How BFR Earth-to-Earth Might Actually Get Started

[Coastal Ron]

No goalpost moving, no.  Space tourism was suggested here in the very first post, for consideration in the same timeframe.

Just because someone suggests something in the first post doesn't mean it's likely to come true.

When talking about what the bigger Earth-to-Earth market would be, transportation - not tourism - is by far the much larger potential market. In 2010 there was an average of 6.5M people that flew every day from point to point somewhere on Earth, whereas as of 2018 less than 800 people have signed up to take a tourist ride on Virgin Galactic. You do the math... 

The 'Marsliner' idea is just one variant:  truly high-end tourism [pun], potentially useful in starting the Earth-to-Earth business.  It would of course leverage the Earth-to-Earth systems, in a first and plausibly profitable application.

I have some insight into the global tourism industry, and tourism does not expand frontiers, it follows industry and civilization into newly opened frontiers. There is too much risk, and there is not enough support for the operations. I suggest looking up how cruise lines here on Earth were created as a good indication of how cruises in space might evolve far into our future.

As for "presentation" tea leaves:  when thinking through possibilities I suggest we consider this or any idea on its merits, and not ask a PR department's permission.

For something to have "merit" it should solve a problem or do a "job" (which can be entertainment). In other words, there needs to be some indication that there is actually a population of people that will stand in line to spend lots of money. Otherwise we're just talking fantasy...

[Hominans Kosmos]

I have some insight into the global tourism industry

If so, then you should understand the critical importance of profit margin.  I just gave a post to illustrate a conceivable and high profit margin for 'Marsliner' tourism, which you ignored without good reason. 

Profit margin could be increased with addition of other highly-desirable attractions to the notional tourist station - a useful line of thought to explore.

There is a very good reason. They are not in the hotels and destinations business, they are in the transportation business. The leisure destination entrepreneurs can buy flights on BFR and get their hotels set up, there's no reason SpaceX would not sign up to supply such enterprises with transport services. SpaceX simply is in no need of making up additional destinations to fly people and cargo to. They have more than enough revenue generation potential from connecting cities, and more than enough frontier expansion on their hands setting up logistics to Mars.

What ever reason people invent for themselves for buying a ticket on a Mars, cislunar or inter-city rocket is of little concern to Spacex. They are busy building the means with which to serve such needs. A lot of putting the cart in front of the horse seems to be going on here.

[TripleSeven]

Rather than aiming at  1st class  passengers, I recommend trying to get as many people as possible on board. Many people will be willing to pay a high price because of the adventure element of the flight. As it is so fast comfort is not such an issue.

Connect a few major hubs, aiming for the long distance flights where the biggest time savings are made.

e.g Australia, China Sea (servicing China, Philippines, Japan , Taiwan), North Sea (servicing Europe), LA and New York

I expect to see a few flights soon after BFR is built to prove the concept (and to set the record ).  This is the cheapest way for the average person to get into space, so I expect many people would pay $100,000 for a trip. Especially if they want to travel half way round the world. I expect many people would take the rocket one-way and return by normal aircraft until the cost of flights on BFR drops to a reasonably competitive price, with traditional scheduled airlines.

I would be surprised if that happens...

I've been a pilot in the airline long haul world for a long time, and before that I was a test pilot with a major US commercial aircraft company who spent a lot of time interacting with airline officials both foreign and domestic..and watching the interaction of "Our" sales department with airlines

there are two kinds of reliable travelers.  business and fun travel.  there are far more "fun" travelers than there are business travelers...but the fun travelers are far more price sensitive than the business travelers who care about one thing...comfort.

there are sliding scales of course...a person who flies business might not be able to get their business to swing a XXXX dollar business class seat that say Emirates has but they can pretty easily get their business to swing a YYYY dollar seat that KLM does.  But the metric that does Emirates XXXX service is really quite limited while the KLM metric is far far larger.  Emirates can do that because they dont really care that much about making money

same is true for pleasure travel .  KLM offers free booze in economy Ryan air does not offer anything free...but KLM's metric is large enough for the service they provide...(and is typical on most flag carriers) Ryan air is appealing to a "lower economic class" of traveler

WHERE AIRLINES MAKE MONEY is in business class.  out of 40 seats in business if we sale 23 the rest of the plane is pure profit

there are many reasons the Concorde never did make money, some of which was the technology, but the prime reason seems to be that "time just was not worth it"

high speed travel cannot change jet lag. 

lets pick an example.  an easy one.  there are 12 hours of difference between Houston and most cities in China...there is no paring of times that works where one leaves Houston "suborbitals to China" and doesnt arrive completely out of time sync. 

