So where's my postcard? (RocketMail)

[Lasairfion]

I was reading an article, the link for which was sent to me by a friend as something that might pique my interest. It's about the History of Rocketmail i.e. sending letters or postcards by rockets to make otherwise long and delayed journeys very short.

Are we about to enter a renaissance of Rocketmail? As SpaceX or other similar companies consider sub/low orbital flights between countries to ferry passengers quickly, will the post also follow suit? Is this something particularly well suited for smaller vehicles such as those produced by New Zealand's Rocket Lab?

I for one look forward to an era of super-fast international postal services.

 

[ecarfan]

I for one look forward to an era of super-fast international postal services.

No need to look forward: that capability has been around for over two decades. It’s called the internet.

If SpaceX is able to offer suborbital package delivery with its fully reusable Starship, the cost per kilogram is going to be much higher than current air cargo rates. Sure it will be over an order of magnitude faster; trans-oceanic flight times will be 30 minutes instead of 10 hours. But for physical products that is unlikely to be important.

Humans may pay $10,000 to move their bodies across the Pacific Ocean in 30 minutes instead of many hours, but are manufacturers going to pay more to move their products?

 

[Lasairfion]

I think it depends on the product. There are some things that people want very quickly. Enough people seem to pay for Amazon Prime to get super-fast delivery. It could open the market for products that are usually too far away to be available.

Obviously it all depends on costs, but I think that we're going to see a huge reduction in the costs of rocket transport with the uptick in vehicles already travelling to deliver people or satellites that could possibly land elsewhere instead. If Tesla had a rocket pad out in Asia or Oceania then would it be as easy to deliver a payload up from America and then drop the first stage booster (with packages of its own) back to the other side of the planet?