would be possible today, if it weren't for collusion from the oil and auto industry.
Yeah, that's why they assassinated JFK and paid off the Mafia to make politicians fake the moon landing.
Don't people even subject their conspiracy theories to the smell test any more? Why would the oil industry *not* want people going 250 miles per hour? Talk about throwing gas down the drain. And why wouldn't they want automated, safer car travel? Anything to make people more comfortable with spending long hours on the road. And why wouldn't the auto industry want automated road travel? What a way to sell more cars -- make it so that the overwhelming majority of people who dislikes driving every day feel that they have to upgrade!
There's no need to insert a conspiracy in every shadow. In the real world, cost-effective engineering is simply really difficult sometimes. Not everything can be done, and not everything that can be done can be done affordably. Sometimes even the best efforts fail. That's just the reality of the world we live in.
Reminds me of an article I once read in which the author recalled a time, back in the early 80s, where he had been giving a speech at an electronics convention at a hotel about how it was quite reasonable to consider that the price of simple computer chips would drop to levels trivial enough that you could put them in virtually anything. During the Q&A session, one member of the audience complained that, what were people expected to do with these computer chips? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob.
The same speaker came back to a conference at the same hotel in the late 90s. All of the doors had been switched over to cardkeys.
There was a computer in every doorknob.
Anyways, I wouldn't rule out road improvements. It's just one of those things that hasn't advanced because, currently, it's "cheap" and it's "good enough". I've seen some wild ideas for road improvements, some of which are already in practice in test strips. Like embedded LEDs that let lanes change and shoulders open or close, as well as automatically and alert drivers to the best routes to take to avoid traffic; self-heating roads that contain a combination of thin-film solar cells and ultracapacitors, printed as a single bulk unit, that feed power to the grid (translucent traction surface avoids damage to the cells); solar thermal roads that pipe away solar heat and store it in underground tanks for civilian heating applications and for road de-icing; and all sorts of other things. How well they'll hold up to regular use, who knows at this point, but I think it's silly to believe that our current road system is somehow the most damage resistant design possible.
Don't get me wrong; I consider myself an environmentalist. I mean, I'm sitting here in a house with every bulb replaced with CFLs, and as of late next year, I'll be driving a hyper-streamlined electric car;) But I'll be damned if wherever I go, I'm surrounded by "fellow" greens who are convinced that there's a conspiracy to stop people from running cars on water, that with a few easy mods you can make a Hummer get 60mpg, that Big Oil is secretly hiding that we're just years away from a global oil collapse that will take out 95% of the world's population, that Big Oil paid off GM to kill off the electric car and assassinated people who created fuel-saving tech, that the federal government is trying to kill energy-saving technologies to appease its supporters in the power industry, and on and on. There's this crazy conspiratorial thinking that I encounter way, way too often -- people who can't seem t accept the simple notion that maybe, just maybe, doing these things practically and affordably is *very hard*.
Well, this seems to be purely theoretical work about whether buckyballs *could* contain dense hydrogen, not how to achieve it. However, I can think of two very interesting possibilities, energy-wise, if it could be achieved.
1) Superconductivity: Metallic hydrogen is a superconductor. Not sure how that would work conducting current through the shells, though. While just being a superconductor doesn't give you energy, it makes it easier to transmit energy.
2) Fusion is all about the combination of the density of your targets and energy of your collisions. This is some impressive hydrogen density being discussed.
So yes, electrical costs will remain close to the same.
If anything, they'd drop. You're increasing the profit margin on power companies, as they get to sell more electricity without having to build new infrastructure.
As for what I'll be paying when I get my Aptera next year, with my electricity rates, it'll cost me half a penny per mile (at 55 mph). Compare that to what you pay for gas! And that other big car cost, maintenance? With an EV, I'll have one belt, no radiator, no exhaust system, no muffler, no spark plugs, no cylinders, no transmission, no valves, no catalytic converter, no pumps, not even any motor oil. Oh, and lithium phosphate batteries, like it uses, are typically rated for 10+ years and 7000+ charge cycles (and even then, all that means is that you lose some range). The only moving parts in the drivetrain are the motor driveshaft, one belt, and three wheels. In short, the energy cost per mile is a tiny fraction of what it is for gasoline vehicles, and the the maintenance costs are likely to be as well.
If price is the issue, there are several $30k highway-speed EVs coming out soon (the Mitsubishi MiEV, the VentureOne, the Aptera Typ-1e, the Subaru G4e, and so on).
Anyways, as to the charge time issue, it's only really a limiting factor for the "backwards" EV companies like Tesla that use laptop batteries rather than automotive li-ions. Automotive li-ions (phosphates, titanates, etc) are perfectly capable of fast charging. Several vehicles are designed for 10-15 minute charges, such as the Phoenix SUV/SUT and the G4e (and R1e) (yes, it takes cooling). Now, that kind of fast charge needs a fast charger, which needs either a strong three-phase power supply or a battery bank -- but that's still cheaper than a gas station on a pump vs. charger basis.
As for existing infrastructure, there are RV parks all across the nation. If they have power at all, it's generally *at least* 120V/30A. Many, however, have split-phase 120V (effectively 240V), 50A. For an energy efficient vehicle like the Aptera, that's enough to be a reasonably fast charge**.
** AFAIK, the Aptera will not, by default, support RV outlets. But I believe the MiEV will; it has a wide range of charging options.
Yes, so Big Light Bulb is going to repress the technology, right?
God, I hate how every discussion of green tech invariably turns to conspiracy theories. What I wouldn't give for a graphic of a carnival barker in a tinfoil hat pointing at a sign in front of a ride: "You must believe in at least this many conspiracy theories to be a Green."
They give out the amount of lumens they're rated for. For an equivalent amount of lumens as an incandescent, a CFL typically takes ~1/3 as much power. They're not just making these numbers up, you know.
Electric cars are a big deal because power plants are more efficient than even diesel engines, the US only loses about 7.2% power in transmission, AC/DC conversion is 90-95% efficient, li-ion batteries are over 99% efficient, and electric motors are 85-90% efficient in a general driving cycle (as much as 95%). Also, power plants have centralized scrubbers and can ultimately be replaced with renewables.
I've had 2 of 12 burn out over a year or so despite the 5 year promise on the box.
Yeah, that's the Poisson distribution for ya.
Anyways, it's not the cost of the bulbs; it's the cost of the *power*. Use an 80W incandescent bulb for 4 hours per day with $0.10/kWh electricity, you're spending $11.69/year on power. It's easy to see that the power costs dwarf the bulb costs.
What is being talked about here is *economically recoverable reserves*. What is economically recoverable depends on two things:
1) Current prices. As prices rise, by definition of the term "economically", more reserves become economical. Typically increasing exponentially.
2) Technology. Technology improvements act as a counter to increasingly difficult to extract reserves. Improvements can outpace it, wherein prices drop, or be outpaced by it, wherein prices rise. Example: adjusted for inflation, oil today is cheaper than it was back in the late 1800s when it bubbled to the surface in Pennsylvania (as opposed to having to be driven up from miles underground in inhospitable locations)
The applicability of this to oil and lithium are discussed.
"There's absolutely nothing new about carbon fiber tanks or flying up to ~100km with minimal delta-V."
Really? Because the X33 was such a success with it's carbon fibre tanks? Name me one sucessful carbon fibre tank or even a carbon fiibre support structure used in an orbital vehicle.
1) The X33's problem with carbon fibre tanks was that they had to be built *exceedingly light*. These weren't ordinary tanks; they were an extremely fine honeycomb structure, nothing at all like what SS1 used. 2) What was being contained in the tanks was cryogenic, which lead to the problem of microcracks from thermal expansion cycles.
Carbon fiber fuel tanks are used all the time in high performance cars and aircraft, where they don't have to deal with cryogenic liquids -- *just as SS1 didn't have to deal with cryogenic liquids*. As for carbon fiber support structures in an orbital vehicle, just off the top of my head, the payload fairing and wing structures on the Pegasus rocket. If I was willing to spend time searching, I could probably get a couple dozen more examples for you.
Well ok, let me propose a hypothetical universe where only governments had motor vehicles
Huh. In your analogy, apparently, Boeing, Lockheed, Orbital Sciences, SeaLaunch, and hundreds of other companies don't exist.
The only transport available to the populous was foot or horse or boat.
Huh. In your analogy, apparently Virgin Galactic is capable of doing something other than just going up and down, or could potentially be scaled to doing something other than that.
If Virgin Galactic is doing something related to supersonic aircrafts, it is doing something related to airbreathing rockets.
No, it isn't. It is doing *absolutely nothing* relative to airbreathing rockets. I'm doing as much relative to airbreathing rockets by driving my car as Virgin Galactic is doing.
An airbreathing rocket is indistinguishable from a hypersonic airbreathing aircraft.
if you view SS1 as the same thing then I'm sure they've collected lots of data about how supersonic vehicles behave in that part of the atmosphere at those speeds etc.
The data is *already gathered*. The proper term is, "reinventing the wheel".
Even if it doesn't the sum total of human knowledge is going up by this endeavour.
In what regard? There's no new knowledge being generated by having, proportionally, a very *gentle and easy* flight envelope. If you think that each company has to reinvent the wheel for themselves, you're deluding yourself; that's what you hire experienced rocketry engineers for.
Better they build a simple engine first and develop their knowledge of the other 2 first and then work on the engine.
There's absolutely nothing new about carbon fiber tanks or flying up to ~100km with minimal delta-V.
Otherwise every new car that is developed is pointless(well yes this new production car is built with advanced composites and weird alloys, but it's nothing the Formula 1 teams haven't been doing for years),
If your goal was to advance Formula 1 racing, you wouldn't go about it by building a moped. Which is basically the equivalent of what's going on here. Their goal is not to advance anything; their goal is to make a tourist craft that can make them money but does nothing to advance the field of orbital rocketry. It's only logical, and they're doing that quite well.
I said "due out", not "will come out", to reflect that. They are one tech among many. Kleiner-Perkins and Lockheed believe in them, and those are no small players. But what they're trying has never been done before, so there's always a good chance of failure.
In a purely technical point of view yes SS1 is at approximately the capabilities of the X1 project.
No, it is not. With a cryogenic biprop liquid propellant the X1's engine, at the very least, was far more capable of scaling to orbit (although even the X1 essentially required starting over. It was, for the most part, a data gathering project). SS1's entire propulsion system, which makes up the majority of the craft, would have to undergo a complete from-scratch redesign (unless they wanted to OTRAG it, which is pretty laughable), and because of the need for a TPS, so would the cockpit. I.e., *the entire craft* would need to be redone largely from scratch. Not to mention that the X1 was having to actually pioneer the field rather than just repeat it. With 1940s tech. And they dealt with a higher heating load. And a huge amount of insturmentation for collection of scientific data.
"If a relevant percentage of the cost of your orbital rocketry is the cost of your propellants, you're doing something *right*."
Rockets are not expensive because of the energy costs. That's the cheap part. They're expensive because of parts and especially all of the labor -- both for reusable and disposable stages. Labor can indeed be reduced through proper system design. That's why SpaceX's launch pricing is so low. From start to finish, a major driving principle was, "how can we design our rockets and our processes to minimize the number of people that need to be here in order to get this job done quickly and correctly?"
And still, you *refuse to read the report*, yet you're going to keep spouting inaccurate information and pretending like everything you say *isn't already covered in depth with extensive use of peer-reviewed papers*.
Clearly you've never seen SpaceShipOne launch. It went to space, which means that it's only a small step from there to reaching orbit. As we all know from the Sci-Fi channel, space=orbit, or something close to that. And I mean, SS1 was in space already, after all. They'll just make the engine a little bigger, and bam, they're in orbit!
