Add to this that a significant fraction of aircraft accidents are due to distraction. Even if the laser doesn't blind the pilot, it might distract him from some other critical action close to the ground.
A couple of months ago I was flying my bonanza into San Jose - some idiot was shining a green laser at all the incoming airliners. (I was probably too small for him to notice).
I've never seen the point: 99.9999% of the time when you point a laser an an airplane, nothing happens..00001% of the time 300 people die. Doesn't seem like a very fun game.
Personal electronics is extremely unlikely to damage the aircraft electronics - it is shielded and can survive lightning strikes. The difference between an aircraft and a car is that the aircraft needs to receive navigation signals from distant radios. Interference that would just be an annoying hum on a car radio could cause navigation guidance.
Of course there is redundancy and backups, but there are so many flights and so many possible interfering devices that it would not take much risk to exceed the already very small risk of an airliner crash.
Hundreds of millions of passengers fly yearly - this means that a one in a billion chance still needs to be considered.
I'm a light aircraft pilot, flying a Bonanza. I've noticed on one occasion that when my passenger took pictures from the right seat the VOR needle jumped a bit - presumably some harmonic of one of the clock frequencies of the CCD happened to match the navigation receiver. Very similar navigation receivers are used on airliners to fly precision approaches to airports in bad weather.
I think the odds of any particular device causing serious interference is very small and as long as only a few passengers on a given flight have failed to turn off electronics the risk is small. If most of the passengers leave electronics on, then the risk is multiplied.
In addition to specific problems like the above, electronics radiate RF noise over a broad spectrum. Again a single device isn't a problem, but the combined noise of hundreds might be enough to interfere with navigation or communication signals.
I don't know if the risk is high enough to warrant the lost work time, but the restriction doesn't seem irrational to me.
A valid point and it may be true that starting from zero, open source would have been more popular and deemed easier to use. From where we are now though, more people are familiar with MS products, and more documents are produced in those near-closed formats.
I spent a couple of years trying to get by with open source, but found that it just didn't work in an environment dominated by MS. I spent far too much time trying to do things that were easy in MS and difficult in OS. For instance my company sends out financial information in spreadsheets using pivot tables, and this was not compatible with even the latest version of openoffice.
In every case I eventually found a work-around, but it took too much of my time to be worth the effort. In the world as it is now I've found MS products to require less effort than OS. This is not a moral judgement, just a practical one.
I once on the same day searched for Uranium, Plutonium, Lithium-deuteride, and explosives. (all except plutonium were for valid work-related projects, it was just a lark). FBI hasn't arrested me yet.
OTOH, if a fusion bomb goes off in my neighborhood, I might be on the short list of suspects. (actually I sort of hope I am already).
Maybe we don't need to ditch the scientific process, but just tweak the parameters a bit. If you are looking for 95% confidence it isn't that difficult to underestimate errors (intentionally or not), and get the wrong result. If we made the standard "test", 99.99% or so, then even with minor mistakes in error analysis it would be much less likely to get a result. I seem to remember that in physics a 4-sigma result is required for a "discovery".
There will be claims that this will increase the cost of medical research, but it would also eliminate a significant number of very expensive errors.
Is CO2 really the issue in the city??? CO2 is normally a global problem - seems strange to try to fix it with a very local ordinance. If they are worried about in-city pollution, then limit CO or nitric oxides or similar. If they want to fix CO2, then ban low mileage cars everywhere.
The main reason to become a scientist is because it is fun. Science includes a wide range of types of work, from purely theoretical to grungy hands-on work with real hardware (my favorite). Not everyone in science needs to go the academic path, some take staff positions after grad school, some work in science related fields after just an undergrad degree.
I think it does help when even vaguely science-related materials appear in the media, but at the same time the almost universal mis-representation of what science is like may cause a lot of people to either not choose it as a career, or to be unhappy after they do.
It takes a certain type of personality to find science fun, but some people have it. Seeing the fuzzy egg-crate pattern on a screen and realizing it is individual atoms. Seeing a faint smudge and realizing that it is a jet of gas millions of light-years long, or a spot on a screen that is a gigawatt X-ray beam, or realizing that a slight offset between the calculated center of mass from gravitational lensing relative to luminous mass means that you may have just spotted the missing 90% of the matter in the universe.
All of the above are very exciting (to the right person), but unfortunately none make good movies.
