SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled revised plans to travel to the Moon and Mars at a space industry conference today, but he ended his talk with a pretty incredible promise: using that same interplanetary rocket system for long-distance travel on Earth. Musk showed a demonstration of the idea onstage, claiming that it will allow passengers to take “most long-distance trips” in just 30 minutes, and go “anywhere on Earth in under an hour” for around the same price as an economy airline ticket.
Musk proposed using SpaceX’s forthcoming mega-rocket (codenamed Big Fucking Rocket or BFR for short) to lift a massive spaceship into orbit around the Earth. The ship would then settle down on floating landing pads near major cities. Both the new rocket and spaceship are currently theoretical, though Musk did say that he hopes to begin construction on the rocket in the next six to nine months.
In SpaceX’s video that illustrates the idea, passengers take a large boat from a dock in New York City to a floating launchpad out in the water. There, they board the same rocket that Musk wants to use to send humans to Mars by 2024. But instead of heading off to another planet once they leave the Earth’s atmosphere, the ship separates and breaks off toward another city — Shanghai.
Just 39 minutes and some 7,000 miles later, the ship reenters the atmosphere and touches down on another floating pad, much like the way SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 rockets at sea. Other routes proposed in the video include Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes, London to Dubai or New York in 29 minutes, and Los Angeles to Toronto in 24 minutes.
This proposed method of Earth-city-to-Earth-city travel would be, by far, the fastest ever created by humanity. The ship would reach a speed of about 18,000 miles per hour at its peak, Musk said, which is more than an order of magnitude faster than the Concorde.
Musk presented the idea at the very end of his speech, so he was light on details when it comes to the other logistics surrounding this proposal. (In fact, most of Musk’s speech was about how he wants to use this new rocket system to make all current and forthcoming Falcon rockets obsolete.) Using the numbers he showed earlier in the talk when describing the ship’s capacity with regards to the Moon and Mars, we can estimate it could carry somewhere between 80 and 200 people per trip. But we don’t know other basics like how much of the air travel market Musk sees this occupying, how it would be regulated, or even when SpaceX might attempt such a feat.
We also don’t know what the passenger experience would be like, and that’s an important factor in an idea like this. The thought of blasting off on a rocket to space is exciting, as is the potential for adding moments of weightlessness to your trip to London or wherever. But will people actually be willing to put their bodies through these kinds of extreme stresses for the sake of shaving a few hours off their trip?
And then there’s the landing. Despite occasional hiccups, airplanes land with overwhelming success. To its credit, SpaceX has gotten really good at landing its Falcon 9 rockets both on land and at sea, and Musk even began his speech by touting how 16 of them have landed successfully in a row. But the difference between landing a 14-story rocket booster with no passengers and a large ship full of them is one Musk will hopefully expound upon, either during another presentation or the next time he opens Twitter.
Comments
yes pls
By Joel Christophel on 09.29.17 1:57am
I hope you reeeeaaaally like the most extreme roller coasters in existence.
I’ve been trying to come up with the best analogy for how this trip would feel. Best I could come up with is a giant sling shot. First you are propelled up and towards your target for a few minutes and from that point on it’s basically a half an our free fall towards your destination interrupted only by an inevitable boost back burn on reentry and a landing burn. Both of which will make you feel many times as heavy as you normally do.
Please enjoy your flight and ignore the people puking all around you!
Musk may just be crazy enough to may this happen… And I may just be crazy enough to give it a try. But this is never going to be for everyone… or even for many people. Probably just for the very few. So here’s to the crazy ones!
By BrightSilence on 09.29.17 4:33am
Damn, that sounds fun!
By SquareMelon on 09.29.17 7:19am
So in the future we will travel, not because we have to, but because its fun?
By mkumar12345 on 09.29.17 8:24am
Um, we’ve been doing that for decades.
By BigDaddy0790 on 09.29.17 10:29am
you mean forever ? it’s called tourism.
By ramlongcat on 09.29.17 11:38am
Well, let me paraphrase: it only became widely accessible to everyone decades ago. Before, sure, you could travel to another village or town, but another country, continent? That was only for very special occasions and very selected individuals.
By BigDaddy0790 on 09.29.17 12:09pm
I have a feeling that rocket travel will be for an even smaller, more select audience.
By wpostw on 09.29.17 2:28pm
But Elon said it would be comparable in cost to an economy airline ticket! Elon is never wrong.
By lusional on 09.29.17 4:50pm
We’re moving away from the original point here. I simply wanted to point out that we’ve been travelling for fun for ages.
By BigDaddy0790 on 09.29.17 5:03pm
If it gets me past waiting 45+ minutes in a security line and fighting for arm rest space in between 2 smelly people sitting in the same tiny seat as mine…
….sign me the f*ck up.
By adamrnope on 09.29.17 9:20am
it won’t, but you’ll only be fighting for arm rest space in between 2 smelly people sitting in the same tiny seat as yours for half an hour as opposed to half a day…
By Contact_bart on 09.29.17 10:50am
This. Would gladly pay a premium to get to my location a lot faster.
By Tembot on 09.29.17 10:56am
You’ll need a shower and change of clothes from the inevitable nausea.
By roonhawk on 09.29.17 11:27am
You say that like I dont feel like I need a change of clothes and a shower after getting off an airline flight already ;).
By adamrnope on 09.29.17 3:59pm
That is TRUE! Sitting in a capsule breathing recycled air. Gives me motion sickness just thinking about it.
By roonhawk on 09.29.17 5:23pm
Depends on the flight honestly. Assuming it’s proven to be reliably safe, I would gladly take any amount of discomfort for super long distance flights, particularly if they are comparably priced. I flew from Atlanta to Tokyo and would gladly take back the 24+ hours of my life spent on that round-trip. Additionally it makes short trips more feasible, for example my brother is about to be stationed in Fiji but there is no way I will be visiting him unless I can spend at minimum 2 weeks on that side of the globe, which will never happen because we have an infant.
By shabanga on 09.29.17 9:25am
By the time this all happens, your infant’s infant will be graduating college.
Not sure if Fiji would still be there, you know, ’cause Global Warming.
By Carlos Osuna on 09.29.17 2:27pm
It was an example based on a current real life situation. It could have just as easily been the fictitious Troll family visiting their cousins in the Australian desert, but I don’t think you’re actually that dense.
By shabanga on 09.30.17 12:51am
I know you were trying to paint a picture of why this WOULDN’T be a pleasant experience…but not gonna lie, I’m actually MORE excited about it now…
By Smartyflix on 09.29.17 11:27am
Someone asked Elon about this on Twitter.
By Swazaloo on 09.29.17 12:26pm
Yeah, except he forgets to clarify that zero gravity and free fall are the exact same thing. I don’t see how that compares to anything less than very extreme amusement park rides.
By BrightSilence on 09.29.17 12:41pm
Moderate AP ride my arse… this is gonna feel like Batman the Ride, meets Joker the lousy contractor…
By Carlos Osuna on 09.29.17 2:30pm
Precisely that´s the challenge, to make the pod in such a way that G force is a non issue.
With that in mind, we have the technology for the slingshot today, but the other pieces will fell in the next 20 to 50 years.
By Carlos Osuna on 09.29.17 2:24pm
Don’t forget rich. It’s going to cost a lot of money to get a ticket on one of those rockets. Rich and crazy, on a rocket, surrounded by rich and crazy…
By ReverseAsian on 09.30.17 2:32pm