The concept of two-hour flights from London to Sydney are so likely, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is investigating the effects that level of g-force will have on the human body.
According to reports, the CAA believes space-based super-fast flying could be a reality within a decade.
The CAA has been funding medical studies to find out what potential issues there could be for people travelling in suborbital space flights.
Unlike NASA astronauts who go through intense training, travellers are unlikely to meet any specific health criteria which usually needs to be met before space travel.
One study undertaken by King’s College London and the RAF found that older passengers were more likely to handle the flying process better than younger travellers.
Any two-hour flights between Sydney and London would surely put a dampener on Qantas’ Project Sunrise flights which will see direct flights take place between the two cities, reducing the travel time to around 19 hours.
While fitness is one potential problem for space travellers, another is cost, with wallets also needing to be healthy to pay for the A$650,000 airfares.
Or should that be space fares?
A slight downside of the idea of sending those going Down Under into space is the cost of doing so. The CAA believes that the price of a ticket will be around £350,000 when the service launches, although this should come down over time.
The report was published in the Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance Scientific Journal.
“Commercial suborbital space flights are now available for tourism and scientific research, and are ultimately anticipated to mature into extremely fast point-to-point travel, eg London to Sydney in less than two hours,” it said.
