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

[Chef Ramsay]

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

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^.

[LostDutchman]

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

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^.

It'll be fine for those who can afford it.

My $.02.

[bryant.coleman]

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.

[Bit_Happy]

NYC to Tokyo in 1 hour
Plus 2.5 hours to get through the TSA fiddle points. 

The fast trip sounds really exciting.
I would be concerned about too little time to react if something goes wrong at such high speeds.

[franky1]

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

[Beliathon]

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.

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

Only if you're a cheap tipper. 

[jc01480]

Bring back the Concorde!

[Bit_Happy]

In case anyone didn't know:
Richard Branson was one of the first mega-rich men to say good things about and/or accept BTC.

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.

I'm ready for an "instant and painless" Bear market, but that's not the way they work.

[keithers]

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

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^.

That would revolutionize the way people travel. There will end up being different prices for how quickly you want to get to your destination. Tickets would probably be super expensive at first

[bryant.coleman]

Bring back the Concorde!

I still believe that they unfairly shut down the Concorde. Off course, the Air France Flight 4590 crash was a real tragedy, but it was not the first time that an airline had crashed. At the time of its retirement, the Concorde was still making profit for the British Airways.

[TrailingComet]

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

[BitOnyx]

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.

[Lethn]

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.

[umair127]

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.

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

Only if you're a cheap tipper. 

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.

[jbrnt]

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.

[Dafar]

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

[keithers]

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

[Snowfire]

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.

[Bit_Happy]

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"?

[Lethn]

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

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.