Nextbigfuture Believes SpaceX Starship Will Leapfrog Delayed Supersonic Passenger Jets

The one-third sized version of Boom Supersonic, the XB-1, will be rolled out in December 2019, about six months later than previously planned.

The actual passenger-carrying Overture will be delayed from 2023 to the mid-2020s. It will have a first flight and a two-year test series with six aircraft.

It will be able to fly from San Francisco-Tokyo in 5h 30m and Tokyo-Hong Kong in 2h.

The Overture will have 55-75 business-class seats, with a crew of six, including two pilots.

Nextbigfuture Believes Supersonic Planes Will Get Leap-frogged by SpaceX Starship

SpaceX Starship will be able to fly at mach 20 in one stage and travel up to 6000 miles. This will be a speed of 18000 mph.

SpaceX Starship should be able to carry 100 passengers.

SpaceX Starship could have manned test flights by 2023.

Elon Musk says adding two to four Raptor Engines to the Starship will let it go sub-orbital for 6000 miles at mach 20. This would mean trips like San Francisco to Shanghai or New York to Berlin. Many world cities are within 6000 miles of each other.

Boeing extended range 767s can reach 6000 miles and the newer 777 and 787 have longer ranges.

If SpaceX can determines ways to save 30% on Starship point to point efficiency then they could get to 8000-mile ranges. This might be possible by lightening landing gear and heat shields. They could need less heat shields for sub-orbital only vehicles.

Going from two stages to one stage will increase the safety of the Starship. Increasing safety by 1000 times is the major hurdle to transporting passengers.

President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX could begin offering Earth-to-Earth transport services as early as 2025, if not earlier with Musk’s proposed Starship-only variant. This would start with non-passenger services.

Add 2 to 4 more Raptors for Starship point to point on Earth. You can go surprisingly far, even with low lift/drag. This was an unexpected result.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 30, 2019

Yeah, *way* better. Dramatically improves cost, complexity & ease of operations. Distances of ~10,000 km with decent payload seem achievable at roughly Mach 20.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 30, 2019

My thoughts exactly! Simply moving from 2-stage to SSTO would make point-to-point so much more viable. Probably means Starship could operate much closer to land, compared to a 31-Raptor booster…

— Eric Ralph (@13ericralph31) May 30, 2019

SOURCES- SpaceX, Elon Musk Twitter, Wikipedia, flight Global, Boom Supersonic
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture

Brian Wang

Brian Wang is a prolific business-oriented writer of emerging and disruptive technologies. He is known for insightful articles that combine business and technical analysis that catches the attention of the general public and is also useful for those in the industries. He is the sole author and writer of nextbigfuture.com, the top online science blog. He is also involved in angel investing and raising funds for breakthrough technology startup companies.

He gave the recent keynote presentation at Monte Jade event with a talk entitled the Future for You.  He gave an annual update on molecular nanotechnology at Singularity University on nanotechnology, gave a TEDX talk on energy, and advises USC ASTE 527 (advanced space projects program). He has been interviewed for radio, professional organizations. podcasts and corporate events. He was recently interviewed by the radio program Steel on Steel on satellites and high altitude balloons that will track all movement in many parts of the USA.

He fundraises for various high impact technology companies and has worked in computer technology, insurance, healthcare and with corporate finance.

He has substantial familiarity with a broad range of breakthrough technologies like age reversal and antiaging, quantum computers, artificial intelligence, ocean tech,  agtech, nuclear fission, advanced nuclear fission, space propulsion, satellites, imaging, molecular nanotechnology, biotechnology, medicine, blockchain, crypto and many other areas.