Space Plane to Offer 2 Hour Flight around the World

secretsather writes "Two hour flights to the other side of the world may seem like a scene from a science fiction movie; but the technology is in place, and a plane that can do just that is currently in development. While it looks like a scene from a flight simulator, the Astrox space plane is the real deal, and the Astrox Corporation says it could revolutionize the transportation industry. Traveling as fast as Mach 25 with at least 30 minutes of space shuttle-like views while in orbit is the highlight of this plane, and The Astrox Corporation, along with their partners, are claiming to have finally overcome their largest problem, mixing fuel."

Jetlag was bad? Watch out for ScramJet lag

[rednip]

Sure the fight may last only 2 hours, but after spending much of that time in heavy acceleration, I wonder how long it would take to recover. Also, wouldn't passengers need to be in really good health to endure such a journey, and would they need to wear flight suits like fighter pilots just to keep from blacking out? I suspect that regular passenger use may be out of the question if these problems aren't solved by altitude/weightlessness.

Wikipedia's entry for Scramjet [wikipedia.org] mentions

Scram jets might be able to accelerate from approximately Mach 5-7 to around somewhere between half of orbital velocity and orbital velocity (X-30 research suggested that Mach 17 might be the limit compared to an orbital speed of Mach 25, and other studies put the upper speed limit for a pure scram jet engine between Mach 10 and 25, depending on the assumptions made

As the company claims a top speed of Mach 25, could this be the 'cheap' way to get to low Earth orbit?

Yeah right

[Reality Master 101]

Scramjets are the "fusion" of aircraft research. Always 10-20 years away. I'll believe it when I see something flying.

It would still take 6 hours to get there

[Anonymous Coward]

1/2 hour - drive to space-port
2.0 hours - security/checkin
1/2 hours - sit on space-plane tarmac
2.0 hours - flight
1/2 hour - baggage claim
1/2 hour - drive from space-port

Bloatware

[Toby The Economist]

Prior 9/11; two hours pre-flight, eight hours in flight, half hour at the other end : 10.5 hours.

Post 9/11; four hours pre-flight, eight hours in flight, one hour at the other end : 13 hours

Hyperdrive; four hours pre-flight, two hours in flight, one hour at the other end : 7 hours.

Pre-flight security bloatware, god-dammit. I upgrade my plane so it's four times faster and I'm still only 50% better off than I was originally!

Re:Yeah right

[udderly]

I'm with you. Before I go and get all excited, I'm going to have to see something more than a cheesy GIF on a tech website that I've never heard of.

I also want my flying car that I was promised 35 years ago.

Heinlein's Friday

[MikeMc]

You know, every day, the world seems more and more like Heinlein's novel "Friday" -- massively interlocked superconglomerate corporations owning all that is ownable, balkanization of territories, a global computer network containing all recorded movies, music and information, and now this, something akin to the superballistic planes.

I'm actually interested to see if the rough-and-tumble in the boardroom starts to spill out into the streets, a proxy war fought by mercenaries, hurting corporations where they're most vulnerable -- the bank account and their reputations.

To me, it's absolutely uncanny how dead-on he was about the changes to society the future would bring. The only thing I'd disagree about with his insight is how long it would take for things to fall apart -- IMHO he was an optimist.

UK, I take it?

[jimmyfergus]

I assume you're talking about the UK, based on terminology and your URL.

A big difference between the UK and the USA is that in the latter, most people think it's the greatest place on earth (usually those who've never lived anywhere else), and it isn't; in the UK most think it's a shithole (usually those who've never lived anywhere else), and it isn't. At a certain point your miserable attitude becomes self-fulfilling. You should actually try hopping to the other side of the world and see how much they enjoy the company of whinging poms.

tunnel

[senatorpjt]

I like the idea of an evacuated maglev tunnel [wikipedia.org]. It's still unrealistic (a tunnel from NY to LA would cost $1 trillion), although, the cost is all in the construction.

Re:Trans-Atlantic Abort Mode SSTO

[Animats]

in quite a few cases, it might well be worth it- a multi-billion dollar merger, a head of state's emergency meeting, etc, etc.

