Re:The Revival of Concorde
by sandworm101 on Friday September 18, 2015 @10:07PM
(#10243028)
Yes, but you aren't going to see wealthy people (generally older) going through the astronaut training, tying in with 5-point harnesses, climbing into a vertically-mounted fuselage, then pulling 3+Gs on "takeoff" followed by several vomit-filled minutes of weightlessness before reversing the entire process.
Imagine the chaos of a dozen members of the general public experiencing zero gravity for the first time. Better bring lots of towels ... and an umbrella.
Re:The Revival of Concorde
by david-given on Saturday September 19, 2015 @11:26AM
(#10244497)
It's very easy to dramatically underestimate the amount of fuel needed for an effective suborbital trajectory. If you want to travel half-way round the world, then delta-V wise, you're not very far off actually getting into orbit.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1118/1
That article quotes 7km/s for a 10,000km trip, compared to about 8km/s for LEO.
The X-15 (and SpaceshipOne, for that matter) was never trying to actually go anywhere; it just hopped out of the atmosphere and come down again very close to where it took off, with a delta-V of about 1.5km/s.
It's worth getting a copy of KSP and actually trying this. It's eye-opening.
as far as in understand the X-15 is more simple than Concorde. The suborbital and ICBM-ballistic tech is well understood and has been in constant use for half a century, where is Mach 3+ aircraft territory is still almost no-go zone. Compare to high Mach the suborbital/ballistic is just more energy efficient.