Travel to anywhere on Earth in under an hour, Elon Musk reveals his newest plan
The world needs visionaries because they're the individuals who make us excited about the future and our own human potential, and Elon Musk just did it again.
Cite or link to this article
Griffin, M. (2017) 'Travel to anywhere on Earth in under an hour, Elon Musk reveals his newest plan', 311 Institute, 30 September. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/anywhere-on-earth-in-under-an-hour-elon-musk-reveals-his-newest-plan/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
At yesterdays’ International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia, Elon Musk, the billionaire polymath and founder of Neuralink, the company that wants to connect our brains directly to Artificial Intelligence (AI), OpenAI, the company that wants to democratise AI for “good,” SpaceX and Tesla, announced that he sees a future where his reusable rockets will be able to transport passengers from London to New York in 29 minutes at Mach 22, or 27,000 KMH.
The rub though, at least if you’re an airline company, and just as he promised when he first announced the Hyperloop concept, a Mach 1 “train in a tube,” back in 2015, is that he wants the tickets to be the same price as a standard economy ticket, although in this case he’s referring to the cost of an airplane ticket not a train ticket.
Anywhere on Earth in under an hour
During his speech he also unveiled his much anticipated plan to get a million people living on Mars by the end of the century, starting from 2022, and revealed that his team imagines using the same technology, namely his reusable Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) and its reusable engine stages, to travel between different places on Earth in under an hour. He also wants his rockets to be electric, but said that that, at the moment at least is too big a leap to make - even if, ironically, it appears that Mars isn't.
"If you build a ship that is capable of going to Mars, well, what if you take that same ship and go from one place to another on Earth," Musk says at the end of the presentation. "We looked at that. And the results are quite interesting."
Now, bearing in mind that this is technically Airbus and Boeing’s “industry” to loose, and that China and Russia recently signed a joint agreement to develop the next generation of passenger aircraft, in short to end America and Europe’s dominance in the space, I’m guessing that there might be some executives calling a meeting on Monday to figure out what their response should be, and if those executives are anything like most executives then they’ll be planning on him to fail to reach his objective, or fail to scale, or both. But that’s not a bet I’d take. Time to catch up, again, guys. Visionaries, don’t you just hate them? I’m booking my ticket now…!
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Why does this matter?
The world needs visionaries because they're the individuals who make us excited about the future and our own human potential, and Elon Musk just did it again.
About the author
Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.
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Sources and further reading
- International Astronautical Congress iac2017.org
- 404633 russia china joint plane rt.com
Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 30 September 2017. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2017). Travel to anywhere on Earth in under an hour, Elon Musk reveals his newest plan. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/anywhere-on-earth-in-under-an-hour-elon-musk-reveals-his-newest-plan/
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