Anywhere on Earth Under one hour.

On July 16 - 1969, the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon total crew of 3. Neil Amstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Aldrin. How they managed to do this is still a mystery. The trip took 3 days 3 hours 49 minutes. Everything worked so fine and 54 years later nobody has ever achieved that again.

The code was written in C by Computer Scientist Margaret Elaine Hamilton. code that was so flawless that we suspect the whole landing was fake and filmed. There was no debugging, good laptops, or great IDE. Everything was written in books. Here is the source code.

A lot has since happened the greatest being the privatization of space travel hence attracting private investors to blow up billions. In 2002 SpaceX - then a startup joined the race to build efficient yet reusable rockets all seemed so unreal until it was achieved. 

This is not an article about going back to the moon but teleporting anywhere on Earth in under one hour. Generations that will come after us will call us “The Early Man” wondering how we managed to travel around the Earth in 12 hours.

But before we kick off, I’d like you to meet someone special. Someone that I would thank God if I met - Gwynne Shotwell. Other than Elon Musk, Gwynne is the force that glues SpaceX, the outside world does not realize this, and hence we say “Respect”. She is the President and COO at SpaceX making critical decisions that Elon hardly visits SpaceX.

In 2006 the Falcon 1  launched successfully making it the first privately funded rocket to reach orbit. The company then redirected its energy to developing Falcon Nine - A bigger version of the Falcon One but with 9 Merlin engines. Later Musk would set out to build a larger rocket this was possible but the company was quite limited. They needed a rocket that could deliver huge payloads to space and again Gwynne’s move was to fix 3 Falcon 9 rockets to build the Falcon Heavy. This allowed the company to deliver large payloads with existing infrastructure as the development of the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR)  continued. 

Today the Starship, then the BFR is the largest existing rocket in the world. This is the vehicle we’ll be talking about. To learn more about the development of the starship I recommend you read this article: SpaceX Starship Orbital Test Flight happening on Monday 17th. 

The SpaceX Starship has a lot of use cases. Some of them include landing on the moon, deploying huge Starlink constellations to orbit, and point-to-point on Earth journeys.

Anywhere on Earth under an hour

It takes long hours of traveling to move from one point on Earth to another SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Hyperloop all co-founded by Elon are focused on solving this. We’ll dive deeper into the SpaceX plan.

Imagine traveling from New York to Shanghai 11,897 Km apart at a max speed of 27,000 km/hr in 39 minutes. 

But how does this happen?

SpaceX’s plan to travel anywhere on Earth in under an hour is to use its Starship rocket. 

Starship is a fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle that is currently under development. It is designed to be capable of transporting large numbers of people and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. To travel from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, Starship would launch from a floating launchpad at sea. It would then ascend to orbit, where it would accelerate to a speed of up to 27,000 km/h. The starship would then deorbit and land on another floating launchpad at sea near Shanghai. 

The journey from New York to Shanghai would be divided into three main phases: 

Launch: Starship would launch from the floating launchpad and ascend to orbit. This phase would take approximately 6 minutes. 

Orbital transfer: Starship would accelerate to a speed of up to 27,000 km/h and fly to Shanghai. This phase would take approximately 26 minutes. 

Deorbit and landing: Starship would deorbit and land on the floating launchpad near Shanghai. This phase would take approximately 7 minutes. 

In total, the journey from New York to Shanghai would take approximately 39 minutes. SpaceX’s plan to travel anywhere on Earth in under an hour is still in the early stages of development, but it has the potential to revolutionize transportation. If successful, it would make it possible to travel from any two points on Earth in less than an hour. 

A more detailed breakdown of the SpaceX plan:

1. Passengers board a boat that takes them to the drone ship somewhere far from land on a water body, This is because SpaceX does not want to launch from or land on land, as this would be too disruptive to local communities. By launching and landing at sea, SpaceX can minimize the impact of its operations on the environment and local populations.
2. They then board the starship rocket the boat leaves the drone ship. Once the passengers have boarded Starship, the boat will leave the drone ship. This is because the boat will not be able to keep up with Starship’s high speed. Starship will then be fueled and ignited. Once ignited, Starship will depart for China. 
3. The main engine cuts off and the booster heads back to the drone ship. Once Starship has reached orbit, the main engine will cut off. The booster, which is the first stage of Starship, will then head back to the drone ship. The booster will be reused for future Starship launches. 
4. Remember it has to move to Orbit and leave the Earth rotating, to move towards the Earth’s rotation Starship will need to move to orbit in order to reach a high enough speed to travel from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes. Once in orbit, Starship will be able to travel at speeds of up to 27,000 km/h. 
5. Enter the Earth’s atmosphere and do a belly flip land on a drone ship on a water body passengers alight board a boat to land. Once Starship has reached Shanghai, it will enter the Earth’s atmosphere and do a belly flip landing on a drone ship. The passengers will then disembark from Starship and board a boat to land.

I also suggest you watch this video in case you doubt Vehicle speeds.

 SpaceX’s plan to travel anywhere on Earth in under an hour is ambitious, but it has the potential to revolutionize transportation. If successful, it will make it possible to travel from any two points on Earth in less than an hour.