It’s 2025. I want to live in a future where we do cool things like enable the average person to take supersonic transport. Sure, there are some marginal benefits here and there but going faster shouldn’t need any special justification.
It's not cool that extinction rates are at 1000+x their baseline. Tech like this is even more energy intense than regular flying.
I think "some marginal benefits here and there" and it's cool bro are not valid justifications for making this planet a worse place to live for all species.
The average person will never be able to afford to take SST. The physics make it so. It's also why commercial airliners are getting slightly slower and using engines with higher bypass ratios.
People working for large international companies or having lots of business related interests across continents. There is I think no substitute to physically meeting people at some point ( I’ve experienced this firsthand) so some people travel a lot. They’re expensive people as well, so making trips shorter and less tiring (business trips like these are exhausting ) is a good thing for them.
Yes, tools like zoom alleviate the problem somehow but not completely.
Even with the decline of business travel, there's plenty of people traveling constantly who would pay absurd amounts of money to arrive faster. Celebrities, sports teams, entertainers, the ultra-wealthy, etc. Less flight time allows them to get more rest and spend extra time preparing for the events they're traveling to.
One of the issues with supersonic jets (certainly the Concorde), is that their takeoff speeds, and required runway lengths are much higher due to different aerodynamics, about 1.5x of what's needed for a 737.
This means these VIPs might not be able to land where they want.
Another issue is that these planes fly higher and take longer to reach travel speed, which eats into the the travel time benefits for shorter flights.
Another approach would be more comfortable travel at today’s speeds (or even slower). Imagine boarding a plane with a luxury hotel like experience. A buffet breakfast, some work/reading in a nice library, followed by some treadmill / stationary bike time, then a shower, lunch, a massage in the spa. Dinner later before a classical concert and finally heading to sleep in a comfy bed. Then wake up and disembark at your destination.
The target audience for this wants to get into, and usually return from, their destination as quickly as possible. The trip is a means to an end. It's not unlike opting to take rideshare when your bus or train is slow.
I can absolutely see tech salespeople using this mode of travel for critical meetings. Fly out at 0600 ET from JFK, arrive into LHR at 0900 ET/1400 GMT for a 1500 GMT meeting, do dinner and such, then fly out at 0900 GMT the next day to arrive at 1200 GMT/0700 ET for a full business day. Minimal jet lag.
What you're describing is high-end private air travel (for the rich and not time sensitive) and cruises (for people looking for a vacation in a box).
Another thing might be crucial equipment. One of my friends works in the film industry, and they told me the insane dance every that goes on every set. A-lister actors, directors, and insanely expensive equipment is flown in from all around the world, and they literally often have hours of having everything in the same place, during which window they have to record the scenes, then everyone flies off to somewhere else, and the meter is ticking to the tune of god know how many thousands of dollars per hour. No mistakes or delays are possible.
He once told me of a story when some exotic piece of equipment broke, and there was NO replacement on in Europe. After a mad scrable, they did find something and they had to fly in that special camera rig thing on a private jet.
Many of the people I mentioned already travel in luxurious conditions, and the economics for luxury aviation are well-explored. It misses the fundamental issue here though. Time spent traveling is time that isn't spent setting up for an event or meeting with fans/media/business interests. You can't solve that with classical music.
It's two different problems. Yes, if you absolutely positively have to be in London in four hours to Sign The Big Contract, you'll pay whatever the Concorde replacement charges and put up with whatever experience it offers.
But there's a huge market in conventional tourists that have more flexibility and could choose from more options.
A typical tourist-class trip is going to be one day of "Travel Misery Time" followed by "Actual Vacation" followed by another full day of "Travel Misery Time".
Yeah, theoretically it might be less than a full day door-to-door, but if you're not an experienced traveler with expert experience in managing timing, baggage rules, TSA procedures du jour, and navigating the facilities, you're probably writing off the whole day of arrival and departure. Nibbling away a couple hours in the metal death cylinder doesn't solve that.
What if we said "we can swap one day of Travel Misery Time for two days of Resort on Wheels Time?" You might get fewer days at the destination, but an overall more enjoyable trip. Rail can offer that. Even today's Amtrak long-hauls offer a comfortable sleeper room, real food, and actual scenery, and no airport suffering, and there's no reason future offerings couldn't introduce other amenities (i. e. a spa car, or scheduled entertainment).
At human levels of expense, I think it's not. I traveled Amtrak sleeper on a 24-hour ride. There was no shower, so I couldn't have gone 48 hours, but otherwise it was end-to-end way more pleasant than any international flight I've ever taken.
That already exists to an extent with private suites on certain Emirates long haul flights. It is extraordinarily expensive, more than regular first class.
Which btw. could enable a whole bunch of other nice to have things, out there, on the high seas. Global HVDC grid. Communication lines. Pipelines of all sorts. Fish farms. Floating towns at the nodes...Resorts...Casinos...Stock Exchanges...Navy/Coast Guard/SAR bases, research hubs...
Just need to grow that stuff responsible and sustainable. Dunno. Genetically modified 'Turbo Coral', or some 'shrooms' doing in-situ utilization of microplastics? Imagine the possibilities...(Hyping the loop here, harr harr!)
