If you’ve ever taken a deep breath before boarding a long trans-continental airline flight, then you know that, even with the modern miracle of ultra-comfortable jet aircraft, 12-plus hours in a snazzy flying bus is still a bit of an endurance test. Not surprisingly, SpaceX and Tesla tycoon Elon Musk thinks he can do better – by a long shot.
As you probably already know, Musk is planning to send his SpaceX “Big Frikkin’ Rocket” to Mars in 2024, and, of course, he didn’t say “frikkin.” But now, Musk is also thinking of repurposing the giant transports for more earth-bound duties, namely flying passengers from anywhere on earth to pretty much anywhere else on earth in under an hour – sometimes well under an hour. And, he claims he can do it at a ticket cost close to current coach airline fares!
A compelling video shows passengers taking high-tech ferryboats to sea-based launch facilities, where rockets carrying a hundred or so passengers would blast off, go sub-orbital at 18,000 miles an hour, and then touch down at another facility in literally 40 minutes or so on the other side of the planet. That’s a pretty big improvement over the typical travel time of 15 hours to get from New York City to Shanghai, China.
Will it happen? We’d say stranger things have succeeded, but we’d be lying. All we can say about a guy who is revolutionizing the auto industry, the space industry and possibly the electrical power industry is: When are the tickets going on sale, again? Check out more details and the video about Musk’s latest audacious plan:
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