HP I think is hedging their bets. At least when I left the company, a little over a year ago, the corporate line was that low end enterprise unix was going to be the domain of linux (not taking into account windows boxes on the low end as well) and the high end mpu type systems would be HP-UX. Over time linux would gradually grow into the higher and higher ends of that space, eroding the hp-ux share, but allowing them to keep selling the hardware.
A lot of the HP-UX market is driven by stealing share from Sun, for things that people just weren't comfortable or couldn't use Linux for yet. HP and IBM have been making a business of competing to take Sun customers over the last 3-4 years.
Over time I believe Linux will continue to make in-roads into that space, but its not an overnight process.
Part of HP's hanging onto HP-UX comes from Itanium. They have a robust compiler/tool suite for use with the hardware on HP-UX and the functionality is just not as mature on Linux and doesn't provide the same performance. Also a lot of HP's high availability disaster tolerant configurations use applications and setups that just aren't there under Linux.
That being said, the Sun purchase means that IBM stops trying to beat HP at stealing Sun's market share, and allows them to just take it. Thats not to say Sun customers won't still defect to HP, but that IBM has a significant advantage in retaining some of them as possibly AIX or Linux customers.
The capsule will only be for the trip to/from orbit.
Similar to the moon missions any Mars mission will have at least 1 and likely 2-3 other modules that will rendezvous in orbit and make the trip to Mars as one craft.
You'll note the heavy lift rocket portion of Constellation can carry far more weight than any US rocket to date. The whole reason for that is lifting large modules for a larger craft. (lunar lander, mars lander, mars transit habitat, whatever).
The Orion capsule is just one part of the entire Constellation series of vehicles.
As it is the quantity of fuel required for a trip to Mars is one of the primary issues and thats just for a burst to initiate the trip, and burn to slow you into orbit, a burn to drop you into the atmosphere and then whatever fuel to get off the surface. To have constant acceleration at 1g would require immense amounts of fuel.
The only advantage besides the gravity is that with constant thrust the trip would be much shorter.... You however need some obscenely large spacecraft.
Rotation on the other hand could be imparted once and topped off with much more efficient technologies (ion engines perhaps providing slow but constant the rotational energy?).
Most likely though any early trips to mars will simply be long term zero g missions using other methods to keep the astronauts fit enough to function on the surface.
And HP's market cap is slightly larger than IBM's.
In terms of the competitive Landscape its really HP and IBM with Dell a distant third.
While Sun has decent market share it's been dwindling for years. Obviously there are some things to be reviewed in terms of competition, but I doubt it would hold this deal up. Fairly similar in terms of size/scope to the HP-Compaq merger.
To me this seems like a move to buy Sun's market share, pick up stuff like Java, and be able to strip some tech out of Solaris. I would expect that most of Sun's hardware arch would eventually be phased out, maybe port Solaris to Power if anything. Kinda see Sparc going the way of Alpha if a merger goes through.
Actually this is no longer true. In the last year many extra-solar planets have been found that are thought to be smaller rocky bodies.
The initial techniques only lent themselves to finding large planets through their gravitational effects, but new methods have since evolved to the point of being able to find smaller more "earthlike" types of planets.
A few of these stories have even made the national press.
Thats just not true. Every ATT phone I have ever had has been able to display the carrier. I travel extensively to Canada on business and I always see a "Rogers" or some other mobile carrier clearly on my phone whenever I'm in Toronto or Ottawa.
In fact with the Razr and similar other basic phones ATT keeps the base Motorola OS which displays this fairly clearly. I believe Verizon is the main culprit of replacing that OS for their customers, but I'm not sure how they handle displaying the carrier.
Even on more advanced ATT phones, PDA, smartphones, etc that I've had I've never had an issue with them hiding the carrier on me.
I guess the radiator portion of the RTG could get enough dust on it to cut down on its effectiveness, but Mars in general is still pretty cold, so I doubt there is nearly as big of an issue as dust on solar panels.