I've been a working scientist for 20 years, and its a great job. I briefly went to work for industry, but got so tired of the easy work and high pay, that I gave it up.
Agreed. If you want really high specific impulse fuel, then mono-atomic hydrogen, or possibly metallic hydrogen have fantastic theoretical performance. Atomic hydrogen can be easily produced (as a very low density gas), the "only" problem is stabilising it as a liquid or solid.
In reality the problem with launching to orbit is cost, and that cost is NOT dominated by fuel. As a rough estimate a saturn V used 1 million gallons of kerosine ($5M), to put 200K pounds in orbit. That is ~$25/pound. Whatever is the driving cost in space travel, it is not the cost of the fuel.
I'm glad they didn't stop him, but I'm also surprised. This has more terrorist potential than a lot of things that are being stopped (like photographing in some locations).
Don't get me wrong, I really want people to be able to do this sort of cool stuff, provided that some reasonable safety rules are followed. I'm just (pleasantly) surprised that he wasn't stopped by a knee-jerk security response.
This does point the way to some potentially quite dangerous technologies. OTOH if we banned doing things because they were dangerous we'd still be cowering in our caves for fear of wolves.
The problem then is that we can't tell if government intervention creates monopolies, or reduces their severity. My guess is that it does both - the "government" is far monolithic organization.
Not quite a fair question since there is government regulation of almost everything, and especially of businesses before they become full monopolies.
A alternate question is whether there is case where there was a high cost to entry in a field with a distributed infrastructure (railways, roads. internet, pipelines, telecom etc) where there was no government intervention and there was not a monopoly. (honest question, I can't think of one, but would be interested to hear an example).
Monopoly can also mean a lot of different things. Is Microsoft a monopoly? There are competitors, but despite making an significant effort, I haven't been able to avoid using their products because of my need to interact with other users.
Is Comcast a monopoly? In my area an alternate provider with the same performance is very much more expensive. Is that because Comcast has better technology, or because the barriers to entry are too high?
Is Chase bank a monopoly? I've never opened an account with them, but due to acquisitions my bank accounts, mortgage and credit card now are all owned by Chase - with a high cost to change to a different vendor.
I think there are many situations that do not technically qualify as "monopolies" but where the consumer's choices are nonetheless very restricted.
The real trick is to build some tools that will cause an online persona with your name to do all the right things. Join exercise and health discussion groups. Avoid any being associated with people who smoke or drink. Maybe there is a market in bots that will make you look good to insurance companies, law enforcement, etc.
You can then do all your real social interaction with your pseudonym
Depends on the conditions. At night, over hostile terrain, or in low IFR conditions an engine failure has a good chance of killing you. During the day over flat land, you are very likely to survive. You can of course choose not to fly under conditions where an engine failure is dangerous, but that again is a trade-off between safety and functionality - a choice up to the individual pilot.
In most cases, if you Facebook page is hacked, nothing worse than some random graffiti will happen. Occasionally though someone will use it to do real damage to your reputation.
I think it comes down to what the individual thinks is reasonable effort for reasonable security - and the best we can do is provide the information to let them make an informed decision.
Life is full of risk management. I fly a single engine private plane - under some conditions if that engine fails, I am likely to die. I could reduce that risk by spending money (multi-engine plane), or not flying. I've decided to accept the risk in return for the benefits of flying.
I could learn about computer security (which would take time), go to significant effort to protect myself against hacks (which would cost more time as I need to find work-arounds for the problems the extra security will cause me). I need to decide if the decreased risk of being hacked is worth the cost in time.
It takes quite a bit of knowledge to know when to allow and forbid various forms of scripting and cookies, many legitimate websites require these to be functional. (Try blocking everything with Noscript and then use lots of mainstream sights). I don't think people should need to be expert to have privacy. One of the great advantages of advanced civilizations is that the allow people to specialize, there are just too many fields for a person to be expert in everything.
Flying something around the world takes about 2X its weight (though there is never a reason to fly more than 1/2 way). Orbit is about 10X, but the point is still valid
Sadly, I think you are right. Delta-V is the big problem in getting to orbit and I believe designs like SS2 are a distraction. Chemical fuels seem the only practical energy source for earth-to-orbit: Shielding for nuclear would be too heavy and rail-gun type designs look impractical for orbital velocities (and orbital speed in the lower atmosphere would be a serious aerodynamic problem).
