Starship Point to Point Transport considerations

[Twark_Main]

watching the P2P video above with Jack Beyer for the first time just now, I see we both identified how far away from major transport hubs these spaceports need to be. Combine that with the likely necessity to travel to and from one of the small number of starship-capable spaceports that can be built, and you're probably adding significant time to your journey. All of which adds significant time to any P2P trip.

This is why I still think that the "anywhere in under an hour" aspect of the P2P flight is the biggest red herring in this discussion.

London is a bad example. Of course P2P isn't as fast for inland cities. 

No Hyperloop departing from Big Ben, sorry folks. SpaceX will just use a fast ferry from a shore terminal, which (accounting for a half-hour boarding/disembarking and similar travel time — adds maybe 90 minutes on each end.

This is still substantially faster than conventional air travel, so check the color of your herring again. 

[Blackhorse]

I have travelled twice to Réunion island, in 2016 and 2018 : because stepfamily  (France overseas territory : down under near Madagascar, corner of no and where in the Indian ocean). 10 hours flights, from Paris only, night only. First time,  my kid was 2.5 years old.

It was hell on Earth. Gotta hate  cramped airliners.

Now, I don't live in Paris but on the Atlantic coast.  I have to say that a P2P trip from metropolitan France / Atlantic coast to Indian ocean, taking 1 hour - is pretty attractive. Of course cost would probably be way, way unaffordable for me and my family.

Trip map.
https://www.distance.to/44.83639545410477,-1.4339668068142828/-20.843411564986447,55.41747523328422

Wonder whether all those african countries would accept Starship passing over them...

[Robotbeat]

I have travelled twice to Réunion island, in 2016 and 2018 : because stepfamily  (France overseas territory : down under near Madagascar, corner of no and where in the Indian ocean). 10 hours flights, from Paris only, night only. First time,  my kid was 2.5 years old.

It was hell on Earth. Gotta hate  cramped airliners.

Now, I don't live in Paris but on the Atlantic coast.  I have to say that a P2P trip from metropolitan France / Atlantic coast to Indian ocean, taking 1 hour - is pretty attractive. Of course cost would probably be way, way unaffordable for me and my family.

Trip map.
https://www.distance.to/44.83639545410477,-1.4339668068142828/-20.843411564986447,55.41747523328422

Wonder whether all those african countries would accept Starship passing over them...

Travel in space is not limited by typical airspace control. So they don’t have international legal standing to do anything about it unless there’s significant risk or unless the ships go below 100km.

…which is a kind of interesting possibility for landlocked countries that otherwise have to ask for their neighbors’ permission for literally any other kind of transport. Airspace fees can cost thousands of dollars. Transit by rail or road or river are… whatever your neighbor feels like charging you.

So in the far future, I can see point to point space transport to be an interesting loop hole for all those many landlocked African countries.

[mikelepage]

London is a bad example. Of course P2P isn't as fast for inland cities. 

No Hyperloop departing from Big Ben, sorry folks. SpaceX will just use a fast ferry from a shore terminal, which (accounting for a half-hour boarding/disembarking and similar travel time — adds maybe 90 minutes on each end.

This is still substantially faster than conventional air travel, so check the color of your herring again. 

I stand by the colour of my herring 

I'm not saying that it isn't technically possible to make it a lot faster than air travel. It's that optimising for speed means putting spaceports near large coastal cities, which have... ya know... actual ports with actual cargo ships doing $billions in trade that need to be cleared out of an exclusion zone every time starship launches.

And that's so you can go fast, when most people - given zero incremental cost to stay in space for a bit longer - will gladly do so. People are putting down enough for a European holiday, to realise what is probably a lifelong ambition.

Anyway, the KSC to Vandenberg route - being ITAR friendly and from established US spaceports - seem to me to capture more of the value that people are actually after (at least in the near-term).

[mikelepage]

I believe p2p is envisioned to work without a booster, ship only. Most routes in the northern hemisphere are in the 10,000 km range. (I'm sure it was already 9 engines when conceived, even back then)

I know Musk has commented on just the ship being capable of going "surprisingly far", but the 2017 presentation showed a floating barge with both ship and booster. Elsewhere I've even seen plans with a "stubby booster" that addressed some of the other challenges around noise near cities.

You're right; for passengers there isn't going to be much of an upside by way of convenience or speed of travel. However, it's plausible there would be a certain customer base willing to pay wild sums of money for a half-hour or so of 'fun in space'. But in that case, why even bother making it P2P? Why not just offer single, double, triple, etc. orbits that land back where you started?
That way, you just drive up to Starbase (or wherever), and then drive back to your hotel (or home) afterward.
The whole idea of this being a fast form of transport is a bit rich, unless/until Starship can take off from within urban centers and land there too.