(Huh? What are these terms, "ISP", "TPS", "many times the delta-V", "payload fraction", and "geometric size scaling" of which you speak? That's not how rockets in any TV show I've ever seen work. You never need to start over from scratch; you always just need to make the rocket bigger and maybe belt on a stage or two if you want it to go a lot higher and faster, right?...)
These sort of "space" flights do almost nothing to advance actual, orbital rocketry. The best you could argue is that they might come up with ways to reduce the cost of working with composites, which could indirectly help some aspects of the rocketry industry -- although companies like Boeing are probably doing a lot more to that regard than the entire rocketplane joyride industry will ever do.
Just because they both deal with "space" doesn't mean that they're optimizing toward the same thing. These joyrides have a lot more to do with supersonic airplanes than they do with orbital rockets. So, mind you, kudos to them for helping advance low-end supersonic aircraft flight. But don't look to them for anything related to orbit or beyond.
The first cars and airplanes tended not to instantly kill their passengers on impact. On the first cross-country airplane race, the pilot crashed several dozen times, and had even strapped crutches to the wings as a precaution.
They also didn't have the potential to take out an entire city block upon crashing. Nor were these "tourists" expecting a safe ride. Nor were they largely people with enough money that I think you'd have to be an idiot to think that a simple waiver would be a open-and-shut way to prevent your company from getting sued into oblivion if you kill them. That's my biggest concern: that these very public failures of "joyride" rocketry that doesn't do anything to advance orbital rocketry will discourage investment in companies like Orbital and SpaceX that are doing *actual, orbital rocketry*.
I meant exactly what I said -- no hidden meaning. I'm sick of the politics-driven promotion of hemp as a cure-all. Which would be Option #1 in your question. For the record, I oppose the drug war.
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would be possible today, if it weren't for collusion from the oil and auto industry.
Yeah, that's why they assassinated JFK and paid off the Mafia to make politicians fake the moon landing.
Don't people even subject their conspiracy theories to the smell test any more? Why would the oil industry *not* want people going 250 miles per hour? Talk about throwing gas down the drain. And why wouldn't they want automated, safer car travel? Anything to make people more comfortable with spending long hours on the road. And why wouldn't the auto industry want automated road travel? What a way to sell more cars -- make it so that the overwhelming majority of people who dislikes driving every day feel that they have to upgrade!
There's no need to insert a conspiracy in every shadow. In the real world, cost-effective engineering is simply really difficult sometimes. Not everything can be done, and not everything that can be done can be done affordably. Sometimes even the best efforts fail. That's just the reality of the world we live in.
Reminds me of an article I once read in which the author recalled a time, back in the early 80s, where he had been giving a speech at an electronics convention at a hotel about how it was quite reasonable to consider that the price of simple computer chips would drop to levels trivial enough that you could put them in virtually anything. During the Q&A session, one member of the audience complained that, what were people expected to do with these computer chips? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob.
The same speaker came back to a conference at the same hotel in the late 90s. All of the doors had been switched over to cardkeys.
There was a computer in every doorknob.
Anyways, I wouldn't rule out road improvements. It's just one of those things that hasn't advanced because, currently, it's "cheap" and it's "good enough". I've seen some wild ideas for road improvements, some of which are already in practice in test strips. Like embedded LEDs that let lanes change and shoulders open or close, as well as automatically and alert drivers to the best routes to take to avoid traffic; self-heating roads that contain a combination of thin-film solar cells and ultracapacitors, printed as a single bulk unit, that feed power to the grid (translucent traction surface avoids damage to the cells); solar thermal roads that pipe away solar heat and store it in underground tanks for civilian heating applications and for road de-icing; and all sorts of other things. How well they'll hold up to regular use, who knows at this point, but I think it's silly to believe that our current road system is somehow the most damage resistant design possible.
