast to Toronto,
Canada. HP JIT shipping offers a fast routing of repair parts for an
additional fee. We have thousands of times received goods the following
morning after placing the order in the late afternoon this way, but if we
order in the morning we still have to wait to the following day.. Time to
order to delivery 16 hours or more. But even with our customers willing to
pay a upfront fee of hundreds of dollars we have not been able to get the
same day delivery that has been requested.

How much of that time is the flight time, compared to the time to
sort, pack and ship the item on each end?

For our small computer store this happens atleast six to ten times a year.
There are alot of service stores in the Toronto area. This type of request
must be happening every day, if the faster service was available I know that
it would be used by the computer industry atleast.




You think that if there isn't same-day service to your area by
conventional jet, that there will be by rocket? If there was enough
demand, you -would- have same-day fed-ex.

(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.

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.


(Mitch Burnside Clapp once pointed out that a 30-passenger rocket plane
with fast turnaround can carry the same number of passengers between LA
and Sydney every day as a 747... and might well be cost-competitive.)

But won't be built.

In article ,
(John Ordover) wrote:

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?

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?

-- Bruce

Let's say you run a next-day courier service, and you have a fleet of
jets that can handle 100 next day packages maxium. And let's say on a
given day, you have 105 next day packages to deliver. You're in the
next-day business, so you don't have lower priority packages.

So you're paying an amount equivalent to flying two planes at just
over 1/2 full. Your charges to the random customer have to take that
into account, which shoots the price skyward.

As I already discussed.

But what say you *do* lose a little money on those 105-package days.
You're still making out like a bandit on all the 95-package day, and I'd
expect it's far better to lose ocassionally then to **** off paying
customers and lose permanently.

-- Bruce

"G EddieA95" wrote:
across the US the same day).

However, it does not give same day service from the US west coast to Toronto,
Canada.

International will probably *always* be next-day service. The problem is not
speed of transport, it's customs red tape.

Customs can be highly expedited, even in these post-9/11 days.
Trucks cross the US-Canadian border routinely, and only spend
a short amount of time (minutes) stopped at the border.

In article ,
G EddieA95 wrote:
...I've placed an order (via Internet) in early evening, to a supplier
in Michigan (J&L Industrial Supply -- tools and cutting bits), and been
woken up by the UPS man the next day.

Still next-day, right? QED.

Not if you're watching from Australia -- an Aussie observer would have
seen the order placed around noon and delivered around midnight! It's
just that the weird North American it was being delivered to happened to
get some sleep in between. (Indeed, if I'd been on the sort of schedule I
sometimes kept in my bachelor days, I might well have placed the order not
too long after I woke up and received it just before going to bed.)

The point being that this order got delivered, *across the border*, in
about twelve hours, despite necessarily spending several of those hours in
transit (and probably a good bit of the rest waiting for vehicles to
arrive). No, a cross-border order *doesn't* have to be overnight, not if
the transit time shrinks enough.

Anyone who tells you "it's going to take a lot longer because it's
crossing the border" is really saying "it's going to take a lot longer
because we don't care enough to really make an effort to get stuff to you
quickly". As a matter of policy as well as convenience, I will buy from
people who do make the effort, and applaud when the others go bankrupt.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |