Sir Richard Branson's vision for NYC to Tokyo in 1 hour

noviapriani

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Quote from: Chef Ramsay on May 06, 2014, 09:42:18 PM

We all know he takes BTC for his space program so this makes this next vision palatable for more of us at some point.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101645716

Quote

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson sees a not-so-distant future when transcontinental air travel may be measured in minutes, not hours.
"If we get it right, New York to Tokyo could be less than an hour," the Virgin Group founder told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "You could be traveling at 19,000 miles per hour orbitally."

Branson said he's hoping to bring back supersonic commercial air travel after getting his Virgin Galactic space venture off the ground. "After we've done the space program, we will be producing supersonic planes, which will go far, far, faster than [the] Concorde."

It's been more than a decade since the last commercial flight of the Concorde, which was able to make it from London to New York in three hours. It was retired by British Airways after 27 years in service.

Branson, 63, told CNBC he'd like to bring his brand of futuristic flights to fruition in his lifetime.

CNBC video footage of interview at link^.

Its a great idea but similar to the fate of the concord it doesn't have as much to do with speed as it does with cost.

sana8410

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Sir Richard Branson might be crazy but normal people don't change the world. The Rambam was crazy; Columbus was crazy; Einstein was crazy; Ed Kroc was crazy; Moshe Feiglin was crazy; Fred Smith (Fedex) was crazy; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were crazy. It's a long list. The list of people that did nothing in the name of normalcy is much longer - but they remain unknown. Pick one.

counter

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Time is on our side, yes it is!

It is a project I support if everything is on the up and up ofcourse. I find it hard to trust what these big companies have to say alot but atleast Mr Branson is publicly setting the precedent of his plans. More then most are doing IMO.

boumalo

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Quote from: Singlebyte on May 08, 2014, 10:51:20 PM

I think this is going to be impossible unless some new regulations are adopted. (Doubtful)

Current generation civilian supersonic aircraft are prohibited from flying supersonically overland in most parts of the world. The problem of sonic boom was the single biggest factor in the commercial failure of Concorde and has continued to prevent adoption of supersonic transports.

So unless they plan on flying entirely over the open ocean and taking the "long route", there is no way they will accomplish this in the stated time.

Concorde costed a lot in research, a lot to maintain and a lot of fuel

It was very difficult to operate and the USA were trying to ban it

Singlebyte

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I think this is going to be impossible unless some new regulations are adopted. (Doubtful)

Current generation civilian supersonic aircraft are prohibited from flying supersonically overland in most parts of the world. The problem of sonic boom was the single biggest factor in the commercial failure of Concorde and has continued to prevent adoption of supersonic transports.

So unless they plan on flying entirely over the open ocean and taking the "long route", there is no way they will accomplish this in the stated time.

drporschef

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At least hes doing something beneficial to help. I would not last 8 hrs on airplane.

boumalo

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Quote from: bryant.coleman on May 06, 2014, 10:37:47 PM

Reminds me of the Concorde. When it was launched there was so much of hype and celebration. Yet, later it turned out as an expensive and environmentally harmful option. I just hope that this venture will fare better than the Concorde.

It will be a private venture compared to public investments and there has been a lot of innovation that will keep the project costs lower

hilariousandco

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Quote from: Lethn on May 08, 2014, 12:53:24 AM

I think he's in on it, because like I said, he's at it again spreading the bullshit like before except this time he's pretending he's got a fucking space plane, if he really did everybody would go ballistic and there would be a new space race, but I don't think that's going to happen just yet, we're certainly heading in that direction now though because people are seeing the amount of precious metals there are in space up for grabs.

It's a sub-orbital flight, but it still technically goes into Space, so I don't see what the problem is.

Quote from: Bit_Happy on May 08, 2014, 12:11:46 AM

Quote from: Lethn on May 07, 2014, 05:49:44 AM

Speaking as a virgin media customer Richard Branson is a fucking tool >_< he lied about their fibre optic internet and he's lying repeatedly about how is planes are 'space planes' when really they're only capable of atmospheric flight.

Virgin Galactic is aiming to offer space flights...in the future.
Just curious, do you have any links related to your "Branson hate"?

I think Branson must've fucked his mum or something. He seems to have quite a grudge against him and Virgin for some reason.

Lethn

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I think he's in on it, because like I said, he's at it again spreading the bullshit like before except this time he's pretending he's got a fucking space plane, if he really did everybody would go ballistic and there would be a new space race, but I don't think that's going to happen just yet, we're certainly heading in that direction now though because people are seeing the amount of precious metals there are in space up for grabs.

Bit_Happy

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Quote from: Lethn on May 08, 2014, 12:26:25 AM

Great summary I just found here of what happened - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3391-asa-rules-on-virgin-fibre-optic-broadband-claims.html

Quote

The ASA received 22 complaints from the public, Sky and TalkTalk on a number of issues. The main ones are:

   . The adverts claimed it was 'fibre optic' broadband when the connection from the street cabinet to the home was co-axial copper wire;

   . The suggestion that the speed does not slow down no matter how far you live from the telephone exchange;

   . Sky challenged whether the ad gave the misleading impression that cable broadband speeds would never slow down, and that Virgin Media customers would always be able to achieve consistent broadband speeds;

   . TalkTalk challenged whether the claim "fastest and best performing broadband" was misleading because it compared ADSL with a 10 Mb cable connection, while the offer described in the small print was for Virgin's 2 Mb cable service. TalkTalk contended that their 8 Mb ADSL service was faster than Virgin's 2 Mb cable service;

   . TalkTalk complained that the add was 'denigratory' as it implied VM was the only broadband company to tell the truth;

   . Both TalkTalk and Sky objected to the comparison which they suggested made it seem as if only 50% of the country could receive services from them;

So basically, they pretended their whole network was fibre optic but in reality only the main portions of the network were fibre and the connection that you get through to your actual computer is not fibre at all but a standard broadband connection.