The original Sonic has been on Live Arcade for over a year.
As have many of the other great old Sega games. I still love playing them, but I'd hardly call this new content. Its great to have them, but its hardly a significant source of revenue. Seeing new games that will end up on Live arcade in 10 years would be preferable to me.
I agree, though I'm hooked on BSG at this point. It was just before season 3 started and a friend gave me all of the first 2 seasons as rips. I watched like 1-3 episodes a night for a couple of weeks, and by the time I finished those I had a couple of eps in season 3 to watch. (note, I've since purchased the DVDs for all those eps, but the DVDs weren't out at the time, the net was the only way to get caught up).
Viewing it commercial free in that format was great, you really got sucked in and didn't want to stop watching, and I would go right to the next episode. I've told friends who want to get into it that their best bet is to wait till its over an d get all the DVDs.
Similarly I've yet to get into Lost simply because I don't want to wait between episodes and deal with commercials. I just will wait till the show end and get the DVDs then.
As it stands even when I watch BSG now I DVR it on Friday and then get around to watching it commercial free some time Sunday or later in the week.
The sales numbers are on new SALES, not on units manufactured.
MS replaces RRoD machines for free, so those don't get counted in the sales numbers.
You can use the overall sales numbers as an accurate indicator of relative install base.
You have maybe a 1% or less variation for the rare off chance someone purchases a new one after a breakage instead of just shipping it back for a free fix/replacement.
Finally someone with constructive feedback instead of a bunch of poo-poo-ing.
At least it sounds like there's hope with some improvements. Perhaps a partial capital investment to bypass some of the metro north stuff increasing the speed in CT. And it sounds like the south of NY stuff is more than manageable just given the funding. If they are already packing the trains I don't know why there isn't more of a push to get them to run full out. If they managed more dedicated line for them, you'd assume they could just run more trains rather than deal with the congestion.
I'm not saying we should have a national infrastructure.
I think a rail company could start and operate wholey within a region. I realize Acela isn't a full true high speed line and that it shares track etc. However that $100 is profitable. No subsidizing is needed to maintain its operation. In fact AMTRAK was trying to use Acela to offset everything else it does that loses money.
Operationally I highly doubt running a high speed line would cost any more in month to month. If anything it would be less with a dedicated line. The issue would be the cost of constructing a dedicated line. If you could get government funding to create, but then be wholly independent of subsidies to operate you'd be in pretty good shape, and I still don't think $100 is unreasonable assuming good volume of traffic.
There's no reason you couldn't have a company maintaining train routes only along the atlantic coast and ignoring connecting to cities anyplace else in the country. If the coast is the only area thats economically feasible, only do it there. The best transportation infrastructure is a mix between regional rail and air for long cross country trips, which IS what you see in Europe. Train travel isn't efficient for traveling certain routes, but it is for others.
I think you're agreeing with me and not realizing it. Even north of NYC a lot of the track is shared with MetroNorth and the MBTA. I clarified this in another followup post to one of the other responders. I realize its contending with other trains and I realize it would require tons of infrastructure for a full high speed line.
Don't know about this. While bombing trains might be just as bad in actuality there's something in the finality of falling from the sky that seems to make people want security on airlines more. Its not like train travel isn't huge in other parts of the world and we don't have the same security that we do at airports in those countries.
Yeah it might not have been clear, but this is what I meant by sharing the tracks. Acela can't go full speed for most of the trip for 2 main reasons 1) the tracks weren't designed for the speed, so even though the train is build to run on normal tracks, it still needs to go slower in sections and 2) because it has to deal with being routed around conventional trains. If it had the full track to itself as is it could cut probably an hour off that time you had, but it has to slow in order to keep acceptable space near other trains at times.
I'm basing the $100 ticket price on Acela pricing. You can get the tickets for sub $100 at times.
The Acela prices could be less if they filled the trains more, but they don't because it still takes 3-4 hours (you can almost drive it in that time).
