Landing a rocket

Quote: Nareed

Ok. Why with so many companies working on suborbital joyrides, has none of them even explored suborbital point-to-point travel?

My question is, how many people have actually made a sub-orbital space flight. I know of four times, although there may be more.

Vostok 1 (USSR) Yuri Gagarin 12-Apr-61 108minutes First manned space flight (1 orbit).
Mercury-Redstone 3 (USA) Alan Shepard 5-May-61 15m:22s First American in space (suborbital). Freedom 7. (487.3 kilometers)
Mercury-Redstone 4 (USA) Virgil Grissom 21-Jul-61 15m:37s Second suborbital flight; spacecraft sank, Grissom rescued. Liberty Bell 7.(486.15 kilometers )

The Tier One project made two successful competitive flights: X1 on September 29, 2004, piloted by Mike Melvill to 102.9 km; and X2 on October 4, 2004, piloted by Brian Binnie to 112 km.

SpaceShipTwo test on April 29, 2013, began at an altitude of 14 km and reached a maximum altitude of 17 km before violently breaking apart.

Basically, there is almost no data that the FAA would require before authorizing sub-orbital over water flights.

But similar to the 1961 flights a suborbital trip of 544 km from San Francisco to Los Angeles that takes 15 minutes may be a novelty that celebrities and CEO's would pay $50K to take.

Spaceliner is estimating 25 years to build true p2p suborbital travel (like australia to Europe).
http://www.dlr.de/irs/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-7678/13079_read-32949/

The SR-71 Blackbird has been mothballed by the U.S.A.F. Since they can reportedly do Mach 3.5 in 50+ year old technology, why are companies putting millions into "rockets"? Just refurbish these titanium relics and fly from New York to Los Angeles in an hour.

Quote: Digital Trends

"Perhaps one of its greatest achievements came in 1990 when an SR-71 broke four new speed records during a cross-country trip from California to Chantilly, Virginia. During the flight, the SR-71 set the record for fastest West Coast to East Coast time (67 minutes, 54 seconds); fastest Los Angeles to Washington D.C. time (64 minutes, 20 seconds); fastest Kansas City, Missouri to Washington D.C. time (25 minutes, 59 seconds); and fastest St. Louis, Missouri to Cincinnati, Ohio time (8 minutes, 32 seconds). For comparison sake, a typical passenger plane has the ability to make the trip from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in roughly 4 and a half hours — not counting take-off or landing times."

photo from digitaltrends.com

Quote: Ayecarumba

The SR-71 Blackbird has been mothballed by the U.S.A.F. Since they can reportedly do Mach 3.5 in 50+ year old technology, why are companies putting millions into "rockets"? Just refurbish these titanium relics and fly from New York to Los Angeles in an hour.

The military can spend money however it wants and doesn't need to turn a profit. The Blackbird fleet was very expensive to operate.

What amazes me is NASA didn't get one or two for high-altitude research. They have, or had, a few of the Blackbird's predecessors U-2s active.

Anyway, a suborbital plane could do perhaps Mach 7-8 using rockets. Ballistic missiles, which are suborbital, have been rather easily upgraded for orbital launches.

Heinlein used them in his last novel, "Friday." At one point, the narrator casually mentions a suborbital can't take off until it has been cleared for landing.

Quote: Nareed

Anyway, a suborbital plane could do perhaps Mach 7-8 using rockets.

I used to work on mathematics of hypersonic speeds, and was published in NASA's journal of spacecraft and rockets. Hypersonic is vaguely defined as speeds above Mach 5.

Across the Hypersonic Divide is a recent article about attaining Mach 6 in June 2015 on an X-14.

Hypersonic planes are characterized by cooled nickel titanium skin and small wings. In addition to the X-51A Waverider there is also HyperSoar .

Quote: Wizard

Why wouldn't it be easier to use blimps to get tourists into low earth orbit? They could also enjoy the experience for hours as opposed to minutes.

The Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offers a 20 mile high balloon ride for $90k.



I am not sure what is keeping the small parachute open...

Quote: Ayecarumba

The Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offers a 20 mile high balloon ride for $90k.

http://worldviewexperience.com/become-a-voyager/
The price advertised by the company is $75K, so I presume the N-M trip includes a $15K dinner.

Of course it may be miserable to point out that space begins at 329,000' so this balloon ride to 100,000' is not really at the edge. Still it should give you a good view of the Gulf of California and maybe even the Pacific Ocean.

Quote: Pacomartin

Of course it may be miserable to point out that space begins at 329,000' so this balloon ride to 100,000' is not really at the edge. Still it should give you a good view of the Gulf of California and maybe even the Pacific Ocean.

If you measure the atmosphere by density rather than volume, then at 33,000 meters you're well past most of it. It is the edge, but the edge happens to be very thick and rarefied.

BTW, a little Cessna doing barely 120 kph flying at only 500 meters is much closer to being in orbit than the balloon making no speed floating that high.

But this is like saying that $1 is much closer to $1,000,000 than $0.01

Quote: Nareed

If you measure the atmosphere by density rather than volume, then at 33,000 meters you're well past most of it. It is the edge, but the edge happens to be very thick and rarefied.

I suppose another way to look at it is the horizon is only 81% further at 329,000' than it is at 100,000' . Since the view is a big part of what you are paying for, then $75K for a long lasting view at 100,000' is probably a much better deal than $250K for a few minutes at 329,000'. The additional 81% range is not worth three times the price.

The second thing that you are paying for is bragging rights. The suborbital flight wins hands down on this one , as you can't say you were in space until you reach this altitude.

The other thing you are paying for is weightlessness. Frankly there is much much cheaper ways to get weightless. One is with a specialized plane


The cheapest way to get weightless is 5 flights for $200 at Vegas Indoor skydiving. Plus you can take the kids.