Mach-9 12-passenger jet will fly from New York to Tokyo in one hour | Hacker News Reader

Mach-9 12-passenger jet will fly from New York to Tokyo in one hour

robbreport.com

32 pointsbookofjoe74 comments

They have only done simulations and isolated components testing so far and are now planning to build a 20 foot drone. "Will" is a pretty generous word in this context.

One day all this will happen ... The infinite timeline is doing all the heavy lifting.

Will it?

Could NYC or Tokyo change their names? Cities have been destroyed. It's certainly likely but likely not certain.

"...on mice"

Has anybody even demonstrated a mach-9 air-breathing vehicle of any kind that has gone this distance? Afaik, the only things that go this fast are ICBM warheads and gliders. The only thing that comes close would be the X-15, but that was powered by rocket motors and was essentially fully rebuilt after each flight. The X-51 did a short flight on SCRAMJET power, but I doubt that would scale up to a passenger vehicle.

Not air breathing. From TFA:

Stargazer will take off with conventional jet engines, but then transition to rockets once it reaches altitude.

To be fair, at the attitude this will fly there won't be enough air for it to breathe anyway.

^ should have said altitude :) Too late to edit the post

Yeah, very true, I missed that the first time I opened the page. Honestly that makes this idea even more insane. Jet engines are hundreds or thousands of times more fuel efficient than rocket engines, can run for days at a time, and most importantly doesn't have to carry its oxidizer onboard. Rocket engines (rather, large ones) run for minutes at a time and have to carry all fuel and oxygen - to run a rocket for an hour, you'd need an absolutely absurd fuel tank the size of a building.

The guys who designed this are obviously smart, much smarter than me, but it's clear that they've taken some 'creative liberties' to design the concept.

My suspicion is that the real product here is the rotational-detonation-engine, the entire "hypersonic passenger vehicle" is just a flashy sales pitch to drive investment & hype towards the development of a genuinely innovative engine that otherwise wouldn't have this amount of funding poured into it.

The fastest "real aircraft" was the SR-71, and it was already ridiculously expensive to keep it running at just above Mach 3. The program was cancelled due to costs, too expensive for what it was providing in the age of cheaper and better satellites. We (as in humans) couldn't even keep the expensive Concorde going, and the Concorde was delivered free of charge to British Airways and Air France. This project is just a wild dream.

It's ridiculous what they had to do to even approach Mach 3. I read the SR-71 would leak fuel during take off and flight. It was intentionally loosely held together. When it went supersonic the metal would basically melt shut. Would like to know how the Stargazer folks have addressed this. Have they built it out of one solid piece of metal like a UFO?

Scramjets don't even become operational until mach 5. How would they get this plane off the ground in the first place?

The logical answer is a combined-cycle engine, but there are slim pickings here. The X-43 used a combined-cycle rocket/scramjet, but had to be dropped from a B-52. It did hit around Mach 9.6 though

The Chimera engine is a turbojet/ramjet engine under active development (it or something similar is likely going to power the NGAD), but it most likely won't go faster than Mach 5-6.

They aren't considering a couple important realities though.

First, the US government isn't letting advanced engines get put into civilian airplanes. There's just too great a risk of them falling into Chinese or Russian hands and giving their fighter programs a massive leap forward.

Second, physics aren't in their favor. A large passenger plane means lots of air resistance and lots of weight. Getting all that moving at Mach 2 in the Concorde was a huge task on its own. Moving up to Mach 9 increases the number of issues exponentially. It takes decades to get this working with a tiny plane (eg, all the NASA experiments). The time to scale that up would be even more.

Third, there is ZERO economic possibilities here. The total SR-71+A-12 development costs have been estimated at around $16.5B dollars not to mention $200k per hour to fly. Let's say this company makes 100 of these planes at a similar cost (despite them being much more exotic and larger than the SR-71). The planes will cost $165M each and probably only hold less than 30 passengers/crew. If they are selling 25 tickets and flying that 1-hour flight at $200k/hr, tickets would cost $8,000 just to cover operating expenses. If they expect 20,000 flight hours per plane, that's an additional $8,250 per ticket. I'd guess minimum ticket price would be about $25,000 using these numbers.

But in reality, there's not a market for 100 of these planes. The R&D costs would probably be much higher and the cost per flight hour would certainly be massively higher too.

It's all snake oil.

Starship will be able to do about the same but with more passengers and spending a small percentage of the trip in the atmosphere.

No, it won't. It's economically infeasible even if it can be made to work technically.

Companies like that are just scams to extract money from investors and use it to play with toys.

> Companies like that are just scams to extract money from investors and use it to play with toys.

Like most (tech) startups then.

Or "most" "tech" business...

You don’t understand how much money is really out there. Some Arab kings will have 3 or 4 of these as their private planes. Travel from the Middle East to New York and be back in time for prayer.

