Elon Musk Wants to Use Rockets for Intercity Travel on Earth

Everyone will agree Elon Musk is a visionary who isn’t afraid of throwing some wild ideas around. One of his new projects would allow humans to travel between different cities with rockets. It would certainly be an interesting way to address traffic congestion, although traveling by rocket sounds pretty scary. The big question is whether or not this plan is feasible to begin with, and if so, how it could be achieved in a safe and affordable manner.

Elon Musk has a new pet Project

While no one will deny Elon Musk is by far one of the bolder visionaries our society has seen in decades, some of his ideas nevertheless instill fear in the hearts of the masses. In particular, the concept of using rockets to travel from city to city on Planet Earth raises a lot of questions which aren’t easy to answer. It does not appear this project will interfere with Musk’s plan to visit the moon or Mars in the near future, which is pretty impressive.

Musk claims the same interplanetary rocket system which will take him to the moon and Mars can be used for long-distance travel on Earth too. That is a very ambitious goal, to say the very least. Being able to complete most long-distance trips in 30 minutes or slightly more certainly sounds appealing. However, it is not something most travel agencies and airlines will be too pleased with, for obvious reasons.

Then again, it isn’t as if such a project will launch overnight either. That is, assuming none of Musk’s companies makes a major breakthrough when it comes to building rockets. After all, the Tesla founder claims he will be able to offer rocket-based city-to-city travel at the cost of a regular economy airline ticket. While that sounds great on paper, it is not necessarily something that can be achieved in the real world – especially not when the upcoming SpaceX mega-rocket is involved.

To put this into perspective, we would still need a massive spaceship to be placed in Earth’s orbit. This spaceship could settle down on floating landing pads near major cities. It’s all very intriguing in theory, but the concept may not necessarily play out as planned. After all, construction of the rocket will begin at some point in 2018. It will take years before we will even be able to ascertain whether or not it is achievable. The “Big Fucking Rocket” does sound quite interesting, though.

Assuming this is indeed something that Elon Musk – or someone else – can realize in a modest amount of time, the way we think about traveling the world will undergo some major changes. While a lot of details are left deliberately vague, one cannot deny there is something to this concept that excites all of us. Each rocket is seemingly capable of carrying 200 people at maximum, which is not much but more than enough if frequent trips are made.

One thing to keep in mind is how this method of travel will not necessarily be pleasant for passengers whatsoever. A rocket is nothing like an airplane and travelers will leave the atmosphere for a brief period of time. It is doubtful that anyone could take part in such a trip without dedicated training. There is also the matter of landing the flight, which is notoriously troublesome for rockets of any kind. It will be interesting to find out whether or not we hear more about this initiative in the future.