If you look at most airline schedules for "long haul" they are set to try and let the folks on board "sleep" jet lag away...while the plane drones on.  the question in seat price than becomes how much money you want to pay to be "comfortable" in those seats

this is one reason my place has "economy plus".  we serve unlimited booze and meals in economy, but in economy plus every passenger gets 1.5 seats ...the price sort of reflects that...you get a lot more "options" in the seat"

In business we are like say KLM or Lufthansa, business basically makes a pretty reasonable bed...and well the service is simply amazing

I cannot image that any business traveler would pay say "twice" what they pay on us or KLM ie an Emirates price to

1:  have to go through some medical exam to make sure that one can do at least 3 gees (what is the number)

2.  fly on a vehicle that has little or no "inflight" and is more or less strapped down the entire time

3.  risk getting sick in micro gee

4.  more gees on reentry

5.  then be jet lagged now that you are there.

the trick of airline travel, the times thing is that the long haul airplanes try to arrive to allow the management of jet lag. 

I dont see that happening here

as an aside...no one is going to pay for the infrastructure to do all this, until the BFR has a really good safety record...I am thinking around 500 flights as a min....and then we get into the issues I raised

I am not trying to be the Debbie Downer...but the notion of doing this "for fun" is really not what sparks the credit card

[TripleSeven]

If I was to imagine how BFR point to point gets started...

the best hope is the freight business

lets assume that BFR somehow (and I doubt this) does something close to what it is claimed it will do...and has about 500 or so flights

than the very smart people at FedEx or some freight company will start looking at it as a "rapid haul" system

this would be far easier to do than passengers.  there would be some "container system" that would easily fit on the boats sail out to the launch platforms and then load into the rocket.  this entire system would be easily automated with little more than robotic supervision by humans

the "rocket" can carry a lot of freight compared to the overhead passengers would require, there would be the need of a bare minimal life support freight, with some exceptions but minor doesnt care much about acceleration loads, doesnt get space sick and doesnt need cabin crew

the entire "rocket" could be flown uncrewed...

IF and this is one of teh big ifs, you could get say 12 sectors a day...ie 12 flights a day than the cost would come down...

this MIGHT start with the military but its more likely in my view FedEx would do something like this.

[LMT]

They are not in the hotels and destinations business, they are in the transportation business. The leisure destination entrepreneurs can buy flights on BFR and get their hotels set up, there's no reason SpaceX would not sign up to supply such enterprises with transport services.

But in this case the destination would itself be a transportation device.  In minimum config, it's two SpaceX spacecraft, kitted out circa 2028 with hw from the era of artificial gravity experiment and first Mars expedition, circa 2022-2026.  Here SpaceX craft deliver passengers to SpaceX craft, where SpaceX museum pieces are on display.  Why would SpaceX throw away profit by letting someone else play the entrepreneur there, needlessly?  That wouldn't make business sense, to my mind.

SpaceX simply is in no need of making up additional destinations to fly people and cargo to. They have more than enough revenue [emphasis added] generation potential from connecting cities...

Emphasis on "revenue".  Revenue is not profit, as any airline employee can tell you.  Competition is brutal in the airline business.

And you must admit, airlines can't compete in LEO.

[Coastal Ron]

But in this case the destination would itself be a transportation device.

I'm not sure if you have a business background, but you should look up TAM-SAM-SOM, which is used to define the potential market for something.

I see you waving your hands and saying that there will be a large, consistent market of people that will spend significant amounts of money to take tourists trips - flights that take off and return at the same place. Which is what Virgin Galactic is advertising today, and which they have less than 800 people signed up to pay. There is little evidence that such a market will exist.

Why would SpaceX throw away profit by letting someone else play the entrepreneur there, needlessly?  That wouldn't make business sense, to my mind.