Don't get me wrong; I consider myself an environmentalist. I mean, I'm sitting here in a house with every bulb replaced with CFLs, and as of late next year, I'll be driving a hyper-streamlined electric car ;) But I'll be damned if wherever I go, I'm surrounded by "fellow" greens who are convinced that there's a conspiracy to stop people from running cars on water, that with a few easy mods you can make a Hummer get 60mpg, that Big Oil is secretly hiding that we're just years away from a global oil collapse that will take out 95% of the world's population, that Big Oil paid off GM to kill off the electric car and assassinated people who created fuel-saving tech, that the federal government is trying to kill energy-saving technologies to appease its supporters in the power industry, and on and on. There's this crazy conspiratorial thinking that I encounter way, way too often -- people who can't seem t accept the simple notion that maybe, just maybe, doing these things practically and affordably is *very hard*.
Well, this seems to be purely theoretical work about whether buckyballs *could* contain dense hydrogen, not how to achieve it. However, I can think of two very interesting possibilities, energy-wise, if it could be achieved.
1) Superconductivity: Metallic hydrogen is a superconductor. Not sure how that would work conducting current through the shells, though. While just being a superconductor doesn't give you energy, it makes it easier to transmit energy.
2) Fusion is all about the combination of the density of your targets and energy of your collisions. This is some impressive hydrogen density being discussed.
So yes, electrical costs will remain close to the same.
If anything, they'd drop. You're increasing the profit margin on power companies, as they get to sell more electricity without having to build new infrastructure.
Here's that link you were looking for.
As for what I'll be paying when I get my Aptera next year, with my electricity rates, it'll cost me half a penny per mile (at 55 mph). Compare that to what you pay for gas! And that other big car cost, maintenance? With an EV, I'll have one belt, no radiator, no exhaust system, no muffler, no spark plugs, no cylinders, no transmission, no valves, no catalytic converter, no pumps, not even any motor oil. Oh, and lithium phosphate batteries, like it uses, are typically rated for 10+ years and 7000+ charge cycles (and even then, all that means is that you lose some range). The only moving parts in the drivetrain are the motor driveshaft, one belt, and three wheels. In short, the energy cost per mile is a tiny fraction of what it is for gasoline vehicles, and the the maintenance costs are likely to be as well.
If price is the issue, there are several $30k highway-speed EVs coming out soon (the Mitsubishi MiEV, the VentureOne, the Aptera Typ-1e, the Subaru G4e, and so on).
Anyways, as to the charge time issue, it's only really a limiting factor for the "backwards" EV companies like Tesla that use laptop batteries rather than automotive li-ions. Automotive li-ions (phosphates, titanates, etc) are perfectly capable of fast charging. Several vehicles are designed for 10-15 minute charges, such as the Phoenix SUV/SUT and the G4e (and R1e) (yes, it takes cooling). Now, that kind of fast charge needs a fast charger, which needs either a strong three-phase power supply or a battery bank -- but that's still cheaper than a gas station on a pump vs. charger basis.
As for existing infrastructure, there are RV parks all across the nation. If they have power at all, it's generally *at least* 120V/30A. Many, however, have split-phase 120V (effectively 240V), 50A. For an energy efficient vehicle like the Aptera, that's enough to be a reasonably fast charge**.
** AFAIK, the Aptera will not, by default, support RV outlets. But I believe the MiEV will; it has a wide range of charging options.
Yes, so Big Light Bulb is going to repress the technology, right?
God, I hate how every discussion of green tech invariably turns to conspiracy theories. What I wouldn't give for a graphic of a carnival barker in a tinfoil hat pointing at a sign in front of a ride: "You must believe in at least this many conspiracy theories to be a Green."
They give out the amount of lumens they're rated for. For an equivalent amount of lumens as an incandescent, a CFL typically takes ~1/3 as much power. They're not just making these numbers up, you know.
Electric cars are a big deal because power plants are more efficient than even diesel engines, the US only loses about 7.2% power in transmission, AC/DC conversion is 90-95% efficient, li-ion batteries are over 99% efficient, and electric motors are 85-90% efficient in a general driving cycle (as much as 95%). Also, power plants have centralized scrubbers and can ultimately be replaced with renewables.