I DO realize that the cross country trip in a place like the US would be an issue. Thats the perfect time to use an airline. The bread and butter routes for trains should be regional intercity routes. These are the routes where the overhead time at the airpot (checkin, security, boarding, unboarding and possibly baggages etc) is a significant portion of the overall trip time. Boston to NYC is like an hour flight, but you might spend 3 hours total from drop off to pickup. If you can just show up at a train station, hop on the train and be outside the other station in a comparable 3 hours, or maybe 3.5 hours (figuring people will take a little longer if its cheaper), it would be preferable for many people to the plane. For an cross continental trip thats not the case. The time by train versus the time by plane is significant, and the time before/after the flight is perfectly acceptable for the time of the trip.
Like I said in one of the other responses, its not like all of this stuff hasn't been dealt with in other places. In Europe if I want to travel locally I take a train, if I want to travel across the continent I'd fly.
The spoke/hub system I mentioned was more of a way to connect point to point, not so much taking into account hub to hub to hub to local. While East/West across the US is an issue, the Atlantic coast (the busiest area for flights) is perfect for inter city trains. It would be better for the environment, better for wallets, and help ease congestion as a few dangerously busy airports.
Not to much I personally find trains much more comfortable, but that might just be me.
I know full well how Amtrak is funded. As I stated, Amtrak is the problem, pure and simple.
Privatize the railroad or stop funding it the same way. Make them actually EARN profit like an airline or bus company.
You'd see incredible improvements if that was the case. If Amtrak fails, someone else can step up.
I've ridden the route from Boston to NYC and I know its an awful mess sharing the tracks, thats why I think its a terrible idea. I also realize there would be a huge investment in building a new system. I was thinking single digit billions of dollars. Take a slightly out of the way route perhaps near the I84 corridor. But if you make it fast, simple, efficient, the cost savings over flight would make it profitable and over time it pays off the investment cost.
Its not that there aren't challenges and issues, but with the mindset that there's no way to do it, nothing will ever get done. If people were so motivated they'd find a way, its not like other countries that have built high speed lines haven't faced the same issues. The Atlantic coast at the very least is not all that different than Europe or Japan in terms of population density and terrain. If anything other countries have it worse.
probably because they just want to fill the seats any way they can this close to the fight.
Still when was the last time you tried walking up to a ticket counter and purchasing a plane ticket on the spot. Assuming you know the train schedule you could just show up 15 min before the train leaves and buy a ticket in most cases. You'd need at least 2 hours to do that for a plane, and you'd likely not get a ticket.
Exactly, but so long as AMTRAK is in charge of managing this it will never happen. Acela had the potential to steal massive amounts of travel from the airlines. If you could do Boston to NYC in 2 hours by train it would be faster/cheaper than flying.
Its the politics and half-assed shortcuts that are preventing it. Would it take financial capital to start up? Sure. But if done RIGHT it would return on its investment pretty quickly. However Amtrak is constantly doing it wrong. They need a dedicated line, with maybe 2 inter city stops. The train needs to run full out the entire time its not stopped. I'm not 100% certain of the route Acela uses, but if it stopped once in RI and once in CT you could be doing 150mph the entire time in between. Even at $100 per ticket thats far better than flying. How many Boston to NY flights are their daily?
In general the US just has a broken view of how train infrastructures should work. The best model for a place like the US is a hub system. You designate major metros that have inter city traffic as hubs (NYC, Boston, DC, Philly) You run limited highspeed inter city trains between them. Dedicated lines for the majority/all of the trip. Once a person gets to the city they can use conventional rail to travel to surrounding areas if they so choose. Having intercity trains slowed waiting on local traffic or making local stops is just a terrible idea.
