Imagine you have a really cool spaceship that’s like a big rocket, but it’s not just for going to space. The spaceship is Starship, made by SpaceX, and it can travel between cities on earth at space speeds.
SpaceX Earth to Earth Transport will enable: LOS ANGELES TO NEW YORK 5 hours, 25 min —> 25 min BANGKOK TO DUBAI 6 hours, 25 min —> 27 min TOKYO TO SINGAPORE 7 hours, 10 min —> 28 min LONDON TO NEW YORK 7 hours, 55 min —> 29 min NEW YORK TO PARIS 7 hours, 20 min —> 30 min SYDNEY TO SINGAPORE 8 hours, 20 min —> 31 min LOS ANGELES TO LONDON 10 hours, 30 min —> 32 min LONDON TO HONG KONG 11 hours, 50 min —> 34 min
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2025
Here’s how Earth to Earth works: (As explained to a ten-year old.)
- Super Fast Rocket: Instead of flying in an airplane which goes up high and then flies across the sky, this rocket goes way, way higher, almost into space.
- Space Shortcut: When you want to go from one city to another really far away, like from New York to Tokyo, instead of going straight through the air, the rocket goes up and then comes down where you want to be. It’s kind of like taking a shortcut through the sky.
- Bouncing Off the Atmosphere: The rocket doesn’t go all the way into space; it just dips into the very edge of it. It’s like skipping a stone on water, but with the Earth’s atmosphere instead. This way, it can go super fast without having to deal with all the air that slows down airplanes.
- Landing: After this super high jump, the rocket comes back down and lands at the place you’re going to, just like how it took off. It’s like the rocket is jumping from one side of the world to the other.
- Time Saving: Because it goes so high and fast, instead of taking hours to get to your destination, you might only take minutes. So, if you want to go from Los Angeles to London, instead of it taking 10 hours, it could take just 30 minutes!
- Safety: They make sure the rocket is very safe for people to travel in, just like airplanes, but with extra cool space tech.
So, Earth to Earth is like taking a super-fast, high-up jump from one city to another across the world, making long trips really, really short. But remember, this is still an idea that’s being worked on, so we don’t see these rockets jumping around the Earth yet.