Posted on 05/21/2019 8:54:08 PM PDT by EdnaMode
For impatient travelers, the next wave of air transportation could be a game-changer. Aerospace company Hermeus Corporation recently announced that it has obtained funding to pursue development of a plane that could travel five times faster than the speed of sound, getting passengers from New York to London in just 90 minutes. But it won't be a cheap flight, and the idea isn't without some baggage.
The venture, which was founded by former employees of private space travel companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, is seeking to craft a plane that can travel at Mach 5 and reach a cruising speed of 3300 mph.
That ambition will likely take years to materialize. Hermeus co-founder and CEO AJ Piplica told CNN that development is projected to last a decade. He anticipated one-way tickets will cost in the range of $3000.
It currently takes about seven hours to travel from New York to London. Previously, travelers were able to cut that time down to roughly four hours, traveling at twice the speed of sound in the supersonic Concorde jet. High fuel consumption and expensive tickets led to the retirement of the aircraft in 2003. Whether Hermeus can overcome the environmental concerns of such high-octane travel and gather enough passengers willing to pay a premium for less time spent in the air remains to be seen.
“Beam me up, Scotty”
Premium cabins already have expedited TSA lines.
Word!
PSA? That is prostate related blood test. I think you meant TSA.
I flew from Seattle to Jacksonville today. It was 30 min drive to SeaTac airport, 40 min to return rental car and catch shuttle to airport departure door. Then 45 min to clear through TSA security.
Then a 30 min flight on supersonic jet to JAX?
If people were willing to pay more for subsonic travel, we wouldn’t be faced with planes dropping out of the sky.
Word.
/s
Like high speed rail, it sounds great on paper. But I would bet that government regulation will ensure that the planes never go faster than conventional jets. Consider the fast trains between New York and Washington. If you take the slow cheap train or the expensive fast train, you get there at almost the same time. Because government regulations prevent the fast train from actually going fast.
‘No, the elite supersonic service will include new and exclusive terminals and procedures suitably streamlined. High speed flights will have priority with air traffic control as they essentially do now. The traveling masses will get none of this.’
Actually some of it is available to the Deplorables now, in the form of Globalist Entry, where you’re pre-cleared for TSA Pre-Check and then zip through US Passport Control on the way back. People still have the rest of the crap to deal with [bags, crowds, ground delays, customs on the other side, etc.] by at least the Men in Black make it easy, providing you don’t mind the 100 dollars for 5 years of it.
Actually the real prize is the other ocean, the Pacific, where 14 hour flights are normal. Knock them down to 3 hours and that is a serious improvement.
The high expense account and high net worth slice of the market tend to be indifferent to extra cost. With dedicated, de luxe passenger gates and express screening, the travel experience will be an order above that of even the best conventional airline travel. As with the Concorde, it will be fully booked.
Concord didn’t shorten door-to-door travel time across the Atlantic enough to justify its much higher cost, and didn’t have the range for trans-Pacific flights, where people WOULD pay a lot more if they could cut the 12 to 21 hour flight times.
It took aviation more than fifty years from Kitty Hawk to when jet airliners made passenger travel by air safe, cheap, comfortable, and routine. All the while the promise of such development was touted as if it was on the verge of realization. As a practical matter, such hype is part of the effort to draw attention, resources, and support, with many wrong turns and failed ideas along the way. Who knows, but an “Orient Express” may one day emerge as part of a system of rocket-powered airliners, depending on technology and cost considerations.
But who in the world actually WANTS to go to f’n New York or f’n London?
Large scale war is a great motivation for technological progress. Sadly, nukes mean that major wars between major powers don’t exist to drive the urgency and momentum behind technological progress.
In this era, neither one.
But how long will it take my stomach to catch up?
Remember the SST!
Admittedly, even a thorough pat-down is not as bad as a prostate examination - though I've never been subjected to a cavity search at the airport.
Regards,
Great idea, in a few years the unobtainium can be mined on the Moon. :^) Thanks EdnaMode.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.