44 Min between NY and SF?!!!
Interesting note is the distance between it is much greater then i thought, 4100 Km! Considering some part of Asia like HongKong to London is only 9600Km. For what i think is an inland distance flight this is very far apart.<p>I also wonder how much more speed can we get? 5000 Miles per hour possible? Making Anywhere around the world possibly within 2 hours flight.<p>Also wonder on the bottleneck being inland transport and Check in.
<i>"so we all hopped a ride down to Rio where we spent the rest of the day at the beach"</i><p>I'm not sure I would like that hypothetical world, because that beach would be crowded beyond what one can imagine, or, alternatively, controls would be implemented to manage crowding. For example, if people now are willing to spend $500 to travel to Rio, and the price drops to $5, one could easily require non-locals to buy beach permits for $100 a day or $250 a week. The best beaches could even go higher and aim for the jet set as, for example, Monaco already does to some extent, and China and Nepal do for Mount Everest.<p>So far, things seem sort-of OK, but of course, people would flock to other places as well. Millions would want to visit the poles for a few hours, see total solar eclipses at the most remote places, and the trek of the wildebeest would be dwarfed by the trek of the tourists. We would need lots of new rules to protect natural habitats that now partly are protected because that are so remote.
I am all in favour of imaging a utopian future but basic economics do not suddenly disappear in the future.<p>Even if we ignore the ridiculous cost of $5 for the travel itself, what about the cost of travelling to and from airports? Uber, trams, trains, car and hyperloop all will cost money.<p>Are we going to have an airport in every suburb? I thought not, so that adds quite some travel time. If not using your own car then you have to wait for the Uber, tram, train, hyperloop to arrive as well.<p>I guess the plane will carry no baggage so that travellers can get straight on and off without any delays. Just hand luggage everyone!
As far as I was aware, plane development has pretty much plateaued as engineers have eked ever diminishing returns from materials and aerospace engineering. Commercial airliners today don't look much different than planes manufactured in the 70s. Supersonic airliners are the next logical step, but they aren't anywhere near the author's dreams laid out at the beginning.