"Under certain circumstances". I.e., don't count on it. The A2 ratings equate to 65mpg city, 87mpg highway. Still not bad at all, mind you.
I've had 2 of 12 burn out over a year or so despite the 5 year promise on the box.
Yeah, that's the Poisson distribution for ya.
Anyways, it's not the cost of the bulbs; it's the cost of the *power*. Use an 80W incandescent bulb for 4 hours per day with $0.10/kWh electricity, you're spending $11.69/year on power. It's easy to see that the power costs dwarf the bulb costs.
That raises a good question: anyone know how much pressure we're talking about here? A couple hundred kilopascals or tens of gigapascals?
Heck, we are looking at hitting coppers limits
Morbo voice: "Resources do not work that way!"
What is being talked about here is *economically recoverable reserves*. What is economically recoverable depends on two things:
1) Current prices. As prices rise, by definition of the term "economically", more reserves become economical. Typically increasing exponentially.
2) Technology. Technology improvements act as a counter to increasingly difficult to extract reserves. Improvements can outpace it, wherein prices drop, or be outpaced by it, wherein prices rise. Example: adjusted for inflation, oil today is cheaper than it was back in the late 1800s when it bubbled to the surface in Pennsylvania (as opposed to having to be driven up from miles underground in inhospitable locations)
The applicability of this to oil and lithium are discussed.
"There's absolutely nothing new about carbon fiber tanks or flying up to ~100km with minimal delta-V."
Really? Because the X33 was such a success with it's carbon fibre tanks? Name me one sucessful carbon fibre tank or even a carbon fiibre support structure used in an orbital vehicle.
1) The X33's problem with carbon fibre tanks was that they had to be built *exceedingly light*. These weren't ordinary tanks; they were an extremely fine honeycomb structure, nothing at all like what SS1 used.
2) What was being contained in the tanks was cryogenic, which lead to the problem of microcracks from thermal expansion cycles.
Carbon fiber fuel tanks are used all the time in high performance cars and aircraft, where they don't have to deal with cryogenic liquids -- *just as SS1 didn't have to deal with cryogenic liquids*. As for carbon fiber support structures in an orbital vehicle, just off the top of my head, the payload fairing and wing structures on the Pegasus rocket. If I was willing to spend time searching, I could probably get a couple dozen more examples for you.
Well ok, let me propose a hypothetical universe where only governments had motor vehicles
Huh. In your analogy, apparently, Boeing, Lockheed, Orbital Sciences, SeaLaunch, and hundreds of other companies don't exist.
The only transport available to the populous was foot or horse or boat.
Huh. In your analogy, apparently Virgin Galactic is capable of doing something other than just going up and down, or could potentially be scaled to doing something other than that.
If Virgin Galactic is doing something related to supersonic aircrafts, it is doing something related to airbreathing rockets.
No, it isn't. It is doing *absolutely nothing* relative to airbreathing rockets. I'm doing as much relative to airbreathing rockets by driving my car as Virgin Galactic is doing.
An airbreathing rocket is indistinguishable from a hypersonic airbreathing aircraft.
Which Virgin Galactic *is not*.
Complete nonsequitur. Virgin Galactic is doing absolutely nothing related to airbreathing rocket flight.
if you view SS1 as the same thing then I'm sure they've collected lots of data about how supersonic vehicles behave in that part of the atmosphere at those speeds etc.
The data is *already gathered*. The proper term is, "reinventing the wheel".
Even if it doesn't the sum total of human knowledge is going up by this endeavour.
In what regard? There's no new knowledge being generated by having, proportionally, a very *gentle and easy* flight envelope. If you think that each company has to reinvent the wheel for themselves, you're deluding yourself; that's what you hire experienced rocketry engineers for.
Better they build a simple engine first and develop their knowledge of the other 2 first and then work on the engine.
There's absolutely nothing new about carbon fiber tanks or flying up to ~100km with minimal delta-V.