Jet engines can get you to ~Mach 3-5, but its not clear you win much from the added weight. Scram-jets seem appealing, but so far the designs only work over a very narrow range of Mach-numbers - might work for cruise, but no good for launch.
We understand chemical fuels fairly well. Kerosene / LOX seems the best for the first stage, and either Kerosene / LOX or H2/LOX for the upper stage (H2/LOX has better specific impulse, but the lower density makes the tanks heavier.
What this all adds up to is that conventional looking rockets seem likely to be the best way to do earth-to-orbit unless there is some new technological breakthrough.
It isn't at all clear that wings are worth the weight. Parachutes (admittedly less cool) and retro-braking may use less weight.
One thing to consider: the energy cost to orbit isn't the dominant cost. A saturn V used about 2 million pounds of fuel (not counting oxidizer) to put 200,000 pounds in orbit. Thats about $15 in fuel to put a pound in orbit. Clearly fuel costs are not the big issue here.
I wish there was a nice technology to let us "fly" into orbit but it just doesn't look practical. Of course airplanes look very different from ships, maybe it isn't surprising that spacecraft look very different from airplanes.
Not so simple. You can gain a lot by getting boosts off of other planets and moons. I suspect that minimum is just under earth escape velocity, with a boost from the moon. Then over lots of orbits you can use earth flybys to modify your orbit. Might then be a win to use either Venus or Mars. The optimal path might take a VERY long time.
Don't forget the trick that burning your fuel deep in a gravity well is a big help - a near-solar flyby might also be an efficient route.
Of course the "right" way to do it is just use higher ISP engines and go direct so you get there quickly and don't need to wait half a generation to get your data.
The mis-identification problem is a big issue. If you have an uncommon but not unique name you can be in trouble. For a while a Google search on my name returned writings of a neo-nazi in Germany. This is of course a problem when people manually search the internet for social information on someone, but there is a tendency to trust results from automated systems because of the assumption that "someone" made sure this problem didn't happen.
A good point, but of course it would depend on how think the atmosphere was. A think atmosphere might circulate in a way to move enough heat to the dark side to keep the water liquid. I wonder if anyone has done weather simulations on tidally locked planets - the Coriolis effects are very weak and you might get very interesting weather patterns.
You could also have an anti-solar ice cap, but with enough total water the glaciers might flow towards and melt on the sunlit side.
Life can exist on earth in a wide variety of climates, including very dry areas, but it isn't clear what conditions are required for it to evolve initially.
The problem is that as far as I know, international law doesn't know how to deal with national cyber-attacks. Are they the equivalent of a physical attack? If they do large scale financial damage (loss of services)? If they do large scale physical damage (destroy a factory of power plant), if they kill a few people (factory accident), kill a lot of people (chemical plant explodes)?
If a cyber-attack on financial institutions costs billions of dollars is that an act of war?
If a cyber-attack from country A caused a Bophal like disaster in country B, is country B justified in launching a physical attack on population centers of country A?
Words are one thing - attacks (physical or cyber) that cause damager are another.
Depending on how the industrial control systems are use, you might be able to do a large amount of damage, and possibly kill people. Many facilities rely on industrial control systems to prevent damage to hardware (control sequencing of components, etc). Some facilities now rely on industrial controllers to provide human safety interlocks although these controllers need to be certified for life-safety applications, and I don't know if they could be vulnerable to similar attacks. Medical equipment may use similar systems.
It is an interesting question - if intentional sabotage of these systems results in significant damage or deaths, and the attack can be tracked down to a national government, is this considered an act of war? If a nuclear facility or strategic asset is targeted, is a strategic retaliation warranted?
On a recent SAS flight (Copenhagen to Frankfurt, small Airbus) they had a downward facing camera that displayed on the video monitors. First time I've ever seen it. It was rather nice - but the excitement fades quickly if you are over clouds or ocean.
A transparent airplane would be great fun - but even if were practical (which I doubt) I don't think passengers would be willing to pay enough more to fly on it.
Most of the high value passengers in Business and First are frequent fliers for whom the excitement of flying has largely worn off.
That said, if they built a transparent airplane and the costs weren't ridiculous I'd fly on it, but then I'd pay them to throw in a barrel roll as well.
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Add to this that a significant fraction of aircraft accidents are due to distraction. Even if the laser doesn't blind the pilot, it might distract him from some other critical action close to the ground.