It makes sense if there is no market. You have to remember that Elon Musk is VERY good at doing market studies before he commits to something. Because it's not enough to THINK there is a market - you need EVIDENCE that there is one. And so far there is no evidence that there would be a large, sustainable market for tourist flights.

Emphasis on "revenue".  Revenue is not profit, as any airline employee can tell you.

You keep saying that there is profit in your idea, but you really have no knowledge about the costs SpaceX would have, nor the price that people would pay, nor the amount of demand there would be. So you have no way of knowing whether something would be profitable.

Competition is brutal in the airline business.

And yet airlines fly MILLIONS of people every day. So apparently it's not as "brutal" as you think.

And you must admit, airlines can't compete in LEO.

Neither can cruise ships or trains. Don't make up strawman arguments.

[Ludus]

WHERE AIRLINES MAKE MONEY is in business class.  out of 40 seats in business if we sale 23 the rest of the plane is pure profit

That’s what Boom Supersonic is targeting with 50 passenger all business class. Their theory is that the Concorde was too big to be profitable.

SpaceX isn’t trying to be profitable with Point to point, they’re just trying to access new revenue sources that help cover the cost of building a global network of Spaceports and Spaceships. It’s more like if you want to build them anyway why not fly people between them too.

[LMT]

Why would SpaceX throw away profit by letting someone else play the entrepreneur there, needlessly?  That wouldn't make business sense, to my mind.

It makes sense if there is no market.

Hominans was considering the case in which "leisure destination entrepreneurs" have already identified a market - and of course real profit, even after factoring in the cost of buying or leasing the station spacecraft etc. from SpaceX.

SpaceX would understand the business case as well as anyone - and, if they chose, they could pocket greater profit by running the show themselves.

As, say, Virgin Galactic intends to do, though on a vastly smaller scale.

And you must admit, airlines can't compete in LEO.

Neither can cruise ships or trains. Don't make up strawman arguments.

Misuse of "strawman".  No, it's just an observation on the lack of tourist transport competition or resort competition in LEO.  It's not often that businessmen have opportunity to enter a market without competition.  A noteworthy circumstance, though perhaps 10 years out.

[TripleSeven]

WHERE AIRLINES MAKE MONEY is in business class.  out of 40 seats in business if we sale 23 the rest of the plane is pure profit

That’s what Boom Supersonic is targeting with 50 passenger all business class. Their theory is that the Concorde was too big to be profitable.

they’re just trying to access new revenue sources that help cover the cost of building a global network of Spaceports and Spaceships. It’s more like if you want to build them anyway why not fly people between them too.

I've read their stuff...I'll be curious to see if that works out, meaning they can sale some airline on this.  and it would all depend on what percentage of those seats have to be filled to break even and what the price is

if it takes say 4X of the seats to be profitable at a Emirates business class price level, I would be pessimistic.  If it takes 4X to do it at a KLM business class level...well that might work.

"
they’re just trying to access new revenue sources that help cover the cost of building a global network of Spaceports and Spaceship"

is this what they are saying?  if so than they will bleed cash at enormous amounts and have little to show for it.  in my opinion.

why would they want a global network of spaceports? 

[envy887]

I cannot image that any business traveler would pay say "twice" what they pay on us or KLM ie an Emirates price to

1:  have to go through some medical exam to make sure that one can do at least 3 gees (what is the number)

2.  fly on a vehicle that has little or no "inflight" and is more or less strapped down the entire time

3.  risk getting sick in micro gee

4.  more gees on reentry

5.  then be jet lagged now that you are there.

the trick of airline travel, the times thing is that the long haul airplanes try to arrive to allow the management of jet lag. 

I dont see that happening here

as an aside...no one is going to pay for the infrastructure to do all this, until the BFR has a really good safety record...I am thinking around 500 flights as a min....and then we get into the issues I raised

1) 3 gees is probably a good target for LEO ascent and return. If you can ride a roller coaster, you can mostly likely do this. And everyone should be getting a physical exam every year or two anyway.

2) There will be about 8 minutes of ascent and about the same for descent. The intervening time, up to about 30 minutes, could be unstrapped if passengers wanted.

3) Motion sickness a possibility. It's also a possibility on roller coasters and airplanes, but people still ride those (and some don't for the same reason).

