Intercontinental Single-Stage Sub-Orbital

[mmeijeri]

Also, there is the issue of getting out of the can

Heh!

[kch]

Also, there is the issue of getting out of the can

Heh!

Easier said than done, sometimes:

http://news.yahoo.com/ferry-runs-aground-captain-stuck-toilet-152914917.html

[space_man]

Also, there is the issue of getting out of the can

Heh!

Easier said than done, sometimes:

http://news.yahoo.com/ferry-runs-aground-captain-stuck-toilet-152914917.html

issues with stealth? no problem! once the troops leave the can, the remainder of fuel can be used to crashland miles away from the site.

issues leaving the can? I dont think so, imagine the 6 minutes the booster spends in sub-orbit in 0-g, the troops, will open a hatch, float out into sub-orbit, deploy chutes to land.

[Jim]

issues with stealth? no problem! once the troops leave the can, the remainder of fuel can be used to crashland miles away from the site.

issues leaving the can? I dont think so, imagine the 6 minutes the booster spends in sub-orbit in 0-g, the troops, will open a hatch, float out into sub-orbit, deploy chutes to land.

What fuel?  This is a single stage.  Any ways, miles away is still to close.

Issues?  Yes, I think so.  Your idea is ridiculous and non viable.

A.  The crew would tumble out of control
B.  They would be subjected to entry heating
C.  And there might be g-loads

Any other make-believe  ideas that only work in movies?

[joek]

Beyond that, what design features would this market niche role compel?

Among others (good bibliography and references), see:
Point-to-Point Commercial Space Transportation in National Aviation System, FAA/DOT, Mar 2010

[space_man]

issues with stealth? no problem! once the troops leave the can, the remainder of fuel can be used to crashland miles away from the site.

issues leaving the can? I dont think so, imagine the 6 minutes the booster spends in sub-orbit in 0-g, the troops, will open a hatch, float out into sub-orbit, deploy chutes to land.

What fuel?  This is a single stage.  Any ways, miles away is still to close.

Issues?  Yes, I think so.  Your idea is ridiculous and non viable.

A.  The crew would tumble out of control
B.  They would be subjected to entry heating
C.  And there might be g-loads

Any other make-believe  ideas that only work in movies?

Fuel: Liquid hydrogen/Liquid Oxygen, plenty delta-v for an intercontinental manuever

A: That is false, apparently you know nothing about the 0-g flight through sub-orbit. At the apex, everything is very calm and the crew easily manuevers outside the hatch.

B: Entry heating? We are not going to orbit, merely sub-orbit, a pair of chutes will plenty sufficient for this.

C: what g-loads are you even talking about?

Any other make believe comments that only work on facebook?

[Andrew_W]

I think you'd probably want to have as stealthy a can as possible, and either land the can and then deploy the troops, or parachute the troops after the can had been slowed, whatever you do, I don't see how you avoid announcing your arrival with a sonic boom. 

[Jorge]

issues with stealth? no problem! once the troops leave the can, the remainder of fuel can be used to crashland miles away from the site.

issues leaving the can? I dont think so, imagine the 6 minutes the booster spends in sub-orbit in 0-g, the troops, will open a hatch, float out into sub-orbit, deploy chutes to land.

What fuel?  This is a single stage.  Any ways, miles away is still to close.

Issues?  Yes, I think so.  Your idea is ridiculous and non viable.

A.  The crew would tumble out of control
B.  They would be subjected to entry heating
C.  And there might be g-loads

Any other make-believe  ideas that only work in movies?

Fuel: Liquid hydrogen/Liquid Oxygen, plenty delta-v for an intercontinental manuever

A: That is false, apparently you know nothing about the 0-g flight through sub-orbit. At the apex, everything is very calm and the crew easily manuevers outside the hatch.

B: Entry heating? We are not going to orbit, merely sub-orbit, a pair of chutes will plenty sufficient for this.

False. See the "intercontinental" in the thread title? This isn't a simple up-and-back like SS1/2. The velocity required for an intercontinental suborbital trajectory is more than half of orbital velocity (shuttle needed ~18.4k to make a 3-out TAL, orbital is 25k). You *will* need a heat shield.

C: what g-loads are you even talking about?

Suborbital entries have substantial G-loads.

Any other make believe comments that only work on facebook?

Watch your mouth.

[go4mars]

Everyone is forgetting about the money brought in by the first stage passengers (who don't have to go as far). 

What non-human payloads are you imagining?

Oilfield parts.  There are many drill rigs and drill ships that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars by just sitting idle for a day while they wait for critical parts (and they are often located in fairly remote places).  Companies like Schlumberger could have a warehouse very close to the launch pad that has multiples of every tool in their line available for rapid delivery. 

The German Space Agency (DLR) is designing a spaceliner which is supposed to do just that. It's going to be a two-stage system with an "orbiter" and a reusable fly-back booster, both running on LOX/LH2. It is supposed to be able to make the trip from Europe to Australia in 90min.

http://www.dlr.de/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-4530/3681_read-8344/3681_page-2/

Very cool!  But it says 2007, and there is no mention of development costs.  Would it be a lot less than reusable falcon/dragon?

Any other make-believe  ideas that only work in movies?

How about ejecting squished-up businessmen in mini re-entry capsules along the way?  Guy in a suit and tie, inside a spacesuit, which is wrapped in conical cork, legs up in the air (or cross-legged sit position but on his back), back laying on a 40" diameter heatshield, the spacesuit has a parachute (only to be used at low elevations).  After he has pulled the parachute and is away from the heatshield, detonate the heatshield apparatus so no large debris lands on anything.  He drifts to a park near the location of his meeting, drops the space suit, grabs a pita from a street vendor on his way in to his meeting.

