06:30
OptimusJ
Picture this: you wake up in New
York, grab a cup of coffee and a bagel and hop on a plane. By the time
you finish breakfast you’re in Beijing.
According to a paper released by British consulting firm Knight Frank,
which specializes in trends for “ultra-high net worth individuals,”
sub-orbital commuter flights traveling at about 4,000 miles per hour
(today's planes go around 500 mph), will be ready for the public by
2020.
The key is getting companies
that are already approved for sub-orbital space travel (like Virgin
Galactic) to stop planning trips just straight into the thermosphere and
back down, and instead to start traveling around the globe.
Virgin Galactic’s founder
Richard Branson has already indicated that he’s looking into this. He
imagines a “future version of the current spaceship which will make
transcontinental travel clean and fast — London to Sydney in a couple of
hours.”
The flights are estimated to
cost anywhere between $90,000 and $250,000 a pop making them accessible
to only the top 0.01%. Call it billionaire-exclusive technology.
Aaron Pressman also has some qualms with the technology itself. “These
[jets] can only take off and land in very special places like the
spaceport that’s in New Mexico,” he says. “That’s not going to help the
0.1% get from New York to London or Australia. So it’s going to take a
while before these rockets become more like normal airplanes that can
land at normal airports.”
Still, if proper infrastructure
is built large-scale sub-orbital operations could becomea reality and
prices could become affordable, says Pressman, but not for a long time.
“Maybe our grandchildren will experience it,” he says.
Posted in: flying
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