Yeah, they want space flights in the future, but they're acting as if they have them now, he's full of shit, I really don't like somebody who bullshits me like that to my face lol.

Oops... Thanks for the info.
I always thought Virgin was a good company: They are so huge there is bound to be some problems.
I wonder if the executive in charge of that division got fired and/or if Richard Branson knew about the deception (before the public challenge)

Lethn

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Great summary I just found here of what happened - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3391-asa-rules-on-virgin-fibre-optic-broadband-claims.html

Quote

The ASA received 22 complaints from the public, Sky and TalkTalk on a number of issues. The main ones are:

   . The adverts claimed it was 'fibre optic' broadband when the connection from the street cabinet to the home was co-axial copper wire;

   . The suggestion that the speed does not slow down no matter how far you live from the telephone exchange;

   . Sky challenged whether the ad gave the misleading impression that cable broadband speeds would never slow down, and that Virgin Media customers would always be able to achieve consistent broadband speeds;

   . TalkTalk challenged whether the claim "fastest and best performing broadband" was misleading because it compared ADSL with a 10 Mb cable connection, while the offer described in the small print was for Virgin's 2 Mb cable service. TalkTalk contended that their 8 Mb ADSL service was faster than Virgin's 2 Mb cable service;

   . TalkTalk complained that the add was 'denigratory' as it implied VM was the only broadband company to tell the truth;

   . Both TalkTalk and Sky objected to the comparison which they suggested made it seem as if only 50% of the country could receive services from them;

So basically, they pretended their whole network was fibre optic but in reality only the main portions of the network were fibre and the connection that you get through to your actual computer is not fibre at all but a standard broadband connection.

Yeah, they want space flights in the future, but they're acting as if they have them now, he's full of shit, I really don't like somebody who bullshits me like that to my face lol.

Bit_Happy

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Quote from: Lethn on May 07, 2014, 05:49:44 AM

Speaking as a virgin media customer Richard Branson is a fucking tool >_< he lied about their fibre optic internet and he's lying repeatedly about how is planes are 'space planes' when really they're only capable of atmospheric flight.

Virgin Galactic is aiming to offer space flights...in the future.
Just curious, do you have any links related to your "Branson hate"?

Snowfire

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Technically possible to build. But do you have to be as rich as Branson himself to buy a ticket? And if you are, will you be dumb enough to blow that kind of money on a ticket? NYC-Tokyo is a particularly bad example: almost straight E-W across 11 time zones. It takes you a good 36 hours to readjust to that, which is effectively part of the travel time. So compared to a conventional airliner taking 13:29 average (JFK-NRT), the Branson special cuts your total time (flying plus readjustment) from 49:29 to 37:00 This suddenly looks a whole lot less impressive considering the undoubted huge difference in ticket price. The real truth is that high-speed travel only shows its full potential on long N-S routes which have only small time changes, e.g Stockholm-Johannesburg or Toronto-Buenos Aires; and geography dictates that there just aren't that many routes like that. It is my belief that this was a factor in the demise of the Concorde, albeit not the only one (difficulty with range and fuel consumption were also serious issues.) The one exception is travelers on quick out-and-back missions who do not linger long enough to need to adjust to destination time; but this is a miniscule niche market.

keithers

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Can you imagine the wreckage if a plane going this fast crashed? Everyone would be disintegrated!

Dafar

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I have a dream... that soon I can pregame in NY, party in Tokyo, fuck a girl, then fly back home to NY by the end of the night

jbrnt

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At one point, Richard Branson offered to buy the concords off British Airways for £1 each when they retired few years ago (yes, 1 pound, 100 pennies). BA basically told him to p*ss off. He might have something lined up with Air France. Still, running costs of concords are really high. Even if he managed to buy a few, tickets will not be cheap.

umair127

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Quote from: Beliathon on May 06, 2014, 11:21:11 PM

Quote from: Bit_Happy on May 06, 2014, 10:47:38 PM

I would be concerned about too little time to react if something goes wrong at such high speeds.

If anything goes wrong at those speeds, your little shuttle becomes a railgun shell. A kinetic energy weapon of massive destructive power. At least your death will be instant and painless.

Quote from: franky1 on May 06, 2014, 11:19:17 PM

pay BTC at the terminal and be in tokyo before the payment gets 6 confirms

Only if you're a cheap tipper. Grin

Im sure better rail technology with this and really strong durable metal, all they have to do is keep the training moving straignt and keep it slow on curves im sure they will simulate it on models before putting real people on the train.

Lethn

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Speaking as a virgin media customer Richard Branson is a fucking tool >_< he lied about their fibre optic internet and he's lying repeatedly about how is planes are 'space planes' when really they're only capable of atmospheric flight.

BitOnyx

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People stop supporting concord for good reason.

On other hand technology had changed since then. Maybe he has information that we are not aware of.

Also it might be just some luxury, expensive services like his past ideas.

TrailingComet

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He will need to operationalise some version of Musk's hyperloop to achieve this!

Topic: Sir Richard Branson's vision for NYC to Tokyo in 1 hour (Read 1651 times)