Sir Richard Branson believes that the technology used for Virgin Galactic will also bring much faster transcontinental travel.

In an interview with TechRadar and T3, the Virgin founder explained that flight times from London to the other side of the world could be cut to the same time as a short-haul flight to Europe.

"I think that Virgin Galactic, our spaceship company, will initially be sending people into space and we're not that many months away from that happening," he said.

Similar tech

"But our engineers are also very keen to see if they can create transcontinental travel using similar technology that send people from London to Australia in a fraction of the time that it currently takes to go there, maybe two and a half hours, two hours," he added.

"That's depending how much time it takes to get through the airport etc!"

"When I talk about intercontinental travel it is possible that you'll travel into space on the way to Australia and pop back down again.

"You can become an astronaut on your way to Australia. It is the most exciting thing Virgin has yet done."

The first flight of Virgin Galactic is already sold out, but you can still claim a ticket for later flights at just $200,000.

But, those prices are expected to plummet back to Earth relatively quickly, and soon we could be getting used to whizzing across the globe via space, in a matter of a couple of hours.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of- ... urs-935079





I believe their trains can be sh1t though

What is generally referred to as 'sub orbital transport' has been on various people's drawing boards since just after Concorde took it's maiden flight. However, its always had the problem that it's not going to be cheap. You may want to get to, say, California in two hours but are you willing to pay £200,000 for the privilege? That's what with Branson is currently charging people to go up to suborbit and come back down to the same place!

The point is getting there suborbital won't cost much less than hiring a private jet to make the trip in a day in total luxury. It would effectively cost you less to go the day before, spending a night in the equivalent of a five star hotel room in the process. So unless you're ludicrously time poor or actually want to go suborbital as part of the trip, it doesn't make any more sense than Concorde did.

In fact, I just did a quick search - you can hire a gulfstream to fly direct from Manchester to San Diego for just over £80K.

Jon

We don't need a new concorde anymore. Businessmen have webcams, huge TV's and broadband now. For most people lower cost long haul will trump expensive quick long haul every time.

But if hypersonic sub orbital could be cheap, and people would torerate the acceleration.................

I agree. As a one off sub orbital sounds like fun, even if it is super expensive. Though I personally would prefer supreme luxury at a slower pace, even on a cruise ship over a flight.

Can you imagine being able to say "My spaceship company" in all seriousness - that's just so ridiculously cool

In my experience their trains are really rather damned fabulous. The only problems I have are mostly down to Railtrack, other trains breaking down on the line, vandalism etc.. Hopefully such things won't be an issue up there.

It'll be interesting to see what prices are like in a few years, after they "plummet back to Earth".