
Boeing is making a long-term play for hypersonic travel - prostoalex
https://quartzy.qz.com/1316990/boeing-is-developing-hypersonic-technology-to-change-air-travel/
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growlist
I wonder if this is a defensive strategy as much as anything, what with the
suborbital leisure/transport market apparently heating up. 20-30 years away is
far enough that Boeing could use this venture to investigate broad
concepts/supporting technologies thereby building up a war chest of promising
capabilities, whilst still remanining sufficiently uncommitted to pivot
rapidly should a potential competitor race ahead. One example might be
Boeing's investment in Reaction Engines SABRE tech, which whilst speculative
could prove to be a critically strategic piece of IP.

[https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/reaction-engines-
secures-2...](https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/reaction-engines-
secures-26-5m-investment-from-new-industrial-and-financial-investors/)

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mabbo
Can anyone tell me what is more expensive about hypersonic jet travel?

Fuel costs, I would imagine, are higher- wind resistance is a function of
speed squared after all. But where else does the higher price come from? Are
the jets just that much more expensive to build? If so, why?

~~~
rayiner
Fuel costs are a lot higher. Concorde used four times as much fuel per
passanger as a 747. Plane costs are higher—you need exotic materials and
building techniques in the aircraft and engines to deal with the high
temperatures. But what really gets you is the economics of building niche
products. Even if the long run incremental cost diffefence isn’t that much
(say double), only a tiny fraction of people will be willing to pay the
premium. That means you might amortize your fixed development costs, which
will be much higher of that of a conventional jet, over 1/100 as many planes.
1,500 747s were ever built, but just 20 concordes. The 787 cost $32 billion to
develop. Amortizing that over just dozens instead of hundreds or thousands
causes per-unit costs to explode.

~~~
dx034
To add to this, many of the most popular airports with business travellers
(LHR, JFK, HKG) have restricted capacity. They'd have to use the same number
of slots for a small supersonic plane as for a widebody flying that route
otherwise. That can significantly increase cost per seat.

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simonh
So if this pans out, along with the supersonic passenger jet being developed
by Boom, and maybe even SpaceX plans to use the BFR for super-fast long haul
flights, what are the implications for the economics of conventional passenger
jets? Right now they make a large fraction of their money from business class,
but these new vehicles will take a fair chunk of that away. Doesn't this
inevitably mean significantly higher economy class fares to keep the
conventional planes viable?

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njarboe
Southwest has no first class. All seats are the same. They do just fine and
prices are low. They are probably the most profitable airline of all time in
the US. That most airlines focus on first class/business class as their money
maker means they really don't care much about the rest of the plane. Splitting
business from economy might make both better? Who knows until it happens.

~~~
simonh
Neither do a lot of other low cost regional carriers, but supersonics are
mainly aimed at long haul international business.

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melling
The plane flies at 3800 mph. Assuming they eventually get approval to fly
supersonic over land, NYC to Tokyo or Shanghai should also be doable in about
3 hours?

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sunstone
It had better not be too long term because SpaceX has committed (the CEO, not
Musk) to having 1.5 hour, door to door, travel between any two points on earth
(with on of their space ports) within 10 years. All for the price of a first
class ticket.

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avmich
It would be interesting to learn how they are going to solve the problems of
relatively high apogee orbits. For example, what's going to be done with space
junk? If they are going to seriously compete with current airline industry,
there are many flights and there are many objects to cross orbits with. Or
what about levels of radiation in the middle of ballistic trajectory?

Another question is of reliability at landing - Zarya spacecraft design was
shelved in ~1985 because powered landing alone was deemed to risky - and
that's for relatively infrequent government flights, not for passenger
industry.

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amelius
I hope they will run on renewable energy ...

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mac01021
Can one make a jet engine fueled by pure hydrogen?

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avmich
Project Suntan comes to mind -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CL-400_Suntan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CL-400_Suntan)
.

That was a proud start for the USA hydrogen engine technology...

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pfdietz
Boeing will never pay for this by themselves. It's an attempt to get $$$ from
Uncle Sugar, just like the SST ferment back in the 1970s.

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akhatri_aus
What's wrong with that? Most new technologies come about in that way anyway.

You wouldn't be on the internet today otherwise.

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pfdietz
I dispute that most new technologies come about in that way. More often,
government jumps on bandwagons that have already started in the private
sector, if the government gets involved at all. And often, when the government
goes first, there's a damned good reason the private sector avoided it.

The SST example is a good one. Back then, aircraft makers would only go ahead
if it was a government program, because they knew the commercial case was
deeply flawed. There was all sort of gnashing of teeth about money grubbing
luddites in congress when funding was cut, but it turned out to have been the
right thing to do.

~~~
woodandsteel
Radical new technologies are generally based on scientific understanding that
is the product of many decades of government-funded research.

Also many new technologies were first developed by the military, such as the
internet, the jet engine, sonar, nuclear power, the computer, and space
rockets.

Alas, the Republicans, who have an economic philosophy similar to yours, have
been slashing government support of science, and so we can expect to fall
behind the Chinese in it in the coming decades.

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pfdietz
There's actually not good evidence that public funding of research has a
positive economic impact (private R&D is another matter).

[https://lemire.me/blog/2013/02/26/does-academic-research-
cau...](https://lemire.me/blog/2013/02/26/does-academic-research-cause-
economic-growth/)