I agree it's not entirely obvious how this will get started. I tend to think maybe 5 to 10 starship-capable spaceports will be more than capable of servicing the moon and Mars campaigns, but for those facilities to be useful in a P2P context, this will still mean passengers getting flights to the launch spaceports in their region of the planet and flights from the landing spaceport in the destination region, so not that may or may not save time vs them just flying directly to the destination.

I think a lot changes when you have a space station for tourism in LEO - something to serve as a hub in space, with people coming and going from various spaceports on Earth, frequently. Make it a rotating space station where people can experience partial gravity for a week or a month, and that starts to appear like a viable business plan to me.

[meekGee]

I believe p2p is envisioned to work without a booster, ship only. Most routes in the northern hemisphere are in the 10,000 km range. (I'm sure it was already 9 engines when conceived, even back then)

I know Musk has commented on just the ship being capable of going "surprisingly far", but the 2017 presentation showed a floating barge with both ship and booster. Elsewhere I've even seen plans with a "stubby booster" that addressed some of the other challenges around noise near cities.

You're right; for passengers there isn't going to be much of an upside by way of convenience or speed of travel. However, it's plausible there would be a certain customer base willing to pay wild sums of money for a half-hour or so of 'fun in space'. But in that case, why even bother making it P2P? Why not just offer single, double, triple, etc. orbits that land back where you started?
That way, you just drive up to Starbase (or wherever), and then drive back to your hotel (or home) afterward.
The whole idea of this being a fast form of transport is a bit rich, unless/until Starship can take off from within urban centers and land there too.

I agree it's not entirely obvious how this will get started. I tend to think maybe 5 to 10 starship-capable spaceports will be more than capable of servicing the moon and Mars campaigns, but for those facilities to be useful in a P2P context, this will still mean passengers getting flights to the launch spaceports in their region of the planet and flights from the landing spaceport in the destination region, so not that may or may not save time vs them just flying directly to the destination.

I think a lot changes when you have a space station for tourism in LEO - something to serve as a hub in space, with people coming and going from various spaceports on Earth, frequently. Make it a rotating space station where people can experience partial gravity for a week or a month, and that starts to appear like a viable business plan to me.

Yes the original showed a booster  but after "surprisingly far" and new raptor.performance, I expect ship-only for most flights.

A 10 hour flight, at 600 MPH, is (hold on getting a calculator) 6000 miles.  That's like SFO to AMS or FRA.

If a ship can do that, the world's open for business.

Last mile transport is solved by a few regular tunnels and cars. It's not like ground travel to a regular airport doesn't take time.

Cost?  Remember a Starship doesn't need a flight crew, and maybe a single canin crew.  The ship can fly several times per day, helping amortoze costs.

I think (to paraphrase) you'll be surprised how far it gets.

[Robotbeat]

I think helicopters, seaplanes, STOL planes, or eVTOL is worth it to cut down the time at each end. Some sort of high speed tram or train like Hyperloop is just one possibility. A ferry is too slow, IMO

[meekGee]

I think helicopters, seaplanes, STOL planes, or eVTOL is worth it to cut down the time at each end. Some sort of high speed tram or train like Hyperloop is just one possibility. A ferry is too slow, IMO

Yup.  People have it backwards.  The availability of a super fast main transport will drive the need to expedite the last mile service, not the other way around.

Right now there's simply no motivation, since the goddamn plane ride is 10 hours.

[mikelepage]

I think helicopters, seaplanes, STOL planes, or eVTOL is worth it to cut down the time at each end. Some sort of high speed tram or train like Hyperloop is just one possibility. A ferry is too slow, IMO

Yup.  People have it backwards.  The availability of a super fast main transport will drive the need to expedite the last mile service, not the other way around.

Right now there's simply no motivation, since the goddamn plane ride is 10 hours.

Yeah admittedly as an Aussie, 10 hour plane rides are table stakes to get most places internationally. And knowing grandparents who spent weeks making the same journey we do in 10-17 hours kinda makes you suck it up and deal with it. It’s not that bad, especially now that there are well made tv shows you can binge an entire season of in a plane ride.

Fully agreed with fast heli transport vs ferry btw, but think you nailed it when the transport has to be available first. Lots of flights to be made before then.

What do we think about KSC to Vandy as an interim step? (Substitute your preferred single orbit journeys between existing spaceports).

What I’m driving at is whether this can start - and be proved out - as an alternative use for exisiting infrastructure, before building a whole new service?