OP is correct that there's no rational reason for this aircraft to exist - no one will be able to extract enough value from this tool that it makes sense to spend the money on it.

But you are also correct that people are not rational.

Not in comparison to the R&D costs.

The market for people willing to spend 200+ million on an aircraft is tiny. Assuming a crazy profit margin you would still need to sell something like 1,000 of them to potentially break even on R&D costs which isn’t going to happen.

The market for 50 million dollar business jets is healthier, but even if you assuming half the purchase price was going to R&D you simply aren’t going to sell enough to pay the 10’s of billions needed let alone the risk premium associated with such an extreme solution.

With this exciting new engine tech, I recommend they pray before getting on the plane (as well as after).

Does in the plane count? i.e closer to the supreme being.

Some day, all these distant fantasies will be so boring, cheap and common that we won't even consider them technology.

How soon that day comes is proportional to our efforts

Reading between the lines, this is commercial cover for a DoD project. It would be pretty incredible to get stable fuel going that speed, and that kind of engine seems pretty critical to future bomber / fighter fleets.

I can assume you’d want these type a planes for organ transplants and other time sensitive manners. You better believe these would be booked all the time by diplomats, high net worth individuals, etc

They could probably charge $500k-1m a seat for a person

US diplomats famously fly coach, not even first class (not even business class!), and for cost reasons are often required to take circuitous routes with multiple layovers. I would expect the same of any country where attentive taxpayers are footing the bill.

It claims it will use rotating detonation engines, which are currently at a NASA tech demo stage. At best. They're super complex, currently not very stable. It's long, long way from becoming stable & reliable enough to be used as plane engines or being commercially available. The current record is 10 minutes firing.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/feature/nasa-validates...

The Wright Brothers' first flight lasted 12 seconds.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/115-years-ago-wright-brothers-m...

Without clicking through, I suspect the source (a wealth-worshiping publication) totally elides the economic aspects here. We had commercial supersonic flight in the Concorde, but it just wasn't economically feasible at scale.

Turns out, going faster than about 500MPH isn't something most people are willing to pay for. OTOH, (rich) people WILL pay for being more comfortable while it happens, which is the direction commercial aviation has gone for a couple decades now.

Good call on the site. Articles are almost onion level "we drove 8 lambos in one day, here's what we figured out".

Realistically there are much better ways to speed up the flight experience without actually making planes fly any faster. To name a few:

- Accessible, high speed rail connections to the airport

- Better throughput with security theater

- Faster boarding methods to prioritize speed (back rows first)

- Faster luggage claim process

and so on. There's a reason why high speed rail is competitive with flights below a fairly long distance. Most people aren't flying this far at current prices, which does not even reflect the full cost of carbon emissions. Flying faster is inevitably less efficient, and when the full cost of energy is reflected on the price tag, this is only going to be less appealing.

Sure, but high speed rail from NYT to Tokyo has conceptual problems that I think are unlikely to be solved with airport logistics. :)

I remember reading this RAND Corp article published maybe 60 years ago about the deep underground highspeed transit system that goes 10K MPH in vacuumed tubes. I guess that was the origin of Musk’s hyperloop but my understanding is such system is actually darkly operational connecting the world for DUMBs?

The Concorde didn't quite have the range for that, but even if it did, it could never do New York to Tokyo because of the sonic boom that was constantly produced along its route while it was going faster than the speed of sound. The article doesn't mention how these four companies will avoid that issue, but the rules against the Concorde hamstrung its usefulness. That hamstringing meant that the only two airlines flying the Concorde were British Airways (BA) and Air France. After Air France stopped flying theirs, it meant that British Airways was the only carrier flying them, and BA did not want to bear the operational cost of being the only one flying that airframe.

If we imagine a different history where there was no sonic boom problem, an American and an Asian carrier could both have picked up the Concorde, and then BA would not have been the only one bearing the cost of operational program, and the Concorde might still be in operation today. A modernized Concorde, using fly-by-wire, and modern electronics and materials would also be cheaper to run. That last detail may be why there's so much interest in super sonic travel again. Because, while quality (aka being comfortable) of the flight, quantity of flight (total time in airplane) is a quality all it's own. New York to Tokyo in 1 hour would be a total game changer and I don't care if there's business-class lie-flat seating. It all depends on the final price though. If it's basically the same price as a current business-class flight (which I'm doubtful it would be), then that's an easy switch. If it costs closer to $10k, then that's going to be a hard sell except for the ultra-wealthy.

That's a lot of "ifs", and none of them were very likely, right?

The biggest "if" is the sonic boom problem. Postulating a world without booms puts you into science fiction; at that point, you may as well imagine FTL flight.

