SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says

Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by orbital-decay on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @02:49PM (#33441010)

So, basically Concorde, but worse and more restricted. Needs a launch site remote enough to not drive everybody crazy with the noise (Shuttle launches could have been heard dozens of miles away), and a secure trajectory to not kill anybody on the ground if things go bad. Not even talking about reliability, g-loads, and many other things.

You can't jump from Mayfair, London to Manhattan with this system, at which point any flight time improvement becomes negligible.

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by adamsb6 on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @03:10PM (#33441359)

High speed ferry to offshore platform? That should address both noise and safety.

All the check-in gets handled on shore, then a fifteen minute ride out to the platform on a high speed ferry, 20 minutes to onboard, then 30 minutes to any other offshore platform in the world, followed by a 20 minute offboarding, and another fifteen minute ferry ride.

The actual travel time would be less than the time you're expected to wait in the airport prior to boarding an international flight.

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by terafo on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @03:18PM (#33441481)

Are there any ferries that can hit 200 km/h? Because that's what it would take to get reasonably far from the city.

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by LargoLasskhyfv on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @09:27PM (#33445533)

Only half of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSC_Francisco

Maybe a future revival of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle ?

Or some shiny airtaxi vtol running on renewables, electricity, handwavium?

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by orbital-decay on Thursday November 03, 2022 @12:09AM (#33446869)

Or just a hybrid HTHL vehicle, think SpaceShipTwo with an additional airbreathing engine and some thermal protection instead of a fancy feathered system (not feasible at high velocities). Take off on a quiet engine, get away from cities, make a rocket-powered suborbital jump, vomit in between, re-enter, land quietly across the pond.

(still sounds handwavy and not very realistic, though)

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by LargoLasskhyfv on Thursday November 03, 2022 @10:30AM (#33451564)

That sounds like Reaction Engines Skylon / Lapcat A2.

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