[CraigLieb]

Would regular flights demonstrating say 1000 landings without crashing begin to loosen the regulatory requirements to clear the ground and ocean for miles every time a starship lands?
They don’t do this for aircraft and these at least used to crash onto people and houses sometimes.

[envy887]

Would regular flights demonstrating say 1000 landings without crashing begin to loosen the regulatory requirements to clear the ground and ocean for miles every time a starship lands?
They don’t do this for aircraft and these at least used to crash onto people and houses sometimes.

Launch noise and sonic booms are a lot worse with Starship than aircraft - less so for just the ship than a full stack, but still worse. I don't really see multiple flights per day ever being acceptable within 10 or 20 miles of any significant population. That will set the distance from most people, rather than blast danger, which is really only about 2 miles anyway, or maybe a mile for the ship alone.

[RedLineTrain]

Would regular flights demonstrating say 1000 landings without crashing begin to loosen the regulatory requirements to clear the ground and ocean for miles every time a starship lands?
They don’t do this for aircraft and these at least used to crash onto people and houses sometimes.

Launch noise and sonic booms are a lot worse with Starship than aircraft - less so for just the ship than a full stack, but still worse. I don't really see multiple flights per day ever being acceptable within 10 or 20 miles of any significant population. That will set the exclusion zones, rather than blast danger, which is really only about 2 miles anyway, or maybe a mile for the ship alone.

Clear areas for ship static fire and launch will only be about a half mile.  See attached.  Also, the speed for ship on entry is transonic pretty high up (~72k feet).



True that ship launch would be about as loud as a Falcon Heavy.

[Twark_Main]

London is a bad example. Of course P2P isn't as fast for inland cities. 

No Hyperloop departing from Big Ben, sorry folks. SpaceX will just use a fast ferry from a shore terminal, which (accounting for a half-hour boarding/disembarking and similar travel time — adds maybe 90 minutes on each end.

This is still substantially faster than conventional air travel, so check the color of your herring again. 

I stand by the colour of my herring 

I'm not saying that it isn't technically possible to make it a lot faster than air travel. It's that optimising for speed means putting spaceports near large coastal cities, which have... ya know... actual ports with actual cargo ships doing $billions in trade that need to be cleared out of an exclusion zone every time starship launches.

Look at actual port maps. There's plenty of room outside the sealanes. Water is big. 

Also not all coastal cities even have major seaports.

And that's so you can go fast, when most people - given zero incremental cost to stay in space for a bit longer - will gladly do so. People are putting down enough for a European holiday, to realise what is probably a lifelong ambition.

Anyway, the KSC to Vandenberg route - being ITAR friendly and from established US spaceports - seem to me to capture more of the value that people are actually after (at least in the near-term).

The nearest-term (ie literally the very first route) will serve space tourism, but everything after that will be time sensitive.

My problem with your fish coloration was that it sounded like you were saying "real" transport (vs space tourism) was never going to happen, but hearing you talk about "near-term" it sounds like I misunderstood.

[spacenut]

Newer more modern supersonic jets could cut the travel time in half, from 10 hours to say 5 hours.  This would be more reasonable, possibly safer, in the short run.  A company in South Carolina is working on one.  Tests have already been ran on smaller versions.  It also depends on possibly longer runways to accommodate SST's.  A mock 2 plane can be reasonably built.  It has been done, and with a more modern design less sonic boom. 

Rocket transportation for passengers is possibly 10 or more years out and may be too expensive for most.  SST's will probably be more expensive than standard flights, but Concord had flyers.   

[meekGee]

Would regular flights demonstrating say 1000 landings without crashing begin to loosen the regulatory requirements to clear the ground and ocean for miles every time a starship lands?
They don’t do this for aircraft and these at least used to crash onto people and houses sometimes.

Launch noise and sonic booms are a lot worse with Starship than aircraft - less so for just the ship than a full stack, but still worse. I don't really see multiple flights per day ever being acceptable within 10 or 20 miles of any significant population. That will set the distance from most people, rather than blast danger, which is really only about 2 miles anyway, or maybe a mile for the ship alone.

Yup but you don't have to evacuate all air and sea traffic from a region.

Boca Choca is what, 5 miles from SPI?  And sure it's too noisy for a full stack, but I don't think you'll need 20 miles.

And a 10 mile low-population radius, out at sea or into the desert, is manageable in most places.

[envy887]

Would regular flights demonstrating say 1000 landings without crashing begin to loosen the regulatory requirements to clear the ground and ocean for miles every time a starship lands?
They don’t do this for aircraft and these at least used to crash onto people and houses sometimes.