The next idea is the whole NOTION of getting a passenger aircraft to fly at Mach 9 on the regular for something non-billionaires could pay. Serious supersonic airframes have existed for decades, but (a) they're all small; (b) they all require significant maintenance after each effort; and (c) absolutely none of them were capable of Mach 9.

Even the Blackbird wasn't nearly that fast. Its record from NY to London (under 2h) was at a speed less than a third of the mach 9 we're talking about here.

The Concorde's loaded range was what, about 3500nm? That's not enough to cross the Pacific. You COULD get from LAX to Hawaii, but getting from Hawaii to Tokyo or even Singapore is still a no-go.

Passenger supersonic flight of any kind (let alone something 3.5x the speed of the Concorde) is a dead letter unless some serious and groundbreaking advancement in airplane propulsion happens. Nothing we've seen yet in the history of aviation suggests that's possible or practical.

If the Concorde went FTL, it would definitely still be in service, no matter the cost. Still, I've done a bit of math, and it seems to say the energy required would make it prohibitively expensive for everyone, billionaires included. So maybe it wouldn't still be in service. But hey, you never know.

Anyway, given that the Concorde actually flew Heathrow to Barbados, which is further than Hawaii to Tokyo *; that says to me it had enough range to get from Hawaii to Tokyo, at least on paper. Regardless, there have been significant improvements to airplane technology since the 1970's when the Concorde was built. The four engine 747 isn't even being manufactured, in part because engines are so much better Boeing doesn't need four of em like that. (The fact that the large Airbus planes have four is not lost on me, but that doesn't change the fact that we've progressed since the 70's). If they'd managed to hang on until there was a third generation Concorde, I think they'd still be flying.

The part I'm interested in is the why of super sonic travel (SST) being dead. It clearly is, no denying that. But saying people just weren't willing to pay what it costs is an oversimplification that doesn't capture any of the business-side issues, or other parts of the story that took it down. The fuel crisis in the 70's is another thing that didn't help. The airshow crash was another nail in its coffin.

As far as the Blackbird, that first flew in 1964.

* https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde-b#:~:text=This%20w....

I think it really was the basic economics of it, though, wasn't it?

It cost a lot. Most people weren't interested in paying it. Then, as conventional aircraft became more comfortable, a longer more comfortable flight was significantly more appealing that a short uncomfortable one.

It won't be flying that route if the sonic boom can be heard from populated areas.

That route works as they can get out over the ocean very quickly. Getting out of Paris, Berlin, Riyadh, New Delhi and other land locked major cities would be slower.

I don't think there is any reasonable route you can fly from Tokyo to New York without going over some land...

The current route takes it through the Arctic rather than what you may expect looking at a flat map. While it does go over land it wouldn't be hard to avoid populated areas, since there isn't many people in Greenland or the Arctic parts of Alaska.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-HND Here's the route. Once you pass Southern Ontario, there's basically no populated areas along the route.

My comment was about the fact that if you are taking off from a land locked city, you have to wait till you are over the ocean before going supersonic. So there is more time just travelling at regular speed. With New York, Toyko, London etc you only travel a short distance before you can speed up and create the sonic boom.

Is a Mach-9 sonic boom 9x (or sth proportionally) greater than a Mach-1 boom?

Also, I bet the tickets will either be 0, because there's a non-zero probability you will burn up mid-flight, or really expensive, because maybe that money helps peel the risk onion.

Unless the "jet" is "non-conventional propulsion"...

Also, here's a vid of a rotating detonation engine (the type supposed to be used by this "jet"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRgiSHjdet0 (NASA test-fires 3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine, January 2023)

It's flying near space, though not quite in space. I doubt it will be loud enough to be a problem

By now, per 1960s futurisms, the sky was suppose to be populated by aircrafts like this. But back then they had no concern about the damage these could cause. Seems in many areas ecological damage is still no a concern.

But, I guess this plane will be just for the use of billionares. I am sure the one-way cost will be more than what hundreds of people earn in 1 year in a western country, if it becomes available.

What ecological damage?

One I can think of is ozone, but just google and I am sure more will show up :)

I wonder what the environmental impact of this would be, and I wonder how much different it would be if the trip took an hour and a half, or two instead. Because, like, probably not very things are actually in /that/ much of a rush.

How about if the trip never occured at all and they had a zoom meeting? Does this even need to be a zoom meeting, why not a slack convo?

Have you considered a well-written email, followed by an offer of chat if anything remains unclear?

email written by chatgpt, on the other side interpreted by chatgpt again .. until someone invents machine readable chatgpt written email ..

They are literally zooming

Specially when you have to arrive two hours earlier to the airport and you're going to be stuck in customs another extra hour. But I also guess that those tickets will come with very special extra quick lanes.

Great, now the travel time will mostly be waiting at the TSA security line.

No sir, I do not wish to check my mach diamonds.

