Elon Musk once again makes an incredible announcement. Yesterday he announced that he and his company Space X are going to start building the BFR (Big Fucking Rocket) soon. This is the rocket that is supposed to start taking people to Mars in the mid to late 2020's. The first launch to Mars is slated to be in 2022 when the planets align in such a way that a flight to Mars is favorable. Elon plans to follow this up with a much more aggressive launch in 2024 that will take the first colonists as well as the supplies to make a Mars fuel depot so that ships can return (and passengers too, should they prefer it) back to Earth.
This is all amazing, but it's not even the most exciting news. The most exciting news is that the company is looking at launching their incredible new vehicle as an orbital plane - one that could carry people and supplies anywhere in the world within 30 minutes. This is huge and will likely make the company much more resilient against any failed Mars attempts early on.
The impact goes beyond Mars, however. Being able to get to anywhere in the world in that amount of time could come to mean that the 12 hour flights of yesteryear will be abolished totally. Just think about the potential of a world where you can get from the United States to Asia faster than you take your morning commute. New business opportunities will arise, families will be less separated and plagued by work situations that force some members to travel. It'll be a whole new world, essentially. It's getting to the point where Elon almost seems to transform things by accident.
I, for one, have no intention of missing the world he and the people at his companies are working so hard to create.
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