If you think putting it a little out to sea would kill NIMBY objections .... still, we can but dream.
I'm not entirely sure how serious SpaceX are about their E2E idea anyway, I took it as more of a "hey, isn't this neat? totally physically possible and practical too." I imagine it would take a long time to scale up to that point though, probably decades(?) after the Moon/Mars.
International waters start more than 20km out from the coastline (12 nm)[1], that would be a very long ferry just to reach the spaceport, not just a short hop like shown in the video...
That's about half an hour at a not that fast 25 knots.
30 minutes from a city center. For any coastal city, that is likely to be no worse as the time to get to an intercontinental airport.
Still means about 2h00 from NYC to Shangai, door to door. Quite an improvement over the 17hours today.
Non coastal cities have a problem...
In any case it takes care of most nimby as it's to far away for the neighbors to care. So reasonable, in that aspect.
Of course ITAR, fear of nuclear strikes etc... general FAA/EASA regulations remain issues for this business plan.
Weather will also be an issue. Flights rarely get canceled for weather issues. But transferring from a ferry onto a barge at high sea in bad wind seems like an non fun experience in a three piece suit.
> That's about half an hour at a not that fast 25 knots. [...] no worse as the time to get to an intercontinental airport
yes you are right, I wasn't factoring in the fact that currently airline travel requires you to travel to an airport which is usually very far from the city centre.
I'm not entirely sure how serious SpaceX are about their E2E idea anyway, I took it as more of a "hey, isn't this neat? totally physically possible and practical too." I imagine it would take a long time to scale up to that point though, probably decades(?) after the Moon/Mars.