I always question startups like this where multiple breakthroughs are required. In this case it's hypersonic aircraft AND rotating detonation engines. For a 20 percent fuel savings they should be able to prove the aircraft concept independently. Either that or a fully usable RDE is a product in itself. Making the company success dependent on both seems a mistake to me.

>"Venus Aerospace has been working on the hypersonic aircraft concept since 2020, having raised $33 million to build the plane. The firm will now begin hypersonic flight testing with a 20-foot drone that the company hopes will reach Mach 5. After that, it will build the Stargazer prototype, though no date has been released."

Is it me or it reads as a scam? Another Theranos.

Economics don't work out, increasingly so in a world with increasingly better cross-continent communication options.

I'd be pretty interesting in their predictions for the operating cost/cost per hour of flying this machine. My uninformed guess (informed only by knowing how expensive and thirsty normal jet engines are) is that it's two orders of magnitude more per hour than a conventional jet, and that these companies are still hoping they can somehow engineer their way to making it worthwhile. I think first they have to bring a product to market to prove feasibility in some dimensions (physical, marketable), which will ironically prove that it's not economically feasible.

This seems like a nice proof of concept project but it will never be economically viable. So excuse the pun, but it will never take off.

If I remember correctly you can't fly commercial aircraft and even mach speeds over the US, if I remember that's why concord didn't really make any money (among other reasons.)

Passengers are packaged in zip-lock baggies and delivered to Tokyo as a protein shake slurry due to the G-forces required. Families collect the remaining personal effects from giant spaghetti strainer near baggage claim D.

Assuming airplane takeoff 5m/s² (equivalent of 0-60 in 5 seconds) you'll reach "Mach 9" or 3000m/s in 10 minutes, covering the first 900km. You'd cover then next

Assuming 25 minutes to slow down at 2m/s² covering another 2,250km and that's 35 minutes for takeoff/landing and 42 minutes at cruise to do the 1100km.

People who are designing supersonic or faster travel devices seems to never understood the lesson, why Concorde was banned from flying supersonic above the ground and allowed to do so only above the ocean.

Incorrect. This sonic boom thing has been mentioned here like 50 times, but it's addressed right in TFA: "altitude of 170,000 feet"

Couldn't you just put a dozen acceleration couches in the cargo bay of the space shuttle and achieve this?

I expect this would be just as economical.

(in the year 3025)

Sounds great, but SpaceX will probably beat them to the market.

Musk already talked about being able to do suborbital flights such as Texas-to-Australia in under an hour, and it seems much more doable, just a subset of the VTOL capabilities of the Starship system.

It'll be a while for either entry, and if they can make it work economically and environmentally (how about burning hydrogen + oxygen for clean exhaust?), I wish them good luck...

How? Using super noisy rocket next to a population center which can start only during outstanding weather in launch and landing area and when things go wrong it can explode with power comparable to tactical nuclear weapons?

You can go and revive Project Pluto, it will be less dangerous and more predictable.

Reviving Project Orion would be more fun!

And for sure, the 150,000 pound weight of this "Stargrazer" vs the 11 Million pounds of SpaceX's starship certainly reduces it's blast radius!

I didn't say it'd be great, just that SpaceX more likely to be first (and no, I'm not a fan of Elon, used to think he was doing great things, but he's obviously decided that supporting autocrats & trolls is more important).

The 20,000 RPM rotating detonation engine doesn't seem exactly quiet, so they'll likely need regular jets in addition to the rotating detonation engine and rockets; not exactly simple.

Meanwhile, SpaceX could solve lots of those problems by landing further away from the cities, which will negate much of the fast-trip advantage, and so leave a good market opening for 'Stargazer'.

If both work, I'd probably rather go with Stargrazer, but I still expect SpaceX will be first (unless it goes the same way as the sub-5-minute battery-pack-swap feature on the Teslas...)

I wonder what will be the cost of one seat.

But given the current prices of plane tickets, it may not be that much different...

If ChatGPT said this we would accuse it of hallucinating, yet folks would say this with a straight face.

People have been talking about this for decades, and there seems to be a story with the same discussion on HN every couple months.

This is principally a question of just doing it. It's going to take an Elon Musk type to push forward with execution, which in turn is going to take enough demand for it to be interesting. It would be very cool to see it happen, but I doubt it's going to get to the top of anyone's priorities enough to really push for ot any time soon.

They are only usually 12 years away all the time.

How many people can fly this versus normal airplanes if we talk about same distance but different size, speed, and amount of people? I mean, the SR-71 was decommissioned because it was too inefficient regarding fuel cost, and it became obsolete due to high quality cameras in satellites. Why can these people residing in Japan and New York not use the alternative we are all able to use: AR plus video conferencing. What is so important that people need to fly at Mach 9? I can only imagine its Putin running away from ICC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com