[Moe Grills]

Doing the math, $700 million per year with 15,000 passengers comes to $46k per passenger.

While high, there are passengers who do in fact pay more for tickets.

But the real advantage here is for cargo. 

For cargo flights, every penny count. What type of cargo you think will need such a travel time?

Human organs and critical parts where having a plant idled an extra day could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How large is this market? (The market which will be created by such a service, meaning that organs can be flight around the globe...)

It can certainly be part of the market. A mix of human traffic, mail, parcels, emergency engineering spare-parts, medical materials, etc., "that just have to get there the same day."

I'm starting to warm to the concept.

[MrAnthonyDR]

How about ejecting squished-up businessmen in mini re-entry capsules along the way?  Guy in a suit and tie, inside a spacesuit, which is wrapped in conical cork, legs up in the air (or cross-legged sit position but on his back), back laying on a 40" diameter heatshield, the spacesuit has a parachute (only to be used at low elevations).  After he has pulled the parachute and is away from the heatshield, detonate the heatshield apparatus so no large debris lands on anything.  He drifts to a park near the location of his meeting, drops the space suit, grabs a pita from a street vendor on his way in to his meeting.

I like this idea, however you missed one thing. The heat absorbed by the TPS on his capsule should be channelled into a small coffee maker, so that he has a fresh, piping-hot latte ready to pour when he lands.

In seriousness though, I would agree that the business model for P2P Sub-orbital travel would have to be drastically different from commercial aviation, which (lets be honest) more than suffices for 99% of the populations needs.

Human organs and critical parts where having a plant idled an extra day could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How large is this market? (The market which will be created by such a service, meaning that organs can be flight around the globe...)

It can certainly be part of the market. A mix of human traffic, mail, parcels, emergency engineering spare-parts, medical materials, etc., "that just have to get there the same day."

I'm starting to warm to the concept.

Me too, this could be the market gap. However,putting my 'dragons den' hat on, we'd need to know how often on average these situations arise, and the current cost of resolving with existing aviation infrastructure, then compare to the cost to resolve with a sub-orbital solution, factoring in dev costs for return on investment.

When I think of it that way, I still think you'd need a whole lot more in the business case than that which has been mentioned already (oil refineries etc).

[john smith 19]

Tell me, would it be feasible to design a sub-orbital vehicle that could serve the rapid intercontinental travel market?

Yes. AS it has been since the mid 1960's, when Philip Bono described it.

So it would take off vertically, and land horizontally somewhere on the opposite side of the world. And it would be traveling through the vacuum in between.

Why this launch and landing mode? It requires that your vehicle be strong in *two* axes, rather than the one of HTHL or VTOL systems.

Imagine it being used only for cargo at first, but then much later it would eventually achieve a man-rating to allow rapid intercontinental passenger flights.

So the goal of this vehicle would not be to achieve orbit, but to provide rapid intercontinental suborbital travel/transport. We're talking about being able to land on the other side of the world in less than an hour.

Economics would dictate that this be a single-stage vehicle, for ease of turnaround.
Beyond that, what design features would this market niche role compel?

Your question could just be talking about a network of obsolete 2 seat M1+ fighter bombers (not quite as dumb as it sounds. DHL's core transport was at one time a group of executive jets acting as high value cargo carriers).
What I think you're talking about is generically called intercontinental ballistic transport.

Read Bono & Gatland "Frontiers of Space," articles in BIS "Spaceflight" 1968 (or 1967?) by Bono  and G. Harry Stine's "Halfway to Anywhere" for starting points.

I'll make a kickoff suggestion. Find out what high priority air freight prices are *now*, along with what Concorde fares were to get an idea of what people are prepared to *pay* for the reduction in time versus say sea freight.

Factor in that current airliner operating costs are about 3x to 4x the cost of fuel used.

Factor in that in the mid 60s (When Bono did an analysis) the fuel cost to orbit was roughly equal to the London to Sydney round trip fuel cost per unit of mass moved.

Now you've got some idea of what you need your vehicle to operate for per trip to make a profit.

BTW you'll need to talk the FAA (in the US) weather it's an aircraft (but rather an odd kind) or a spacecraft for carrying fee paying "Spaceflight participants."

Key questions are you going to be a builder/operator (Boeing did this in the 1930's, till they were broken up under anti-trust legislation. Possibly the best thing that ever happened to them) or just a builder, who can (in principle) sell to anyone who wants one.

[Robotbeat]

Bumping this. What is the efficiency of skip-glide? How much kinetic energy is conserved from the beginning of the bounce to the end? (I assume there's some sort of relationship to the hypersonic L/D ratio.)

[libra]

Some maths there... (scroll down a little).

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/kolymas-shadow-an-alternate-space-race.314576/page-20

[Vahe231991]

I found this May 2023 news item in the Telegraph about the UK investigating the idea of an intercontinental suborbital passenger airliner:

Passengers will be able to fly from the UK to Sydney in less than two hours within a decade, according to new research.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is conducting studies into suborbital “Earth to Earth” space flights, which would see commercial aircraft exiting the Earth’s atmosphere to cut travel times to a fraction of what they are today.

Flying from London to Sydney for example, which usually takes 22 hours, could be reduced to just two hours.

With Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic already investing heavily in space exploration, the idea of affordable high-speed space transportation is no longer the stuff of science fiction.