A couple of months ago I was flying my bonanza into San Jose - some idiot was shining a green laser at all the incoming airliners. (I was probably too small for him to notice).
I've never seen the point: 99.9999% of the time when you point a laser an an airplane, nothing happens. .00001% of the time 300 people die. Doesn't seem like a very fun game.
Personal electronics is extremely unlikely to damage the aircraft electronics - it is shielded and can survive lightning strikes. The difference between an aircraft and a car is that the aircraft needs to receive navigation signals from distant radios. Interference that would just be an annoying hum on a car radio could cause navigation guidance.
Of course there is redundancy and backups, but there are so many flights and so many possible interfering devices that it would not take much risk to exceed the already very small risk of an airliner crash.
Hundreds of millions of passengers fly yearly - this means that a one in a billion chance still needs to be considered.
I'm a light aircraft pilot, flying a Bonanza. I've noticed on one occasion that when my passenger took pictures from the right seat the VOR needle jumped a bit - presumably some harmonic of one of the clock frequencies of the CCD happened to match the navigation receiver. Very similar navigation receivers are used on airliners to fly precision approaches to airports in bad weather.
I think the odds of any particular device causing serious interference is very small and as long as only a few passengers on a given flight have failed to turn off electronics the risk is small. If most of the passengers leave electronics on, then the risk is multiplied.
In addition to specific problems like the above, electronics radiate RF noise over a broad spectrum. Again a single device isn't a problem, but the combined noise of hundreds might be enough to interfere with navigation or communication signals.
I don't know if the risk is high enough to warrant the lost work time, but the restriction doesn't seem irrational to me.
A valid point and it may be true that starting from zero, open source would have been more popular and deemed easier to use. From where we are now though, more people are familiar with MS products, and more documents are produced in those near-closed formats.
I spent a couple of years trying to get by with open source, but found that it just didn't work in an environment dominated by MS. I spent far too much time trying to do things that were easy in MS and difficult in OS. For instance my company sends out financial information in spreadsheets using pivot tables, and this was not compatible with even the latest version of openoffice.
In every case I eventually found a work-around, but it took too much of my time to be worth the effort. In the world as it is now I've found MS products to require less effort than OS. This is not a moral judgement, just a practical one.
I once on the same day searched for Uranium, Plutonium, Lithium-deuteride, and explosives. (all except plutonium were for valid work-related projects, it was just a lark). FBI hasn't arrested me yet.
OTOH, if a fusion bomb goes off in my neighborhood, I might be on the short list of suspects. (actually I sort of hope I am already).
Maybe we don't need to ditch the scientific process, but just tweak the parameters a bit. If you are looking for 95% confidence it isn't that difficult to underestimate errors (intentionally or not), and get the wrong result. If we made the standard "test", 99.99% or so, then even with minor mistakes in error analysis it would be much less likely to get a result. I seem to remember that in physics a 4-sigma result is required for a "discovery".
There will be claims that this will increase the cost of medical research, but it would also eliminate a significant number of very expensive errors.
Is CO2 really the issue in the city??? CO2 is normally a global problem - seems strange to try to fix it with a very local ordinance. If they are worried about in-city pollution, then limit CO or nitric oxides or similar. If they want to fix CO2, then ban low mileage cars everywhere.
The main reason to become a scientist is because it is fun. Science includes a wide range of types of work, from purely theoretical to grungy hands-on work with real hardware (my favorite). Not everyone in science needs to go the academic path, some take staff positions after grad school, some work in science related fields after just an undergrad degree.
I think it does help when even vaguely science-related materials appear in the media, but at the same time the almost universal mis-representation of what science is like may cause a lot of people to either not choose it as a career, or to be unhappy after they do.
It takes a certain type of personality to find science fun, but some people have it. Seeing the fuzzy egg-crate pattern on a screen and realizing it is individual atoms. Seeing a faint smudge and realizing that it is a jet of gas millions of light-years long, or a spot on a screen that is a gigawatt X-ray beam, or realizing that a slight offset between the calculated center of mass from gravitational lensing relative to luminous mass means that you may have just spotted the missing 90% of the matter in the universe.
All of the above are very exciting (to the right person), but unfortunately none make good movies.
I've been a working scientist for 20 years, and its a great job. I briefly went to work for industry, but got so tired of the easy work and high pay, that I gave it up.