Unlikely. That's what phones are for. Mergers aren't rush jobs, anyway; they take weeks to months to set up, half the time they fall through, and most of the time they lose money for the stockholders. There are some efforts underway to design a supersonic business jet [aviationweek.com], but the price has to be no more than 2x that of a comparably sized Grumman Gulfstream for it to sell. They're trying to get the operating cost down to business class fare levels, which, for a 14-seat plane, isn't bad.

Warren Buffet once went on an Alaska cruise, during which one of his companies had a crisis that kept him on a satellite phone for hours. He's interested in buying fifty of the supersonic bizjets for his NetJets rental operation. If they work.

Re:Cost make it unfeasible?

[supabeast!]

Will enough people really want to spend $100K or so to travel halfway around the world in 2 hours vs. 20? After the novelty of going into space wears off for the rich, I see this as being about as exciting (and economically feasible) as the Concorde.

The Concorde was economically feasible; after raising prices in the mid-to-late-1980s British Airways turned some hefty profits from their Concordes. Air France probably could have done the same if it had been owned by rational people at the time, but French socialists aren't especially good at business. But subsonic air travel is much more profitable, so grounding the planes made a lot of sense once BA had privatized; had there actually been any competition in the market BA would probably have lost many of those customers and killing the Concorde would have made less sense. Virgin negotiated to buy the BA Concordes and keep them in service but gave up when Airbus decided to end support for the Concorde altogether.

Re:Trans-Atlantic Abort Mode SSTO

[drsquare]

The shuttle wouldn't be much use for an emergency meeting considering how long it takes to prepare for a launch. Probably quicker to row there.

Re:Heinlein's Friday

[AuMatar]

If you write enough sci-fi books, some of your predictions will be right. I love Heinlein, but he wrote a lot of books. Thats a lot of chances to be right. When asked to make actual predictions, he's not nearly as good (for example, he predicted that we'd be rationing food by now due to worldwide starvation. Technology instead increased food generation by orders of magnitude).

I always think we're closer to Stranger myself- the US government seems a lot like theirs, and it has the same religious zealots running stuff. I'm just waiting for an alien from Mars to start the sexual orgy counterreligion, I'm going to be all over that.

Just ride the bus around town, for two hours...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and come back to where you started. It'll be a whole cheaper.

Re:Bloatware

[Khomar]

Post 9/11; four hours pre-flight, eight hours in flight, one hour at the other end : 13 hours

For a flight to London maybe that is correct, but for a long international flight the situation looks much better. For example, the flight from Los Angeles, USA to Sydney, Australia takes somewhere around 18 hours today (depending on the jet stream). In this scenario, you go from 23 hours to 7. That is a huge improvement. This new plane is for the very long flights that take you around the world.

After having flown the Sydney to L.A. flight a number of times, I laugh whenever I hear someone complaining about a "long" domestic flight. I would much rather take the two-hour-with-a-great-view flight than endure 18 hours on a single plane.

Re:Jetlag was bad? Watch out for ScramJet lag

[omgamibig]

Would you like to stop as well?

YAWN

[J05H]

wake me when it's flying.

Re:Heinlein's Friday

[flyingfsck]

Hmm well, 150 years ago, the Hudson Bay Company owned most of North America and the East African Trade Company owned millions of people...

I tend to think that however bad, the situation today is a whole lot better.

Deja Vu (not being sarcastic)

[punterjoe]

I'm not saying it's NOT a pipe dream, but it kind of reminds me of the early days of aviation when people were actually trying to find a business model. Lots of new technologies were tried out to lure rich travellers in search of novelty. Eventually, the more practical ideas trickled down to the 'flying buses' most travellers endure.
    Can someone lure enough big-budget thrill seekers to get such an unlikely endeavor off the ground (for lack of a better term)? I'd like to believe people haven't stopped thinking big. Eventually, one of these bold (crazy?) ideas could actually work.

Elite travelers

[Cunk]

This news, while being interesting from a scientific and technical standpoint (despite probably being way overblown and premature), will hardly impact the life of your average traveler. I can't speak for everyone here but the Concorde would never have been an option for me if I was ever flying to Europe due to the exorbitant ticket prices. I doubt this plane would be any different.