Musk's new disruption - the airline industry!

I've been enjoying the new Odysee front end for the LBRY decentralised video sharing platform and watching these excellent videos on SpaceX from @whataboutit.

SpaceX is progressing very rapidly with development of its Starship and Super Heavy booster which will have the capacity to take 100 people at a time to Mars. Musk plans to have over 1000 Starships and is producing new prototypes every few weeks - showing that such vast numbers of Starships putting a million people on Mars is not fantasy.

Lunar Starship

SpaceX has just won a huge NASA contract for a Project Artemis lunar lander with its Lunar Starship (just a stripped down version of the regular starship) which was much cheaper and vastly more capable than competing bids.

In doing so it has completely disrupted NASA's overly complicated and expensive plans to return to the moon. SpaceX's extremely rapid progress with Starship and Super Heavy has basically made NASA's planned Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule obsolescent and redundant long before they even reach a test pad.

Supporting Infrastructure for Starship

SpaceX is building a massive Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas with development proceeding at a rapid pace.

It is completely vertically integrating propellant production for Starship with massive solar arrays, desalination of saline groundwater, air processing plants and more to produce the methane and oxygen to send millions to Mars. It is learning how to produce rocket fuel on a vast scale from scratch on Earth so that it can do the same on Mars.

SpaceX is converting old oil drilling rigs to sea based launch platforms for Starship and Super Heavy. Each new Starship and Super Heavy coming off the Boca Chica production line will fly directly to the sea based platforms and land there to begin their operational lives.

While Musk's goal is large scale human settlement of Mars, he has and will continue to disrupt a lot of traditional industries along the way to achieving this goal.

He has already completely disrupted the space launch industry and is about to disrupt the broadband internet industry with Starlink.

Airline Industry Disruption

The next industry which is going to be disrupted is the long haul airline industry.

SpaceX's sea based launch and landing platforms won't just take passengers and colonists to Mars, the moon, the asteroid belt and explorers to Jupiter and Saturn's moons. They will also act as major transport hubs for inter-continental travel on earth.

Sydney to New York in less than 2 hours. London to Los Angeles and Tokyo to Milan in less than 90 minutes.
With economies of scale and full reusability that price long haul aircraft out of business.

What a lot of people don't understand is that sending a rocket into orbit doesn't take much more fuel than flying an aircraft for 12 hours. And methane is much cheaper than aviation kerosine, especially when you produce it yourself using solar energy, air and water.

Starships won't cost much more than long haul aircraft by the time Musk is building hundreds of them for Mars.
Staff costs are a major factor on long haul flights which will be dramatically reduced by sub-orbital flights of less than 2 hours.

SpaceX sea launch and landing platforms will be based all around the world a suitable distance off major coastal cities. I imagine these platforms in the eastern and western Mediterranean, off China, Japan, Singapore, US east and west coasts, North Sea, Australian east and maybe west coasts. They may well be based in international waters over 24 nautical miles offshore, thus dramatically reducing red tape required to launch and take passengers.

Passengers will be transported to the platform via 30-45 minute fast boat journey, often from multiple coastal ports near the sea launch platform. They will clear customs and immigration either at the port or on the boat in-transit.

With flight times cut by 85% and equivalent or lower costs possible with scale, the long haul aircraft business will be finished.

And this is not some 2040 / maybe one day projection! The rate of Starship development is such that sub-orbital passenger flights will be possible within 2 years. After all, SpaceX's Dear Moon mission is sending 12 civilians around the moon and back in 2023 and sub-orbital flights will use the same human rated Starship, but be far cheaper and less risky.

SpaceX Sea Launch platforms will become major transport hubs and ports will be reinvigorated while traditional airports and airlines will be left with only the highly competitive and less profitable short-haul business.

Plan your investments accordingly - Musk is going to turn long distance transport upside down!

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