During the cold war we were told the Soviets could launch a missile from Moscow and it would reach New York in less than half an hour. Alright. Then why does it take so long to fly from New York to Europe? Some I.C.B.M’s are as large as some planes. Why can’t the same methods & technology be used to get to Heathrow in an hour or so.
One reason:
Planes have to land safely and in comfort, so they have to have a larger tail and wings than the ICBM needs. These would be ripped off at the supersonic speeds an ICBM travels. Also the missiles fly much higher in the atmosphere than airplanes fly because at supersonic speeds the friction from the atmosphere is extremely high and flying higher reduces this friction. I think that anyone riding in an airplane that high in the atmosphere would have to wear pressure suits as the inside of the airplane couldn’t remained pressurize at that altitude.
Well, to exceed current airliner speeds you need a supersonic aircraft or a sub-orbital (ballistic) spacecraft. They already tried a supersonic airliner (Concorde) and found that it wasn’t very profitable to operate - airports don’t like them because of the noise, and not many people think the speed is worth the high price.
As for applying missile/rocket technology to passenger transport - missiles are by definition expendable (not reusable), and most rockets today are also expendable. One could put a little winged capsule (sort of a mini-Shuttle) on top of an ICBM and fly it across the Atlantic in an hour, but since you need to buy a new missile for each flight, it would cost millions of dollars per flight. Actually, a lot more. Remember, expendable means you can’t do test flights, so the vehicle has to work perfectly the first time. Maybe a 90% success rate is good enough for missiles, but no passenger’s going to ride in anything but a 99.99% reliable vehicle.
So why not bolt everything to the mini-shuttle and take it with you, so you can fill it up and fly it again? Because it takes a lot of extra energy to do it. Rockets throw away engines and tanks on their way up to reduce weight. Nobody has yet built a rocket that can reach orbit in one piece, let alone come back down in one piece (those wings and insulation tiles are heavy!). OK, so you don’t need to reach orbit for an inter-continental flight, but the difference isn’t that big.
Still, there are many efforts in this direction. The X-Prize is a prize ($10 million, I think) for developing just such a vehicle, and some groups are trying (the web page has info about various teams competing for the prize). The NASA X-33 may lead to a completely reusable spacecraft, if it ever gets off the ground.
Don’t forget about the g-forces, either… I don’t have any numbers, but I suspect that your typical WWIII nuclear ICBM has an acceleration at launch too high for human survival.
If the cold war Soviets were to launch an attack, I believe the first (1/2 hour) missile would be launched from the Arctic. The missile from Heathrow may take a little longer.
Did those missiles take a half hour to reach New York from when they were launched or from when they were detected?