Launch noise and sonic booms are a lot worse with Starship than aircraft - less so for just the ship than a full stack, but still worse. I don't really see multiple flights per day ever being acceptable within 10 or 20 miles of any significant population. That will set the distance from most people, rather than blast danger, which is really only about 2 miles anyway, or maybe a mile for the ship alone.

Yup but you don't have to evacuate all air and sea traffic from a region.

Boca Choca is what, 5 miles from SPI?  And sure it's too noisy for a full stack, but I don't think you'll need 20 miles.

And a 10 mile low-population radius, out at sea or into the desert, is manageable in most places.

SPI is not a population center; nobody is buying a rocket ticket to travel there. A high cost, high speed travel service has to go places like New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney, Dubai, etc to get an appreciable volume of well-heeled travelers. And those place have a lot of people who will vociferously complain about rocket noise.

I don't think you're getting within 10 miles of any of those city centers with a rocket. 50 miles, maybe. Even 25, perhaps. Either way, I think helicopter or eVTOL will be the most common transport to the pad. The people paying $10k for a ticket don't want to take ferries or trains, and they don't care if flying to the rocketport adds 10% to the trip cost.

[Robotbeat]

I think helicopters, seaplanes, STOL planes, or eVTOL is worth it to cut down the time at each end. Some sort of high speed tram or train like Hyperloop is just one possibility. A ferry is too slow, IMO

Yup.  People have it backwards.  The availability of a super fast main transport will drive the need to expedite the last mile service, not the other way around.

Right now there's simply no motivation, since the goddamn plane ride is 10 hours.

Yeah admittedly as an Aussie, 10 hour plane rides are table stakes to get most places internationally. And knowing grandparents who spent weeks making the same journey we do in 10-17 hours kinda makes you suck it up and deal with it. It’s not that bad, especially now that there are well made tv shows you can binge an entire season of in a plane ride.

Fully agreed with fast heli transport vs ferry btw, but think you nailed it when the transport has to be available first. Lots of flights to be made before then.

What do we think about KSC to Vandy as an interim step? (Substitute your preferred single orbit journeys between existing spaceports).

What I’m driving at is whether this can start - and be proved out - as an alternative use for exisiting infrastructure, before building a whole new service?

I feel like Earth to Earth starship for regular passengers is still decades off, but…

Imagine arriving to visit the Kennedy Space Center or Disney World on an actual rocket from actual space, using some futuristic eVTOL vehicle I get to their hotel. People would pay extra for it, easily. I can think of like Singapore or Dubai as other early ports of call for Starship passenger service.

[meekGee]

Would regular flights demonstrating say 1000 landings without crashing begin to loosen the regulatory requirements to clear the ground and ocean for miles every time a starship lands?
They don’t do this for aircraft and these at least used to crash onto people and houses sometimes.

Launch noise and sonic booms are a lot worse with Starship than aircraft - less so for just the ship than a full stack, but still worse. I don't really see multiple flights per day ever being acceptable within 10 or 20 miles of any significant population. That will set the distance from most people, rather than blast danger, which is really only about 2 miles anyway, or maybe a mile for the ship alone.

Yup but you don't have to evacuate all air and sea traffic from a region.

Boca Choca is what, 5 miles from SPI?  And sure it's too noisy for a full stack, but I don't think you'll need 20 miles.

And a 10 mile low-population radius, out at sea or into the desert, is manageable in most places.

SPI is not a population center; nobody is buying a rocket ticket to travel there. A high cost, high speed travel service has to go places like New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney, Dubai, etc to get an appreciable volume of well-heeled travelers. And those place have a lot of people who will vociferously complain about rocket noise.

I don't think you're getting within 10 miles of any of those city centers with a rocket. 50 miles, maybe. Even 25, perhaps. Either way, I think helicopter or eVTOL will be the most common transport to the pad. The people paying $10k for a ticket don't want to take ferries or trains, and they don't care if flying to the rocketport adds 10% to the trip cost.

That's why I doubled the distance, even though Ship takes off with only about 1/4 the power.

So 10 mile radius, either into the sea, or into the desert.  It'll end up being probably 40 miles from city centers, or 20 minutes in a Tesla in a dedicated tunnel.

Really not a big deal.

[meekGee]

I feel like Earth to Earth starship for regular passengers is still decades off, but…

True of most SpaceX projects:

Longer than they promise, but sooner than you thought it was gonna be before they promised.

[Robotbeat]

I think Earth to Earth in some capacity is much sooner than that for cargo, and as a private plane, possibly as well. I meant like regular tourists coming to Disneyworld. That requires like 100,000 flights to prove safety.