The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, who was recently appointed co-leader of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by president elect Donald Trump, is hoping to transport businessmen and holidaygoers alike from London to New York in just 30 minutes via his flagship rocket Starship.
Plans for the high-speed route were first unveiled nearly a decade ago by SpaceX, showing a revolutionary ‘earth to earth’ journey catering for up to 1,000 passengers. Starship, which is the most powerful rocket on earth, would blast into orbit then fly parallel to the planet before touching down in another farflung city in under an hour.
SpaceX says the craft could also take people from Zurich to Sydney in 50 minutes and from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes.
A plane ride from London to New York on a commercial airline would usually take seven hours while the journey from New York to Shanghai, spanning 7,392 miles, adds up to just under 15 hours.
SpaceX’s would-be alternative to such long-haul flights was laid out in glossy CGI in a promotional video released by the company in 2017 and posted to X by user @ajtourville after the US election this month alongside the suggestion that “under Trump’s Federal Aviation Administration (FFA)”, the scheme could be implemented in just a few years.
The video shows a boatload of passengers being dispatched from New York’s Hudson river at 6:30am before climbing aboard an offshore rocket launched half an hour later.
Starship is then seen shooting around the planet at a maximum speed of 16,700 mph to arrive in Shanghai in just 39 minutes later. It paints an enticing image of what could be the very near future – culminating in a gleaming steel rocket touching down on the Chinese landing pad.
Musk, who bought the social media platform in October 2022, replied: “This is now possible.”
He has described the mission as the future of air travel but has not confirmed the likely hefty costs of stepping on board – or explained how passengers will be expected to go without a toilet onboard, especially for those journeys inching closer to hour-long. The South African businessman has said “most flights would only be 15 to 20 minutes”.
While the speedy city-to-city transport would transform earth-based travel for those that could afford it, the X owner’s ambitions far exceed this particular project.
Starship is due to take four astronauts to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis 3 mission in 2026 and Musk hasn’t been shy about his ambitions to send the multi-million-dollar rocket to Mars with people on board before the decade is out.
The rocket pulled off a world-first when a pair of mechanical arms recaptured it after a take-off last month – marking progress in the company’s aim to create a reusable and redeployable spacecraft. SpaceX engineers declared the feat “a day for the engineering history books”.