4) Entry gees should be about the same as max ascent gees. Doesn't need to be more than ~3 g.

5) The whole point is it allows very quick trips. You can fly out of London at 6 am, have a few afternoon (local time) meetings in Sydney, and be back in London by noon. You don't need to acclimate to the new time at all. If you're doing a longer trip, sleep off the jet lag in a hotel room, not an uncomfortable and cramped airliner seat.

I am not trying to be the Debbie Downer...but the notion of doing this "for fun" is really not what sparks the credit card

The people who would do it for "fun" are those that have dropped 250k on a Virgin flight or will on New Shepard. The ones doing it not for fun are those who don't want to spend 20 to 40 hours round-trip in a plane.

[TripleSeven]

envy887

I hope you are correct, my experience says no.

I did find this with a smile

" The intervening time, up to about 30 minutes, could be unstrapped if passengers wanted. "

I can just picture my cabin crews trying to deal with a gross of people floating around, mostly puking, slowly dropping into complete disorientation .  and my cabin crews are probably puking as well

I have a cabin crew friend at my place who use to work for another airline, and was in the video that the airline did with a European band...a complete microgravity video.  its an amazing piece of work



she is very nice, speaks five different languages etc...but her descriptions of the first day "flying the curve" made me break into a big smile, remembering the days of old.   

anyway I hope you are correct.  Cargo is probably coming first, but well my guess is its 20 years away

[john smith 19]

Similar total trip time (including trip to pad) 3~4hrs.

Concorde can fly from New York to Paris in 3.5 hours, the distance is about 5840km, that's no where near what a BFR can do in one trip.

Perfect safety.

If we go by Concorde's record, LoC = 1 in ~85,000, far from perfect

The minimum standard for 1 in 30x10^-6 is 1 in 33333 flights.
Which Concorde beat comfortably.

Now I may be wrong but I think 33 333 launch is more than every single launch that has taken place since Sputnik 1.

And Concorde flew with no fatalities over a 28 year operating life.

[TripleSeven]

Similar total trip time (including trip to pad) 3~4hrs.

Concorde can fly from New York to Paris in 3.5 hours, the distance is about 5840km, that's no where near what a BFR can do in one trip.

Perfect safety.

If we go by Concorde's record, LoC = 1 in ~85,000, far from perfect

The minimum standard for 1 in 30x10^-6 is 1 in 33333 flights.
Which Concorde beat comfortably.

Now I may be wrong but I think 33 333 launch is more than every single launch that has taken place since Sputnik 1.

And Concorde flew with no fatalities over a 28 year operating life.

the Concorde had many problems, safety was not one of them

[envy887]

Similar total trip time (including trip to pad) 3~4hrs.

Concorde can fly from New York to Paris in 3.5 hours, the distance is about 5840km, that's no where near what a BFR can do in one trip.

Perfect safety.

If we go by Concorde's record, LoC = 1 in ~85,000, far from perfect

The minimum standard for 1 in 30x10^-6 is 1 in 33333 flights.
Which Concorde beat comfortably.

Now I may be wrong but I think 33 333 launch is more than every single launch that has taken place since Sputnik 1.

And Concorde flew with no fatalities over a 28 year operating life.

The 30 per million standard is for ground casualties. I don't think it applies to flight casualties.

[envy887]

...anyway I hope you are correct.  Cargo is probably coming first, but well my guess is its 20 years away

Agree cargo will be first. Hopefully in 5-10 years instead of 20, although 20 would hardly surprise me. The P2P plans are pretty aggressive.

[meekGee]

Similar total trip time (including trip to pad) 3~4hrs.

Concorde can fly from New York to Paris in 3.5 hours, the distance is about 5840km, that's no where near what a BFR can do in one trip.

Perfect safety.

If we go by Concorde's record, LoC = 1 in ~85,000, far from perfect

The minimum standard for 1 in 30x10^-6 is 1 in 33333 flights.
Which Concorde beat comfortably.

Now I may be wrong but I think 33 333 launch is more than every single launch that has taken place since Sputnik 1.

And Concorde flew with no fatalities over a 28 year operating life.

the Concorde had many problems, safety was not one of them

If you apply "1 in 85,000" to the flight rate of any regular jetliner, you'll quickly see it's a very inadequate number. 

