With space tourism slowly becoming a reality, and short “pop-up” flights to high altitude soon to be regularly available, I was wondering about the next step: suborbital flight, either amateur or commercial. Specifically, I was curious by how much an antipodal flight is less demanding than achieving low earth orbit. I’m sure this has been studied ad nauseum but I couldn’t dig out the figures I’m curious about. Assuming an antipodal (12,500 statute miles) flight, with a hypersonic glide ratio at least equal to the Shuttle’s, what I’d like to know is:[ul][]velocity at engine cutoff[]g-forces experienced during glidemaximum heating endured.[/ul]And how those figures compare to orbital flight and reentry by the Shuttle.