Japan wants to develop intercontinental passenger spacecraft

The rise of the space industry makes it easier than ever to launch into orbit, but Japan is also committed to revolutionizing land travel. The country’s science ministry announced that plans to develop an intercontinental passenger spacecraft by the early 2040s.

The idea of ​​using spacecraft to travel from one point to another on the earth’s surface has been around for decades, but the cost and complexity of the idea has consistently delayed the dream. Now Japan thinks it can do it.

In practice, specialists warn, The idea is to use a system similar to ICBMs: use a rocket to launch the payload, in this case a passenger spacecraft, into space to enter the atmosphere on the other side of the planet.

As detailed on the specialized site Singularityhub, this method could make it possible to travel between continents in less than an hour, And now Japan has laid out its vision of how to make this idea a reality. In a roadmap presented to a panel of experts earlier this month, the Science Ministry laid out a two-phase plan it said could support a 5 trillion yen ($ 46 billion) market. for spacecraft leaving and going to Japan.

The idea is that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) can significantly reduce the cost of launching vehicles into space.

The country’s next-generation H3 rocket, which is slated to make its maiden flight this year, costs around 5 billion yen ($ 46 million), and the roadmap predicts that tactics such as reusing rocket parts will allow them. to reduce this cost. By 2030, and lower it to 10% in the early 2040s.

So, with the help of private companies, they envision two different types of spacecraft: a shuttle-like spacecraft that can land on a runway like a normal plane, and one that lands vertically like reusable SpaceX rockets. .

The Japanese aren’t the only ones increasingly excited about the prospect of intercontinental spaceflight. As early as 2017, Elon Musk suggested that SpaceX’s spacecraft could be used to travel anywhere on the planet in less than an hour, and in 2019, he speculated that the vehicle could carry up to 1000 passengers per trip.

NASA also recently announced a partnership with Virgin Galactic to develop a new vehicle for high-speed civilian air transport, which likely meets the company’s oft-stated goal of using its suborbital space planes to transport people across the world.

Fantasy or reality?

Singularityhub warns that if these ideas are implemented, they are likely to be incredibly expensive and inexpensive: “Musk likened the approach to an ICBM and said the flights will likely all be economy, with no toilets or food, and with the kind of restrictions you would expect on a roller coaster ”.

Others, the science and technology site added, believe the problems will go beyond the lack of VIP treatment. “Humans just aren’t made for the kind of acceleration and G-force an ICBM goes through,” Brian Weeden of the space defense organization Secure World Foundation told The Verge, “and they could easily die. during launch. Entrance “.

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