I ran an itinerary of a Boston to LA train trip on Amtrak and the number of stops was just silly. Amtrak just needs to realize its cheaper to ignore some areas and improve travel times and they will be able to be competitive with airlines. If I could do Boston or NYC to Chicago with say 4-5 stops Same thing for Boston->NYC->DC, and be able to do it at 150mph on average, then $100/ticket 1 way would be more than reasonable, considering you'd be looking at double that for a plan ticket.
As mentioned in one of the above posts, the key is flight time + airport time + 20% > train time between 2 cities. The 20% makes up for the fact that people will consider slightly longer for a significant savings in cost.
My brother is on the project and we've discussed many times the process they went through to come to this solution. As its been explained to me the scale meant that they needed to move on to something else the airbags were a brilliant idea for their scale, but they reached their limit.
Another somewhat related topic I found interesting were some numbers he heard some guy run during a talk. He mentioned how this is a good middle step to the sizes of payloads a manned mission would need. Even if you take into account aero braking etc, the atmosphere is too thin to slow heavier crafts (say a human lander) to a speed that would make landing survivable to a person. The shock from mach 1+ chutes would likely kill people, and the amount of fuel you'd need for a pure retro descent is prohibitive. With current tech human landing might not be possible, so this is a good next step since airbags wouldn't be feasible for humans either.
Incidentally the first bounce from the airbags was something like 3km if i recall correctly.
I've seen the mockup in person (family member works at JPL). The comparison I was given was to a VW bug (the new one). Its almost identical in size, but taller with masts etc
For the same reason Sony doesn't HAVE to replace it. They are simply trying to be considerate to their customers.
That being said I read the yahoo piece about this and they basically said that its offensive because it mixed scripture with music, which apparently is a no-no. Wasn't that they reproduced the text.
Slashdot Mirror
HP I think is hedging their bets. At least when I left the company, a little over a year ago, the corporate line was that low end enterprise unix was going to be the domain of linux (not taking into account windows boxes on the low end as well) and the high end mpu type systems would be HP-UX. Over time linux would gradually grow into the higher and higher ends of that space, eroding the hp-ux share, but allowing them to keep selling the hardware.
A lot of the HP-UX market is driven by stealing share from Sun, for things that people just weren't comfortable or couldn't use Linux for yet. HP and IBM have been making a business of competing to take Sun customers over the last 3-4 years.
Over time I believe Linux will continue to make in-roads into that space, but its not an overnight process.
Part of HP's hanging onto HP-UX comes from Itanium. They have a robust compiler/tool suite for use with the hardware on HP-UX and the functionality is just not as mature on Linux and doesn't provide the same performance. Also a lot of HP's high availability disaster tolerant configurations use applications and setups that just aren't there under Linux.
That being said, the Sun purchase means that IBM stops trying to beat HP at stealing Sun's market share, and allows them to just take it. Thats not to say Sun customers won't still defect to HP, but that IBM has a significant advantage in retaining some of them as possibly AIX or Linux customers.
The capsule will only be for the trip to/from orbit.
Similar to the moon missions any Mars mission will have at least 1 and likely 2-3 other modules that will rendezvous in orbit and make the trip to Mars as one craft.
You'll note the heavy lift rocket portion of Constellation can carry far more weight than any US rocket to date. The whole reason for that is lifting large modules for a larger craft. (lunar lander, mars lander, mars transit habitat, whatever).
The Orion capsule is just one part of the entire Constellation series of vehicles.
That would take a LOT of fuel.
As it is the quantity of fuel required for a trip to Mars is one of the primary issues and thats just for a burst to initiate the trip, and burn to slow you into orbit, a burn to drop you into the atmosphere and then whatever fuel to get off the surface. To have constant acceleration at 1g would require immense amounts of fuel.
The only advantage besides the gravity is that with constant thrust the trip would be much shorter.... You however need some obscenely large spacecraft.
Rotation on the other hand could be imparted once and topped off with much more efficient technologies (ion engines perhaps providing slow but constant the rotational energy?).
Most likely though any early trips to mars will simply be long term zero g missions using other methods to keep the astronauts fit enough to function on the surface.