--- Joe Frisch
Agreed. If you want really high specific impulse fuel, then mono-atomic hydrogen, or possibly metallic hydrogen have fantastic theoretical performance. Atomic hydrogen can be easily produced (as a very low density gas), the "only" problem is stabilising it as a liquid or solid.
In reality the problem with launching to orbit is cost, and that cost is NOT dominated by fuel. As a rough estimate a saturn V used 1 million gallons of kerosine ($5M), to put 200K pounds in orbit. That is ~$25/pound. Whatever is the driving cost in space travel, it is not the cost of the fuel.
---Joe Frisch
I'm glad they didn't stop him, but I'm also surprised. This has more terrorist potential than a lot of things that are being stopped (like photographing in some locations).
Don't get me wrong, I really want people to be able to do this sort of cool stuff, provided that some reasonable safety rules are followed. I'm just (pleasantly) surprised that he wasn't stopped by a knee-jerk security response.
This does point the way to some potentially quite dangerous technologies. OTOH if we banned doing things because they were dangerous we'd still be cowering in our caves for fear of wolves.
The problem then is that we can't tell if government intervention creates monopolies, or reduces their severity. My guess is that it does both - the "government" is far monolithic organization.
Not quite a fair question since there is government regulation of almost everything, and especially of businesses before they become full monopolies.
A alternate question is whether there is case where there was a high cost to entry in a field with a distributed infrastructure (railways, roads. internet, pipelines, telecom etc) where there was no government intervention and there was not a monopoly. (honest question, I can't think of one, but would be interested to hear an example).
Monopoly can also mean a lot of different things. Is Microsoft a monopoly? There are competitors, but despite making an significant effort, I haven't been able to avoid using their products because of my need to interact with other users.
Is Comcast a monopoly? In my area an alternate provider with the same performance is very much more expensive. Is that because Comcast has better technology, or because the barriers to entry are too high?
Is Chase bank a monopoly? I've never opened an account with them, but due to acquisitions my bank accounts, mortgage and credit card now are all owned by Chase - with a high cost to change to a different vendor.
I think there are many situations that do not technically qualify as "monopolies" but where the consumer's choices are nonetheless very restricted.
The real trick is to build some tools that will cause an online persona with your name to do all the right things. Join exercise and health discussion groups. Avoid any being associated with people who smoke or drink. Maybe there is a market in bots that will make you look good to insurance companies, law enforcement, etc.
You can then do all your real social interaction with your pseudonym
4X of what? If I consider driving without communication to be "lost" time, is more lost by deaths, or by people not being able to communicate?
Depends on the conditions. At night, over hostile terrain, or in low IFR conditions an engine failure has a good chance of killing you. During the day over flat land, you are very likely to survive. You can of course choose not to fly under conditions where an engine failure is dangerous, but that again is a trade-off between safety and functionality - a choice up to the individual pilot.
In most cases, if you Facebook page is hacked, nothing worse than some random graffiti will happen. Occasionally though someone will use it to do real damage to your reputation.
I think it comes down to what the individual thinks is reasonable effort for reasonable security - and the best we can do is provide the information to let them make an informed decision.
Life is full of risk management. I fly a single engine private plane - under some conditions if that engine fails, I am likely to die. I could reduce that risk by spending money (multi-engine plane), or not flying. I've decided to accept the risk in return for the benefits of flying.
I could learn about computer security (which would take time), go to significant effort to protect myself against hacks (which would cost more time as I need to find work-arounds for the problems the extra security will cause me). I need to decide if the decreased risk of being hacked is worth the cost in time.
It takes quite a bit of knowledge to know when to allow and forbid various forms of scripting and cookies, many legitimate websites require these to be functional. (Try blocking everything with Noscript and then use lots of mainstream sights). I don't think people should need to be expert to have privacy. One of the great advantages of advanced civilizations is that the allow people to specialize, there are just too many fields for a person to be expert in everything.
Flying something around the world takes about 2X its weight (though there is never a reason to fly more than 1/2 way). Orbit is about 10X, but the point is still valid
Sadly, I think you are right. Delta-V is the big problem in getting to orbit and I believe designs like SS2 are a distraction. Chemical fuels seem the only practical energy source for earth-to-orbit: Shielding for nuclear would be too heavy and rail-gun type designs look impractical for orbital velocities (and orbital speed in the lower atmosphere would be a serious aerodynamic problem).
