Dubai to London or New York in 29 minutes? Or Sydney in 40 minutes?
It’s all part of Elon Musk’s latest plan to build a new rocket ship – code named “BFR” – capable of traveling anywhere on Earth in under an hour.
For whatever reason, some of the world’s smartest and most eccentric people tend to be drawn toward airlines. Musk is the latest, but with a twist – rockets.
Tacked onto a detailed explanation Friday of how SpaceX intends to land cargo on Mars five years from now – a farcical schedule that Musk conceded was “aspirational” – the space, car, solar, and battery entrepreneur segued into an audacious proposal to harness the speed of space-travel for faster earthly flights.
In essence, Musk wants to fly you even when you’re going merely to London, not Mars.
Flying at a maximum speed of 27,000 km/hr (17,000 mph), a hypersonic trip from New York to Shanghai in Musk’s proposed craft would take 39 minutes, down from the current nonstop time of about 15 hours. Los Angles to Toronto would take just 24 minutes. London to Dubai in a mere 29 minutes.
Travelling between any two points on the globe would take less than an hour.
“Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that,” Musk posted on Instagram Friday.
Such a ticket for one-way travel from New York to Shanghai next month was $2,908 from China Eastern Airlines. More info
By Bloomberk arabianbusiness.com
