Elon Musk has a pretty intense to-do list: Colonize Mars. Build a working Hyperloop to revolutionize traffic on the I-5. Put the finishing touches on SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System, now nicknamed the Big Fucking Rocket. (Really.)
Still, the man has found time for yet another gargantuan feat of engineering: transcontinental travel — courtesy of said BFR.
Musk’s presentation at the International Astronautical Congress touched on all of his dream-big aspirations (“You want to wake up in the morning and think, ‘The future’s gonna be great’”), but the biggest headlines came from his plan for faster-than-ever travel between cities here on Earth: Shanghai to Hong Kong or Paris to New York in around a half-hour.
How? Throw people skyward in the rocket and then guide them back down to Earth — specifically, on floating landing pads. (For the rocket’s specs, see here.)
Musk later clarified — via Instagram — that his rocket-powered travel would be both fast and cheap: “Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that.”
No word, yet, on how much the first checked bag will cost.
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