Slightly unrelated but makes me wonder how different would be the airline industry nowadays if Musk had launched a airline company at the same time he launched SpaceX. How different would it be to take a plane and travel across the world.
- Richard Branson
Not sure what are SpaceX financials but Musk seems ok.
If someone could solve that for me affordably, I can handle the sitting on an airplane in economy class for 15 hours bit.
Although yes: having high speed, low latency internet for those 15 hours would make it much more pleasant.
I don't think "security" is going to be lessened in our lifetime, if anything it can only get worse. Disrupting the space would take an insane amount of money you don't have. People who have money, can fly private.
Planes need to have exits on the rear, middle, and front of the plane to make deplaning a lot easier and quicker.
If this issue is ever solved it will be a miracle.
If the former, I couldn’t imagine anything more deathly boring than this, working insanely hard to run a commodity service that’s fundamentally identical to all of your competitors other than on the margins. It would be like wondering how different the car hire industry would be if Musk had launched a hire company at the same time as Tesla.
If you are willing to do the necessary investment, I think there is huge potential to build an airplane that goes significantly further then planes like the Aviation Alice or what Heart Aerospace ES-30 is doing.
Many industry experts believe we're going to see an electrification but in tiers. Pure electric in the regional space, with more regional options than now on smaller planes, followed by hydrogen or alternative fuels powering the mid-range. Long range may go to hydrogen or alternatives, but the density is still such that jet fuel will rein on the longest flights for the next 10-15 years minimum.
The ES-30 flying from Zürich can get you to important cities in France, Germany, Italy and Austria. With they hybrid mode almost to Paris.
In Europe you have great trains but in the US this could be a game changer in all the big metro areas, North East, Florida, Texas Triangle, Southern California, Mid West/Canada.
Pushing on that whole stack you can get out more then the ES-30. There is potential for things like flying higher, using PRANTL Wing, Flying wing structure, batteries as part of the structure and so on.
A startup wouldn't risk doing any of these, but a company like SpaceX/Tesla could easily invest the capital to do this.
And what we will be even better a strong competition, so that kind of flights will be available to all.
I bet in 30 years we'll still be arguing that "fully autonomous cars are just around the corner" and "Musk will put a colony on Mars in 5 years"
Hate to break it to you but displacing three tonnes of metal and batteries to move your 80kg ass to Walmart isn't environmentally friendly in any way
Producing one tonne of lithium requires digging out 500 tonnes of earth. We don't mine lithium with solar panels and horses, it's an extremely energy intensive and polluting industry, and that's only a tiny part of the equation, building the car already is already extremely polluting
Is it better than straight up burning dino juice ? Sure, is it sustainable and eco friendly as it is presented today ? not at all
And that's not even talking about the fact that a big part of car pollution is due to tires, heavier/faster accelerating cars = eat through tires more quickly than lighter/slower vehicles
There is no shame in buying a tesla but don't feel like you're saving/helping the planet, this is environmentally friendly the same way having 1 terminal cancer is healthier than having 2 terminal cancers, you might die in 6 months instead of 5 but you're still utterly fucked
Tire technology is also improving to be eco friendly - https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=...
The system doesn't go from bad to good overnight. Every piece needs to be updated, vehicles that don't put out fumes is just one piece of that system.
You're argument reads, 'well the entire system isn't perfect yet, so that negates all improvements to the components' Give me a break. Electric cars are a huge step forward. One of many steps that need to be taken.
The world will move forward while you sit on the sidelines and complain.
It isn't and most likely won't be until upgrading the whole production is cheaper than burning fossil fuel and god knows how long it'll take given how advanced and specific mining equipment is. And even if it was 100% electric, it's still an absolute nasty thing: https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-li...
> Electric cars are a huge step forward.
Only if you believe personal vehicles are a good thing in the first place, which is already something you can argue against, but I guess most of us have been brain washed by decades of auto industry marketing. Teslas aren't a step in the right direction, e mustangs either, the new f150 either, we're just making the same mistake all over again "but it's electric so you're saving the planet", no it's just a 3 tonnes pile of e waste moving a 80kg meat bag, putting candy sprinkles on top of a big turd doesn't change its fundamental nature.
> The world will move forward while you sit on the sidelines and complain.
I'm fine on my legs powered bicycle thank you
Spraying kids with DDT was progress, lead in paint and gas was progress, freon in fridges was progress, asbestos was the best thing after sliced bread. Everything is progress if your definition of progress is "the hot new thing that generates money". It's always the same thing, the people pushing for these things are making big bucks while selling you a dream that's going to last xx years until it falls apart and be replaced by the next
It's not so hard to imagine how it all adds up, there are 1.4B personal vehicles on earth, 1 tonne vs 3 tonnes adds up real quick