Otherwise every new car that is developed is pointless(well yes this new production car is built with advanced composites and weird alloys, but it's nothing the Formula 1 teams haven't been doing for years),
If your goal was to advance Formula 1 racing, you wouldn't go about it by building a moped. Which is basically the equivalent of what's going on here. Their goal is not to advance anything; their goal is to make a tourist craft that can make them money but does nothing to advance the field of orbital rocketry. It's only logical, and they're doing that quite well.
I said "due out", not "will come out", to reflect that. They are one tech among many. Kleiner-Perkins and Lockheed believe in them, and those are no small players. But what they're trying has never been done before, so there's always a good chance of failure.
In a purely technical point of view yes SS1 is at approximately the capabilities of the X1 project.
No, it is not. With a cryogenic biprop liquid propellant the X1's engine, at the very least, was far more capable of scaling to orbit (although even the X1 essentially required starting over. It was, for the most part, a data gathering project). SS1's entire propulsion system, which makes up the majority of the craft, would have to undergo a complete from-scratch redesign (unless they wanted to OTRAG it, which is pretty laughable), and because of the need for a TPS, so would the cockpit. I.e., *the entire craft* would need to be redone largely from scratch. Not to mention that the X1 was having to actually pioneer the field rather than just repeat it. With 1940s tech. And they dealt with a higher heating load. And a huge amount of insturmentation for collection of scientific data.
Not even remotely an accurate comparison.
"If a relevant percentage of the cost of your orbital rocketry is the cost of your propellants, you're doing something *right*."
Rockets are not expensive because of the energy costs. That's the cheap part. They're expensive because of parts and especially all of the labor -- both for reusable and disposable stages. Labor can indeed be reduced through proper system design. That's why SpaceX's launch pricing is so low. From start to finish, a major driving principle was, "how can we design our rockets and our processes to minimize the number of people that need to be here in order to get this job done quickly and correctly?"
And still, you *refuse to read the report*, yet you're going to keep spouting inaccurate information and pretending like everything you say *isn't already covered in depth with extensive use of peer-reviewed papers*.
Clearly you've never seen SpaceShipOne launch. It went to space, which means that it's only a small step from there to reaching orbit. As we all know from the Sci-Fi channel, space=orbit, or something close to that. And I mean, SS1 was in space already, after all. They'll just make the engine a little bigger, and bam, they're in orbit!
(Huh? What are these terms, "ISP", "TPS", "many times the delta-V", "payload fraction", and "geometric size scaling" of which you speak? That's not how rockets in any TV show I've ever seen work. You never need to start over from scratch; you always just need to make the rocket bigger and maybe belt on a stage or two if you want it to go a lot higher and faster, right?...)
These sort of "space" flights do almost nothing to advance actual, orbital rocketry. The best you could argue is that they might come up with ways to reduce the cost of working with composites, which could indirectly help some aspects of the rocketry industry -- although companies like Boeing are probably doing a lot more to that regard than the entire rocketplane joyride industry will ever do.
Just because they both deal with "space" doesn't mean that they're optimizing toward the same thing. These joyrides have a lot more to do with supersonic airplanes than they do with orbital rockets. So, mind you, kudos to them for helping advance low-end supersonic aircraft flight. But don't look to them for anything related to orbit or beyond.
The first cars and airplanes tended not to instantly kill their passengers on impact. On the first cross-country airplane race, the pilot crashed several dozen times, and had even strapped crutches to the wings as a precaution.
They also didn't have the potential to take out an entire city block upon crashing. Nor were these "tourists" expecting a safe ride. Nor were they largely people with enough money that I think you'd have to be an idiot to think that a simple waiver would be a open-and-shut way to prevent your company from getting sued into oblivion if you kill them. That's my biggest concern: that these very public failures of "joyride" rocketry that doesn't do anything to advance orbital rocketry will discourage investment in companies like Orbital and SpaceX that are doing *actual, orbital rocketry*.
I meant exactly what I said -- no hidden meaning. I'm sick of the politics-driven promotion of hemp as a cure-all. Which would be Option #1 in your question. For the record, I oppose the drug war.