Dallas to Beijing

In 1850 it took three to six months to sail from the US to China.  In 1937 the Pan Am Clipper Transpacific service could get you to China in five to seven days.  On October the 9th, 2010 we made it from Dallas to Beijing (Peking) door to door in twenty hours.  At that trajectory, how long will it take in another generation or two?  Hell, I’m still trying to figure out how the international date line thing works, and I have to refer to my iPhone to calculate if it’s 11:00 am in New York, what time is it in Shanghai. Suffice it to say, good old AA got us there in fine fettle even though for the fourth consecutive international flight, we had ground delays caused...