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Can anyone speak to the significance of this achievement, considering that reaching low earth orbit requires something like Mach 24?
Can anyone speak to the significance of this achievement, considering that reaching low earth orbit requires something like Mach 24?
I think you're looking for the 666 rule which I can't find a link to, but its an engineering rough estimate that mach 6 at 60 kft is 6% of the way to orbit (from an energy perspective). It comes up a lot in back of the envelope type debates about overall system / stage design and performance. Note that 6% of the way to orbit sounds pitiful for a first stage but it actually has a pretty big effect on available payload…
Maybe the physics or the finances aren't there, but I would imagine that an excellent use for sub-orbital near-spaceflight would be to get between two distant cities (Tokyo and London) extremely quickly. Virgin Galactic would seem to be poised to execute on this, if there is a market for it.
Maybe the physics or the finances aren't there, but I would imagine that an excellent use for sub-orbital near-spaceflight would be to get between two distant cities (Tokyo and London) extremely quickly. Virgin Galactic would seem to be poised to execute on this, if there is a market for it.
Maybe the physics or the finances aren't there, but I would imagine that an excellent use for sub-orbital near-spaceflight would be to get between two distant cities (Tokyo and London) extremely quickly. Virgin Galactic would seem to be poised to execute on this, if there is a market for it.
This is one of the end uses of suborbital flights: New York to Beijing in 3 hours. The cost is high, but there are people who would pay a lot of money to make that trip in that short a time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of the end uses of suborbital flights: New York to Beijing in 3 hours. The cost is high, but there are people who would pay a lot of money to make that trip in that short a time.
I wonder how the in-flight wifi would/could be. The sort of customer you are talking about is probably rather accustomed to being constantly connected.
If you fly out with your lawyers and team, you could spend the 3 hours prepping, and the 3 hours back drinking the celebratory champagne.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how the in-flight wifi would/could be. The sort of customer you are talking about is probably rather accustomed to being constantly connected.
I highly doubt that 13 hours of wifi-connected travel is preferable to 3 hours offline. With a 3-hour suborbital flight you can fly out to Beijing to finalize a deal and be back in time for a late dinner. If you fly out with your lawyers and team, you could spend the 3 hours prepping, and the 3 hours back drinking the celebratory champagne.
Maybe the physics or the finances aren't there, but I would imagine that an excellent use for sub-orbital near-spaceflight would be to get between two distant cities (Tokyo and London) extremely quickly. Virgin Galactic would seem to be poised to execute on this, if there is a market for it.
This is one of the end uses of suborbital flights: New York to Beijing in 3 hours. The cost is high, but there are people who would pay a lot of money to make that trip in that short a time.
ICBM:s do it by flying trajectories with multi thousand kilometer apogees, crossing radiation belts etc. It's cheaper that way than going into a shallow high speed trajectory which requires almost orbital speeds and higher energies. (Even this wasn't obvious before ICBM:s - they worked on atmospheric cruise missiles like Navajo in parallel.)
So, point to point does not look very synergistic with these suborbital technologies. New York to Europe is around 6000 km, still a factor of 60. Transatlantic point to point is far closer to orbital flights really than these space hops.