Commerical Suborbital Point-to-Point

[Jim]

perhaps 90 minutes later you would disembark in London at 2:30 PM.  Enough time for several hours of useful business there the same day. 

No, because you are not going be doing anything business related before 4pm.  Hence there is no useful time left.  And if it was, then there wasn't enough justification to do the trip in the first place, it could be handle by videocon.

[go4mars]

No,  Concorde experience says you are wrong

No it doesn't. 
The concorde had sonic boom issues that limited route choices.
Concorde wasn't very novel or fast compared to a ballistic P2P.
The expansion of commerce and air traffic since concorde makes any market comparison fleetingly tenuous. 

[go4mars]

No, because you are not going be doing anything business related before 4pm.  Hence there is no useful time left.  And if it was, then there wasn't enough justification to do the trip in the first place, it could be handle by videocon.

Sounds like you've never run a business.  You underestimate how much important business stuff happens over dinner and drinks.  Especially in the cities I noted.  If there wasn't a dinner and drinks component to business, then there would be no business class seats sold right now.  It could all be done over video conference and with spreadsheets.  That's not reflective of the real business world (in which boozed-up golfers agree to merge companies, swap assets, etc.).

[Jim]

No,  Concorde experience says you are wrong

No it doesn't. 
The concorde had sonic boom issues that limited route choices.

PTP will also have limited route choices due to other consideration and also sonic boom issues.  It will be more restricted than Concorde.

[Jim]

The expansion of commerce and air traffic since concorde makes any market comparison fleetingly tenuous. 

No, actually it is hasn't expanded that much and it is not exponential growth.  Anyways, increase in volume does not translate into need for speed.

As usual, you had overly unsubstantiated optimist view of progress.

[go4mars]

PTP will also have limited route choices due to other consideration and also sonic boom issues. 

True.  But potentially much more versatile than supersonic concorde.  For example, High-speed ocean-going launch pad/landing pad could load or unload people, cargo, while getting far enough away.   Other work-arounds for land-locked spots.  Not likely, but if too far from business core of a land-locked city, the passenger compartment can be detacheable once sub-sonic for mid-air grab and delivery by helicopter (with "just-in case" parachutes) or other systems.  Lots of options (and some aren't even Rube Goldberg options). 

[go4mars]

No, actually it is hasn't expanded that much and it is not exponential growth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_per_capita_1500_to_2003.png

http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-statistique-lg-2.html

Face the facts.  Concorde's failure is not very relevant to this discussion. 

[clongton]

This was tried by Concorde.  The aircraft was only sold to British Airways and Air France.  After the crash it normally flew half empty.

No,  Concorde experience says you are wrong

Face the facts.  Concorde is not very relevant to this discussion.

A_M, Jim and Mars:

At full capacity Concord could carry 120 passengers. Before the crash, Concord flew nearly full every flight, averaging 85 to 90 passengers each flight. At half-full after the crash that means that Concord routinely carried 60 passengers on a regular basis. It is unlikely that any P2P suborbital passenger spacecraft could carry that many. Stretching it I would imagine it to top out at 20 passengers fully loaded. That means that the P2P would have to fly 3x as often just to keep up with the normal demand that was being filled by Concord. 27 years gentlemen of everyday flights. And now all those people, who preferred to cross the Atlantic quickly, are stuck with the much slower commercial jets. I think a significant number of them would fly P2P suborbital if it were offered.

The market is definitely there, otherwise Concord would not have been able to fly every day for 27 years carrying at least 60 passengers each time. Of those of those 60 passengers for each Concord flight I would not be surprised to see 1/3 to 1/2 of them fly P2P suborbital on a daily basis.

Mars: Concord is very relevant to this discussion. The Concord passenger list would form the core of the P2P commercial market. On a related note I just asked my wife, who is British, if she would fly P2P suborbital when she goes home to visit. She thought about it for a minute and said "they wouldn't fly it if it wasn't reasonably safe so yes, as long as I could afford the ticket I would do that". And trust me guys. This lady is really conservative with safety issues.

Edit: Added comment to Mars

[Jim]

No, actually it is hasn't expanded that much and it is not exponential growth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_per_capita_1500_to_2003.png

http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-statistique-lg-2.html

Face the facts.  Concorde's failure is not very relevant to this discussion. 

What factss?

Your first graph is missing 10 years, that are very relevant.

The Concorde failure is as a revenue generator.

It was basically subsidized by the two national carriers.  It existed for national prestige much the space shuttle.

[mmeijeri]

I thought Concorde was only barely profitable, and then only on a sunk cost basis, the British and French governments having financed its development.

[A_M_Swallow]

The market is definitely there, otherwise Concord would not have been able to fly every day for 27 years carrying at least 60 passengers each time. Of those of those 60 passengers for each Concord flight I would not be surprised to see 1/3 to 1/2 of them fly P2P suborbital on a daily basis.

That is more like it, Simonbp was talking about 300-400 passengers.

