mahar@weitek.UUCP (Mike Mahar) (10/05/88)
In a conversation recently, I heard a rather interesting use for a space
station. I doubt the station NASA is planning will work well for this but
the I found the idea interesting. When there are aerospace planes that are
capable of reaching orbit, one proposed use will be for high speed business
travel. Aerospace planes will be expensive so it might not be economical
to use them for non-stop flights. What if a space station was set up in
a sort of orbital hub for a hub-and-spoke transportation system. People
would fly up to the station, transfer to another aerospace plane and fly
back to earth. This would allow carriers to have a much small fleet of
planes and still serve the major cities.
Some questions come to mind. How many stations would be necessary to
allow most flights to take 1 hr up. 90 min layover and 1 hr. down? This
would allow 3 1/2 hour access to any city on the globe.
Mike
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Mike Mahar
UUCP: {turtlevax, cae780}!weitek!mahar