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True, but I don't think BFR is ever meant for the masses. And airplanes, which are gentle but can be uncomfortable, are barely for the masses (in 2015 only 45% of Americans flew on a plane). https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2016/04/14/americans...
...only? that's a first world problem if i've ever seen one :)
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20 minutes of discomfort to save 12+ hours of flight time? Sounds worth it to me.
Sure, but will your grandma say the same? My point is that this will never be a normal every day thing for the masses like air travel today.
The main thing I'm thinking of is noise pollution. You think living near an airport is loud? I cannot even imagine what living near a BFR spaceport would be like. For coastal cities maybe it would be worth it to build a landing pad on an ocean platform some miles out to sea, but what about for cities like Atlanta or Beijing? There's nowhere around them to build that isn't already a suburb.
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This may be a stupid question, but could people be put under for 30 minutes and just be woken up at landing?
No. General anesthesia is a risky procedure, requiring constant one-on-one monitoring by a anesthesiologist.
/s (sort of).
How do you tell the difference between commercial scheduled rocket flights and incoming ICBM's?
Would require rockets with speed/altitude limit uncrippled GPS.
As a business model I think SpaceX should be a manufacturer and not in the transportation business akin to Boeing or Airbus. There is a ton of logistics involved in transporting people globally. Of course there is the safety issues as well.
This all culminated in the Air Mail Act of 1934 [1] which prohibited airlines and airplane manufacturers from operating under the same corporate umbrella.
It will be interesting to see where this ends up with SpaceX integrating the consumer facing airline operation with rocket manufacturing. Something commercial airlines are not able to do.
As a business model I think SpaceX should be a manufacturer and not in the transportation business akin to Boeing or Airbus. There is a ton of logistics involved in transporting people globally. Of course there is the safety issues as well.
>> safety issues as well. And vomit. 4+G on launch. Freefall during cruise. 5+ G on reentry. Give me the first class ticket on a BA flight any day.
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No. General anesthesia is a risky procedure, requiring constant one-on-one monitoring by a anesthesiologist.
Sounds like an industry ready for disruption. If only these damn regulations weren't holding us back. /s (sort of).
http://www3.gehealthcare.com/en/products/categories/anesthes...
Edit: Since its not obvious, they have some machines that can go in autonomous mode and alert the hospital if the patient needs an actual doctor to fix something.
Rocket based travel will never ever ever happen on a widespread scale simply because of the G forces involved. Passengers on an airliner will begin feeling uncomfortable at around 1.2 G's and > 20 degrees of bank angle. The thought of subjecting regular paying passengers to 3+ G's and a full 360 degrees of pitch/roll is absurd. It could definitely be a niche thing for people that are physically fit, but this just isn…
If John Glenn could do a Shuttle flight at 77, I suspect you're overstating the difficulties here. People voluntarily subject themselves to 3+ Gs and 360 degrees pitch/roll at amusement parks daily, with fairly minimal levels of physical fitness being required.
I think a major point that isn't being talked enough about in public (although I'm sure people in SpaceX have considered it before coming up with numbers) with the "point-to-point" transport system is simple demand-supply economics. Sure, let's say they can run 10 100-person flights per day from New York to Shanghai but do that many people even want to travel that route on that particular day?
If the flight time drops from 12 hours to 30 minutes, and prices are in the same ballpark of $2,000, then there would be more demand.
The execs could all be in Shanghai for the board meeting and some of them could be back in NYC for dinner.