Maybe a better statement is that Concorde flew seldom enough that the safety problems were eclipsed by its other problems.



-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down

[Coastal Ron]

Why would SpaceX throw away profit by letting someone else play the entrepreneur there, needlessly?  That wouldn't make business sense, to my mind.

It makes sense if there is no market.

Hominans was considering the case in which "leisure destination entrepreneurs" have already identified a market...

A theoretical market which, as of today, no one has any evidence that it will exist in the next 10 years, so outside of the parameters of this thread topic.

...and of course real profit, even after factoring in the cost of buying or leasing the station spacecraft etc. from SpaceX.

Re: Profit

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Just because there is a market does not automatically mean there can be a profit, especially in the early days of the market. And since no one outside of SpaceX knows what it takes to make a profit on the BFR, I would suggest you stop using that word - it is presumptuous.

SpaceX would understand the business case as well as anyone - and, if they chose, they could pocket greater profit by running the show themselves.

Elon Musk is pretty open about the markets he plans to pursue, which so far is just point-to-point transportation. He has not mentioned tourist rides.

As, say, Virgin Galactic intends to do, though on a vastly smaller scale.

Or, Virgin Galactic could be maxing out the market with their service, which is why we haven't seen more than 800 reservations for such flights.

No, it's just an observation on the lack of tourist transport competition or resort competition in LEO.  It's not often that businessmen have opportunity to enter a market without competition.

It's also a sign that there is no market.

Again, tourism does not open up frontiers, which is what LEO and beyond is. Even adventure tourism, which is a VERY small part of the tourism market place doesn't open up new frontiers. Tourism tends to be very risk averse.

Transportation on the other hand is MASSIVELY big, with demonstrated markets for:

- Fast cargo transportation - FedEX pioneered this with guaranteed overnight delivery, and Amazon is promising same day delivery today.

- Passenger transportation - Concorde did have customers, as do point-to-point flights today.

So a transportation company looking for a BIG potential market is going to look at transportation services over tourism any day.

[envy887]

As, say, Virgin Galactic intends to do, though on a vastly smaller scale.

Or, Virgin Galactic could be maxing out the market with their service, which is why we haven't seen more than 800 reservations for such flights.

The lack of flying probably has more to do with the lack of reservations than anything else. Virgin's price point probably isn't helping either.

[DigitalMan]

...

Elon Musk is pretty open about the markets he plans to pursue, which so far is just point-to-point transportation. He has not mentioned tourist rides.

As, say, Virgin Galactic intends to do, though on a vastly smaller scale.

Or, Virgin Galactic could be maxing out the market with their service, which is why we haven't seen more than 800 reservations for such flights.

No, it's just an observation on the lack of tourist transport competition or resort competition in LEO.  It's not often that businessmen have opportunity to enter a market without competition.

It's also a sign that there is no market.

Again, tourism does not open up frontiers, which is what LEO and beyond is. Even adventure tourism, which is a VERY small part of the tourism market place doesn't open up new frontiers. Tourism tends to be very risk averse.

Transportation on the other hand is MASSIVELY big, with demonstrated markets for:

- Fast cargo transportation - FedEX pioneered this with guaranteed overnight delivery, and Amazon is promising same day delivery today.

- Passenger transportation - Concorde did have customers, as do point-to-point flights today.

So a transportation company looking for a BIG potential market is going to look at transportation services over tourism any day.

It seems to me, a P2P trip from Florida to Japan or Australia would give you more than 20 minutes of zero-G compared to the 5 minutes you would get buying a ride on VG. 

And even if SpaceX couldn't meet 'business class' prices, '1st class' prices would still be a fraction of the cost of a ride on VG, no?  So why bother with a tourist trip?

[docmordrid]

>
Or, Virgin Galactic could be maxing out the market with their service, which is why we haven't seen more than 800 reservations for such flights.
>
It's also a sign that there is no market.
>
Transportation on the other hand is MASSIVELY big, with demonstrated markets for:

- Fast cargo transportation - FedEX pioneered this with guaranteed overnight delivery, and Amazon is promising same day delivery today.
>

VG's $B deal with the Saudis includes fast point to point.

 http://www.arabnews.com/node/1183586/saudi-arabia