And HP's market cap is slightly larger than IBM's.
In terms of the competitive Landscape its really HP and IBM with Dell a distant third.
While Sun has decent market share it's been dwindling for years. Obviously there are some things to be reviewed in terms of competition, but I doubt it would hold this deal up. Fairly similar in terms of size/scope to the HP-Compaq merger.
To me this seems like a move to buy Sun's market share, pick up stuff like Java, and be able to strip some tech out of Solaris. I would expect that most of Sun's hardware arch would eventually be phased out, maybe port Solaris to Power if anything. Kinda see Sparc going the way of Alpha if a merger goes through.
I was more contending his point that the only planets we know about outside of our solar system are gas giants :)
I've read specifically about 2 rocky planets one with double the earth's mass and one with about 4 times the earths mass.
Both were rocky and relatively "small" in terms of the majority of extra solar planets, but they weren't gas giants.
Actually this is no longer true. In the last year many extra-solar planets have been found that are thought to be smaller rocky bodies.
The initial techniques only lent themselves to finding large planets through their gravitational effects, but new methods have since evolved to the point of being able to find smaller more "earthlike" types of planets.
A few of these stories have even made the national press.
Bender's Game is by far the best of the DVDs thus far.
Though I sorta liked dark matter as fuel.
Thats just not true. Every ATT phone I have ever had has been able to display the carrier. I travel extensively to Canada on business and I always see a "Rogers" or some other mobile carrier clearly on my phone whenever I'm in Toronto or Ottawa.
In fact with the Razr and similar other basic phones ATT keeps the base Motorola OS which displays this fairly clearly. I believe Verizon is the main culprit of replacing that OS for their customers, but I'm not sure how they handle displaying the carrier.
Even on more advanced ATT phones, PDA, smartphones, etc that I've had I've never had an issue with them hiding the carrier on me.
The next rover uses an RTG for power, so there won't be a need for wipers or any other such thing:
Mars Science Lab
I guess the radiator portion of the RTG could get enough dust on it to cut down on its effectiveness, but Mars in general is still pretty cold, so I doubt there is nearly as big of an issue as dust on solar panels.
The original Sonic has been on Live Arcade for over a year.
As have many of the other great old Sega games. I still love playing them, but I'd hardly call this new content. Its great to have them, but its hardly a significant source of revenue. Seeing new games that will end up on Live arcade in 10 years would be preferable to me.
I agree, though I'm hooked on BSG at this point. It was just before season 3 started and a friend gave me all of the first 2 seasons as rips. I watched like 1-3 episodes a night for a couple of weeks, and by the time I finished those I had a couple of eps in season 3 to watch. (note, I've since purchased the DVDs for all those eps, but the DVDs weren't out at the time, the net was the only way to get caught up).
Viewing it commercial free in that format was great, you really got sucked in and didn't want to stop watching, and I would go right to the next episode. I've told friends who want to get into it that their best bet is to wait till its over an d get all the DVDs.
Similarly I've yet to get into Lost simply because I don't want to wait between episodes and deal with commercials. I just will wait till the show end and get the DVDs then.
As it stands even when I watch BSG now I DVR it on Friday and then get around to watching it commercial free some time Sunday or later in the week.
The sales numbers are on new SALES, not on units manufactured.
MS replaces RRoD machines for free, so those don't get counted in the sales numbers.
You can use the overall sales numbers as an accurate indicator of relative install base.
You have maybe a 1% or less variation for the rare off chance someone purchases a new one after a breakage instead of just shipping it back for a free fix/replacement.
Finally someone with constructive feedback instead of a bunch of poo-poo-ing.
At least it sounds like there's hope with some improvements. Perhaps a partial capital investment to bypass some of the metro north stuff increasing the speed in CT. And it sounds like the south of NY stuff is more than manageable just given the funding. If they are already packing the trains I don't know why there isn't more of a push to get them to run full out. If they managed more dedicated line for them, you'd assume they could just run more trains rather than deal with the congestion.
