The SpaceX CEO has been aiming for a colony on Mars for years. The prime reason behind the birth of SpaceX in 2002 was Mars colonization. Elon Musk has been driven by this goal and propagating new ideas to one day make a well thriving human colony on the Martian surface. During a speech in Adelaide, Australia, last week, Musk confirmed that he had expanded his already huge ambitions. In addition to facilitating the humans on Mars mission to create a city, his idea for the next rocket would be capable of helping create a base camp on the moon and aid people fly across the globe within a limited time.
During a 40-minute speech at the International Astronautical Congress, Elon Musk said, we should have a lunar base by now as its 2017, but the same has not been achieved yet. Explaining his new rocket, Musk said, the massive rocket and spaceship would have more pressurized passenger space than an Airbus A380 airplane. It would be capable of flying passengers anywhere on Earth in less than an hour with a maximum speed of 18,000 mph. This would make a trip from New York to London just 29 minutes long, or a trip from New York to Shanghai could be achieved in just 39 minutes.
He further stated if we could build this said rocket to travel in space, then why not to other places as well. This speech was an update to the one he gave a year ago which constituted of details for how SpaceX would make humanity a “multi-planet species.” At the said speech last year, Musk unveiled a behemoth of a rocket which was so ambitious and mind-blowing that critics said it is far from reality. After some editing on the previous idea, Musk and his team have revised the plan early Friday to build a massive but compact rocket which shall be called BFR, or Big [expletive] Rocket.
The new completely reusable system includes booster stage and a spaceship which can carry around 100 people. The new rocket would be apt enough to fly astronauts and cargo on an array of missions, from across the globe, to the ISS (International Space Station) in the lower orbit of Earth and even to the moon and Mars in the dark space.
The rocket would also be capable of launching satellites which would replace all other rockets and spacecraft SpaceX currently uses or is developing. All the resources of the company would be utilized for the development of BFR. Musk also announced earlier this year that SpaceX would fly two private citizens on a trip to the moon by late next year. He also hinted at the moon base during a conference in July.