SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants to get people to Mars in just seven years. But wait — that's not all.
At an aerospace conference in Australia Friday, the business magnate revealed plans to send a new generation of unscrewed rockets to Mars in 2022 followed by more rockets — with crews this time — in 2024.
“That's not a typo,” Musk said about the first goal during his presentation.
But then he ended his talk with an even wilder promise to use those rockets to take humans anywhere in the world in under an hour — and for the price of an economy airline ticket.
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According to Musk, people could take a rocket from Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes or another from London to New York in 29 minutes.
SpaceX is currently working on the development of the first new two-stage, 350-foot rocket.
The massive rocket, code-named BFR, will be 30 feet in diameter and is expected to carry more than 100 people.
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BFR would be SpaceX’s second spacecraft capable of holding 100 people (or more than 4,000 tons) and like its Falcon 9 ship, the BFR would be fully reusable.
“I feel fairly confident that we can complete the ship and be ready for launch in about five years,” he said. “If not this timeframe, then soon thereafter.”
Musk plans to begin construction on the first BFR in 2018 and announced all SpaceX resources will focus on the project.
But his city-to-city rocket travel was arguably his loudest mic-drop of the day, though he offered few details about the logistics.
According to The Verge, there are several questions about where exactly Musk's plan fits into the travel market (or how much of the market it'll take up). Other concerns: How safe will the passenger experience be? And the landing? How will SpaceX's worldwide rocket travel system be regulated?
We’ll have to wait and see. For now, Musk said he plans to begin construction on the first BFR in 2018 and announced all SpaceX resources will focus on the project, meaning Falcon rockets will likely soon be obsolete.
Watch Musk’s full presentation at the International Astronautical Congress below:
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