You seem to have missed my point.
I'm not saying we should have a national infrastructure.
I think a rail company could start and operate wholey within a region. I realize Acela isn't a full true high speed line and that it shares track etc. However that $100 is profitable. No subsidizing is needed to maintain its operation. In fact AMTRAK was trying to use Acela to offset everything else it does that loses money.
Operationally I highly doubt running a high speed line would cost any more in month to month. If anything it would be less with a dedicated line. The issue would be the cost of constructing a dedicated line. If you could get government funding to create, but then be wholly independent of subsidies to operate you'd be in pretty good shape, and I still don't think $100 is unreasonable assuming good volume of traffic.
There's no reason you couldn't have a company maintaining train routes only along the atlantic coast and ignoring connecting to cities anyplace else in the country. If the coast is the only area thats economically feasible, only do it there. The best transportation infrastructure is a mix between regional rail and air for long cross country trips, which IS what you see in Europe. Train travel isn't efficient for traveling certain routes, but it is for others.
I think you're agreeing with me and not realizing it. Even north of NYC a lot of the track is shared with MetroNorth and the MBTA. I clarified this in another followup post to one of the other responders. I realize its contending with other trains and I realize it would require tons of infrastructure for a full high speed line.
Don't know about this. While bombing trains might be just as bad in actuality there's something in the finality of falling from the sky that seems to make people want security on airlines more. Its not like train travel isn't huge in other parts of the world and we don't have the same security that we do at airports in those countries.
Yeah it might not have been clear, but this is what I meant by sharing the tracks. Acela can't go full speed for most of the trip for 2 main reasons 1) the tracks weren't designed for the speed, so even though the train is build to run on normal tracks, it still needs to go slower in sections and 2) because it has to deal with being routed around conventional trains. If it had the full track to itself as is it could cut probably an hour off that time you had, but it has to slow in order to keep acceptable space near other trains at times.
I'm basing the $100 ticket price on Acela pricing. You can get the tickets for sub $100 at times.
The Acela prices could be less if they filled the trains more, but they don't because it still takes 3-4 hours (you can almost drive it in that time).
I DO realize that the cross country trip in a place like the US would be an issue. Thats the perfect time to use an airline. The bread and butter routes for trains should be regional intercity routes. These are the routes where the overhead time at the airpot (checkin, security, boarding, unboarding and possibly baggages etc) is a significant portion of the overall trip time. Boston to NYC is like an hour flight, but you might spend 3 hours total from drop off to pickup. If you can just show up at a train station, hop on the train and be outside the other station in a comparable 3 hours, or maybe 3.5 hours (figuring people will take a little longer if its cheaper), it would be preferable for many people to the plane. For an cross continental trip thats not the case. The time by train versus the time by plane is significant, and the time before/after the flight is perfectly acceptable for the time of the trip.
Like I said in one of the other responses, its not like all of this stuff hasn't been dealt with in other places. In Europe if I want to travel locally I take a train, if I want to travel across the continent I'd fly.
The spoke/hub system I mentioned was more of a way to connect point to point, not so much taking into account hub to hub to hub to local. While East/West across the US is an issue, the Atlantic coast (the busiest area for flights) is perfect for inter city trains. It would be better for the environment, better for wallets, and help ease congestion as a few dangerously busy airports.
Not to much I personally find trains much more comfortable, but that might just be me.
I know full well how Amtrak is funded. As I stated, Amtrak is the problem, pure and simple.
Privatize the railroad or stop funding it the same way. Make them actually EARN profit like an airline or bus company.
You'd see incredible improvements if that was the case. If Amtrak fails, someone else can step up.