Jet engines can get you to ~Mach 3-5, but its not clear you win much from the added weight. Scram-jets seem appealing, but so far the designs only work over a very narrow range of Mach-numbers - might work for cruise, but no good for launch.
We understand chemical fuels fairly well. Kerosene / LOX seems the best for the first stage, and either Kerosene / LOX or H2/LOX for the upper stage (H2/LOX has better specific impulse, but the lower density makes the tanks heavier.
What this all adds up to is that conventional looking rockets seem likely to be the best way to do earth-to-orbit unless there is some new technological breakthrough.
It isn't at all clear that wings are worth the weight. Parachutes (admittedly less cool) and retro-braking may use less weight.
One thing to consider: the energy cost to orbit isn't the dominant cost. A saturn V used about 2 million pounds of fuel (not counting oxidizer) to put 200,000 pounds in orbit. Thats about $15 in fuel to put a pound in orbit. Clearly fuel costs are not the big issue here.
I wish there was a nice technology to let us "fly" into orbit but it just doesn't look practical. Of course airplanes look very different from ships, maybe it isn't surprising that spacecraft look very different from airplanes.
Not so simple. You can gain a lot by getting boosts off of other planets and moons. I suspect that minimum is just under earth escape velocity, with a boost from the moon. Then over lots of orbits you can use earth flybys to modify your orbit. Might then be a win to use either Venus or Mars. The optimal path might take a VERY long time.
Don't forget the trick that burning your fuel deep in a gravity well is a big help - a near-solar flyby might also be an efficient route.
Of course the "right" way to do it is just use higher ISP engines and go direct so you get there quickly and don't need to wait half a generation to get your data.
--- Joe Frisch
The mis-identification problem is a big issue. If you have an uncommon but not unique name you can be in trouble. For a while a Google search on my name returned writings of a neo-nazi in Germany. This is of course a problem when people manually search the internet for social information on someone, but there is a tendency to trust results from automated systems because of the assumption that "someone" made sure this problem didn't happen.
A good point, but of course it would depend on how think the atmosphere was. A think atmosphere might circulate in a way to move enough heat to the dark side to keep the water liquid. I wonder if anyone has done weather simulations on tidally locked planets - the Coriolis effects are very weak and you might get very interesting weather patterns.
You could also have an anti-solar ice cap, but with enough total water the glaciers might flow towards and melt on the sunlit side.
Life can exist on earth in a wide variety of climates, including very dry areas, but it isn't clear what conditions are required for it to evolve initially.
The problem is that as far as I know, international law doesn't know how to deal with national cyber-attacks. Are they the equivalent of a physical attack? If they do large scale financial damage (loss of services)? If they do large scale physical damage (destroy a factory of power plant), if they kill a few people (factory accident), kill a lot of people (chemical plant explodes)?
If a cyber-attack on financial institutions costs billions of dollars is that an act of war?
If a cyber-attack from country A caused a Bophal like disaster in country B, is country B justified in launching a physical attack on population centers of country A?
Words are one thing - attacks (physical or cyber) that cause damager are another.
Depending on how the industrial control systems are use, you might be able to do a large amount of damage, and possibly kill people. Many facilities rely on industrial control systems to prevent damage to hardware (control sequencing of components, etc). Some facilities now rely on industrial controllers to provide human safety interlocks although these controllers need to be certified for life-safety applications, and I don't know if they could be vulnerable to similar attacks. Medical equipment may use similar systems.
It is an interesting question - if intentional sabotage of these systems results in significant damage or deaths, and the attack can be tracked down to a national government, is this considered an act of war? If a nuclear facility or strategic asset is targeted, is a strategic retaliation warranted?
On a recent SAS flight (Copenhagen to Frankfurt, small Airbus) they had a downward facing camera that displayed on the video monitors. First time I've ever seen it. It was rather nice - but the excitement fades quickly if you are over clouds or ocean.
A transparent airplane would be great fun - but even if were practical (which I doubt) I don't think passengers would be willing to pay enough more to fly on it.
Most of the high value passengers in Business and First are frequent fliers for whom the excitement of flying has largely worn off.
That said, if they built a transparent airplane and the costs weren't ridiculous I'd fly on it, but then I'd pay them to throw in a barrel roll as well.