Not aware of any Russian rockets taking off from JFK - Saab General Bulletin Board - Saabnet.com
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Not aware of any Russian rockets taking off from JFK
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Posted by Reality (more from Reality) on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:01:23 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: One can also buy a ride on a Russian rocket, Noel, Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:48:36
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or landing in Australia. And at last check, the cost is something like half million to a full million per seat. The Russians are making the same big rocket lifting off from ground mistake, wasting gobs of fuel in that lift-off from stationary in dense air near the ground . . . whereas Virgin has the right idea of taking off with conventional aircraft as carrier, then fire the rocket at 50,000ft thin air with the vehicle already enjoying high forward moving inertia to help rocket engine efficiency.

Starting small is one of the virtues of private sector endeavor. Putting Virgin for being small vs. Space Shuttle's large size is a little like belittling Intel/Microsoft for their small desktops vs. Japanese mainframe super computers in 1990. Small and profitable incremental goals is what pays for further development. Notice, Virgin's initial goal with SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne was even more modest: sub-orbital flight from New Zealand to London (comparable to NYC to Sydney) in 4hrs. The 2hr goal with the 2nd generation only came out after the successful testing of the first pair.

There is absolutely no need to move 150 passengers from the get-go. $2500 per seat from 300 passengers is the same as $25k per seat from 30 passengers, and the same as $250k per seat from 3 passengers! The flight crew and support system can be much much smaller in a 2hr flight than in a 25hr flight.

From Wright brothers Kittyhawk 1.5min hop to transoceanic passenger flight took only a couple decades. From the invention of jet aircraft to commercial jet airliners once again took only a little over a decade. The relatively slow pace of subsequent development for prop airliners after about 1938 and for jet airliners after 707 were simply because the industries were already mature after a decade or two of development (how fast are computer chip performance advancing nowadays, compared to say the 1990's?) It's a mature industry already after a decade or two of break-neck development, waiting for new technological breakthroughs. The prop plane was such a breakthrough vs. steam ships and airships; the jet plane was such a breakthrough vs. prop planes, albeit to a lesser degree. The in-air supersonic travel like Concorde was too little of an improvement (only double the speed, and only on short legs, saving only a couple hours, not to mention regulatory issues with sonic boom on take-off and landing). The orbital flight for the earth's great circle flights reducing 20+hr travel time to 2hrs OTOH is a substantial technological breakthrough that can find a profitable niche. The fuel consumption will actually be lower than in-air flight when the system is scaled up to substantial size. Much of the flight would be gliding in space with little air resistance. In 2-3 decades, flying to Australia and southeast Asia on 20+ hour in-air flight may well become as obsolete a concept as crossing the Atlantic on steamships today. Most of the 1950's business plans for space in the year 2000 should have come true on time if not for the NASA monopoly getting in the way, misallocating resources and talents soviet- and Naz*-style for half a century.

posted by 75.67.1...

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