I've ridden the route from Boston to NYC and I know its an awful mess sharing the tracks, thats why I think its a terrible idea. I also realize there would be a huge investment in building a new system. I was thinking single digit billions of dollars. Take a slightly out of the way route perhaps near the I84 corridor. But if you make it fast, simple, efficient, the cost savings over flight would make it profitable and over time it pays off the investment cost.
Its not that there aren't challenges and issues, but with the mindset that there's no way to do it, nothing will ever get done. If people were so motivated they'd find a way, its not like other countries that have built high speed lines haven't faced the same issues. The Atlantic coast at the very least is not all that different than Europe or Japan in terms of population density and terrain. If anything other countries have it worse.
probably because they just want to fill the seats any way they can this close to the fight.
Still when was the last time you tried walking up to a ticket counter and purchasing a plane ticket on the spot. Assuming you know the train schedule you could just show up 15 min before the train leaves and buy a ticket in most cases. You'd need at least 2 hours to do that for a plane, and you'd likely not get a ticket.
Exactly, but so long as AMTRAK is in charge of managing this it will never happen. Acela had the potential to steal massive amounts of travel from the airlines. If you could do Boston to NYC in 2 hours by train it would be faster/cheaper than flying.
Its the politics and half-assed shortcuts that are preventing it. Would it take financial capital to start up? Sure. But if done RIGHT it would return on its investment pretty quickly. However Amtrak is constantly doing it wrong. They need a dedicated line, with maybe 2 inter city stops. The train needs to run full out the entire time its not stopped. I'm not 100% certain of the route Acela uses, but if it stopped once in RI and once in CT you could be doing 150mph the entire time in between. Even at $100 per ticket thats far better than flying. How many Boston to NY flights are their daily?
In general the US just has a broken view of how train infrastructures should work. The best model for a place like the US is a hub system. You designate major metros that have inter city traffic as hubs (NYC, Boston, DC, Philly) You run limited highspeed inter city trains between them. Dedicated lines for the majority/all of the trip. Once a person gets to the city they can use conventional rail to travel to surrounding areas if they so choose. Having intercity trains slowed waiting on local traffic or making local stops is just a terrible idea.
I ran an itinerary of a Boston to LA train trip on Amtrak and the number of stops was just silly. Amtrak just needs to realize its cheaper to ignore some areas and improve travel times and they will be able to be competitive with airlines. If I could do Boston or NYC to Chicago with say 4-5 stops Same thing for Boston->NYC->DC, and be able to do it at 150mph on average, then $100/ticket 1 way would be more than reasonable, considering you'd be looking at double that for a plan ticket.
As mentioned in one of the above posts, the key is flight time + airport time + 20% > train time between 2 cities. The 20% makes up for the fact that people will consider slightly longer for a significant savings in cost.
You hit this spot on.
My brother is on the project and we've discussed many times the process they went through to come to this solution. As its been explained to me the scale meant that they needed to move on to something else the airbags were a brilliant idea for their scale, but they reached their limit.
Another somewhat related topic I found interesting were some numbers he heard some guy run during a talk. He mentioned how this is a good middle step to the sizes of payloads a manned mission would need. Even if you take into account aero braking etc, the atmosphere is too thin to slow heavier crafts (say a human lander) to a speed that would make landing survivable to a person. The shock from mach 1+ chutes would likely kill people, and the amount of fuel you'd need for a pure retro descent is prohibitive. With current tech human landing might not be possible, so this is a good next step since airbags wouldn't be feasible for humans either.
Incidentally the first bounce from the airbags was something like 3km if i recall correctly.
I've seen the mockup in person (family member works at JPL). The comparison I was given was to a VW bug (the new one). Its almost identical in size, but taller with masts etc
For the same reason Sony doesn't HAVE to replace it. They are simply trying to be considerate to their customers.
That being said I read the yahoo piece about this and they basically said that its offensive because it mixed scripture with music, which apparently is a no-no. Wasn't that they reproduced the text.
Was reading the yahoo article about this. Apparently some groups protested because mixing song and scripture is offensive to some muslim groups.