IMHO it will be more like 3/4 than 1/3, the crash will have weeded the cowards out.  I would however advise someone to do some market research and check to see if it was 40 or 60 passengers.

With the rise of China business flights across the Pacific should have increased, so IMHO there is a market for a long range suborbital flights there.

[go4mars]

I thought Concorde was only barely profitable, and then only on a sunk cost basis, the British and French governments having financed its development.

I'm not an expert on concorde, but I heard that the financial efficiency of its development (and related "politics of jobs") was akin to Shuttle. 

[A_M_Swallow]

I thought Concorde was only barely profitable, and then only on a sunk cost basis, the British and French governments having financed its development.

Government owned organisations always have problems making a profit.  Doubly so in a competitive situation.

However your warning is a good one.  To make a profit the price of the tickets will have to be a high, will even millionaires pay the price?

[clongton]

I think there is a sweet spot for P2P suborbital wrt passenger capability.
In my opinion, I think a 20-passenger spacecraft flying at or near capacity is capable of making a profit. We all know the ticket price would be very high, but I do believe that there would be enough passenger base to make that nut. The key is to carry enough passengers to make it worthwhile without making the spacecraft bigger wrt passenger capability. Keep the spacecraft sized to the available market. Don't count on a growing market to fill empty seats. If the market builds, build more spacecraft.

[mmeijeri]

I'm not an expert on concorde, but I heard that the financial efficiency of its development (and related "politics of jobs") was akin to Shuttle. 

Neither am I, but as I understand it, Concorde was operated purely commercially after development was complete. Had it led to enough traffic to justify commercial development of a successor, then it would have been a smashing success, but alas that didn't happen.

[clongton]

To make a profit the price of the tickets will have to be a high, will even millionaires pay the price?

The majority of Concord's passengers were either very wealthy or had their passage paid for by their employers on business trips that the corporations deemed worth the expense. For business trips, the cost of transportation is a tax write-off so I believe that those corporations that sent their executives on Concord flights would not hesitate to book them on P2P. It doesn't come out of their pockets - they would simply write it off on their taxes. Instant market.

[ChefPat]

Businesses are in business to make a profit. If a ticket from LAX to Shanghai cost $1000 & takes 13 hours on a traditional flight & $25,000 & takes 2 or 3 hours, which do you think the shareholders are going want used?
As for being a write off. The IRS allows $0.XX per mile for certain businesses. If their vehicle gets mileage in that range, fine. If it doesn't they don't get to ask for a higher amount, they just have to eat it.

[RDoc]

Businesses are in business to make a profit. If a ticket from LAX to Shanghai cost $1000 & takes 13 hours on a traditional flight & $25,000 & takes 2 or 3 hours, which do you think the shareholders are going want used?
As for being a write off. The IRS allows $0.XX per mile for certain businesses. If their vehicle gets mileage in that range, fine. If it doesn't they don't get to ask for a higher amount, they just have to eat it.

Not to start a fight, but that's not actually how travel expenses work.

(For non-US readers, please forgive the tax rules discussion, it's kind of like discussing football (soccer) or the Tarot in the civilized world)

What you're alluding to is how business use of a personal vehicle is handled. Normal business travel, like air fare, is just a straight deduction in most cases. If it's an S-Corp, there might be some questions, but for a large, or publicly traded C-Corp, pretty much anything would be accepted if it were business related.

Back to Concorde for a moment. I worked for a company that paid for (and wrote off) Concorde travel regularly for a couple of executives traveling between the UK and the US. It was generally thought of throughout the company as just a mega-ego thing for a couple of super stars. The actual time savings was negligible due to all the security, connections, limited schedules, etc. Our guys had to go from London to NY to Boston rather than a direct flight London to Boston. Of course, they made the trip a couple of times a month and we paid for it, so BA did get a bunch of money.

One consideration for corporate rocket-borne travel would be perceived safety. If an executive were valuable enough to warrant hypersonic travel, the company would be very concerned for his/her survival. I'd guess that would be a much bigger issue than cost if the cost were only a small multiple of first class.

[douglas100]

But potentially much more versatile than supersonic concorde.  For example, High-speed ocean-going launch pad/landing pad could load or unload people, cargo, while getting far enough away.   Other work-arounds for land-locked spots.  Not likely, but if too far from business core of a land-locked city, the passenger compartment can be detacheable once sub-sonic for mid-air grab and delivery by helicopter (with "just-in case" parachutes) or other systems.  Lots of options (and some aren't even Rube Goldberg options). 

Mid air grab of a passenger compartment? Near a city? Get real.

[Jim]

   Other work-arounds for land-locked spots.  Not likely, but if too far from business core of a land-locked city, the passenger compartment can be detacheable once sub-sonic for mid-air grab and delivery by helicopter (with "just-in case" parachutes) or other systems.  Lots of options (and some aren't even Rube Goldberg options). 

Yeah right.  That is Thunderbirds and not reality.   You are just showing that it is more limited than Concorde by coming up with ridiculous schemes.  And the logistics of rejoining the pieces negates any business case.