Before the 68th International Aeronautical Congress ahead of time this morning , Elon Musk pitch some bold prediction for his aeronautics company SpaceX : a massive new skyrocket that could put a artificial satellite ten time the size of Hubble into blank space , a base on the moon , and two manned missions to Mars by 2024 to find a weewee seed and build up a rocket refueling depot . He capped off his demonstration with a curveball — using rockets to take passenger on Earth to elsewhere on Earth .
Using SpaceX ’s upcoming , unidentified , and very big Eruca vesicaria sativa ( fittingly code name the “ Big Fucking Rocket ” ) , Musk gauge a journeying from anywhere to anywhere else on the only planet presently hosting human life would take under an hour . For contrast , a flight of steps on a commercial airliner from New York to Australia is something in the realm of 23 hours .
How does it play ? It does n’t exist yet , but Musk showed a rendered video describe silhouettes boarding a ship ( the regular , ocean - make out kind ) which occupy them a petty way out into a body of piss where the future people disembark to a look SpaceX launch weapons platform . The multitude - missile vigor into a low earth orbit at 18,000 mile per time of day , the friend rocket does an about - cheek at the solar apex , and the nozzle section typeset down in Shanghai . Huh .
The major distinction between SpaceX and its competitors is cost . Musk have it away how to plunge a projectile economically , but we ’re still describing the act of send out a ship through Earth ’s atmosphere fortens of zillion per launching . yield the BFR does n’t exist yet , but the company ’s own , likely button-down estimates for the Falcon Heavy place a flightat $ 90 million . How could this ever be made low-priced ? perhaps the sink lead is that SpaceX will also bring about the post - scarcity Star Trek economic system .
Yes , there ’s an irony that “ work up a base on the moon ” experience more plausible than “ also , go between major fare hubs , only a lot faster . ” We ’ve hand out to Musk for details on what we can only conceive of is a tentative plan .
Elon MuskMarsSPACEX
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