Would Flying Through Orbit give Speed and Fuel Benefits to Future Commercial Aircraft

Before you continue reading this blog post I want to clarify that I intentionally made a error in the title to grab your attention and to pay respect to context (r.i.p. miss.context).

The title should instead be: 

Would Flying Through Beyond the Atmosphere give Speed and Fuel Benefits to Future Commercial Spacecraft

The title says all of what we need to know in terms of context. If a flight were to go between 2 large continents, for example, the US and Asia; would it be more time and energy efficient to break through the atmosphere and return to earth at your set destination? 

To do the math on that, we would have to come up with our own spacecraft or use sci fi concepts that already exist. There are aircraft that regularly break the atmosphere, like Virgin Galactic does.

However, this won't help us because this spacecraft goes from point A to point A by breaking through the atmosphere and gliding down. So going back to before, we need our own spacecraft measurements.

Of course, not everything in Elite Dangerous is realistic but the spaceships try to work off real life concepts.

 

A Sidewinder or Hauler in Elite Dangerous consumes 0.4 to 1.0 tons of hydrogen per hour to power its entire frame, thrusters and life support. 

For comparison refer to the chart below:

Fuel Comparison Analysis // Data_Stream

Metric	Current Jet A-1 (Combustion)	Elite Ships (Fusion)
Fuel Consumed	~12,600 kg (12.6 tons)	~4 tons (Estimated high-usage)
Price per kg	~$0.85 – $1.10 USD	~$1.00 – $4.00 USD (Grey H₂)
Total Fuel Cost	~$12,600 USD	~$4,000 USD

However, this isn't realistic because this technology is centuries ahead of 2026. Remember that even the Sidewinder in Elite Dangerous can park in the Corona of a star to scoop Hydrogen fuel. 

 

Even with the time and money put towards research, it is possible that the fuel added to operating costs make it worth it. 

 

Operational cost: $0.00

Savings: 100% of fuel costs

USD $291 Billion was spent in 2024 alone, where those billions could be spent on fusion reactor research to power the future of the entire world for a lower cost as apparently a majority of the research has already been done. 

 

R&D Cost Analysis // Project_Archive

Project	Total R&D Cost (Estimated 2026)	Achievement
F-35 Lightning II	~$55 Billion	Stealth & STOVL Flight
Space Launch System (SLS)	~$31.6 Billion	Heavy Lift Rocketry
Apollo Program	~$280 Billion (Adjusted)	Landing on the Moon
Elite Ship R&D	$6.5 Trillion+	Interstellar Travel & Fusion

 

With these Research and Development costs, it will be difficult to justify building this technology without a global effort.

 

In Elite Dangerous for the people in charge to start making progress, a Nuclear war had to be waged and survived which led to the banding together of various Earth corporations who exploited survivors for profits. The US was the only country that survived this encounter with death using a laser missile defense system.

 

Due to how uninhabitable the Earth now was, humanity made a rush to the stars.

Global efforts such as these can unite large groups together preventing wars and inspiring additional minds to collaborate on projects, creating many jobs and giving long deserved scientific mention to countries that otherwise don't have a reputation.

 

Instead of penalizing profitable corporations, a good idea would be to reward the scientific contributions of these companies through tax reduction credits, which the US does for private companies like SpaceX. 

 

The question "how do we contain a 150 million degree Celsius star" will be thousands of years in the making if enough funding is not provided because all the scientists will be working second jobs 😂. 

An Elite Dangerous ship cruising through space.

Thank you for reading. 

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