In the year 1620, the Mayflower set sail on a 64 day journey to cross the Atlantic Ocean,
bringing the first Pilgrims from England to America.
In 1919, pilots Alcock and Brown completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight from
Canada to Ireland in under 16 hours.
Today, 4 million people make the journey from New York to London each year,
taking them just 7 hours.
Over the last 50 years, air travel has become accessible almost everyone through the increase
in airline safety and the reduction in ticket prices.
Ted: It's an entirely different kind of flying, all together.
Everyone together: It's an entirely different kind of flying.
But what is the next big step in air travel?
In this video we’re are going to look at how SpaceX plan to use their Big Falcon Rocket
to transport humans around the world in record time.
We are also going to compare the BFR to traditional airliners and see if orbital rockets could
one day replace the aircrafts that we are all familiar with.
In 2017, SpaceX announced that they were seriously working towards using their BFR for Earth to Earth travel.
Elon Musk: If you build a ship that's capable of going to Mars,
Elon Musk: Well what if you take that same ship and go from one place to another on Earth?
Their plan involved a boat that would take hundreds of passengers out to a floating launch site
where a BFR would be waiting to take them to their destination.
The BFR would launch, separate from it’s booster and perform a propulsive landing at it’s new destination.
By leaving the Earth’s atmosphere, it would allow the BFR to travel
at much greater speeds than a traditional airliner, therefore reducing flight times enormously.
SpaceX predict that the BFR could travel anywhere on Earth in under an hour and complete most
international flights in under 30 minutes.
Ted: Surely you can't be serious.
Dr. Rumack: I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
With the BFR already under construction for its first trip to Mars in the early 20’s,
the reality of Earth to Earth rocket travel may be closer than we think.
However, before we start launching humans around the world on the most powerful rocket ever built,
there are some enormous engineering, economical and political challenges that have to be overcome
In order to reach a safety rating which is on par with traditional airliners, the BFR
would have to reach a mortality rate of just 1 death for every 60 MILLION passengers,
which the aviation industry achieved in 2017.
So far, the spaceflight industry has only achieved a rate of 1 death for every 31 astronauts,
since out of the 564 people that have been into space, 18 have died.
Although this rate is improving with every crewed mission that heads into space, we still
have a long way to go in terms of safety.
Not only will the BFR need to be the safest rocket ever built, it will also need to be
the cheapest to operate, if it wants to compete with the commercial airline industry.
Airlines: United, Delta and American all rely on international flights for a large percentage of their revenue.
If SpaceX can make the ticket price for a BFR ride low enough, they could start to make
a dent in the traditional airline industry, not to mention the logistics industry, who
stand to benefit if they can start delivering cargo 25 times faster than an airliner.
In order for SpaceX to challenge the commercial airline market,
they will need to master the art of rocket reusability.
The average price for an economy ticket from New York to Shanghai costs around $550.
According to Musk, the BFR will have a similar capacity to the Airbus A380 at around 850 passengers.
Given a similar ticket price, SpaceX would collect around $467,000 per flight.
However, at that price, SpaceX would struggle to make any profit once they factored in the
cost of fueling and launching a rocket of that size.
This is where the importance of reusability comes in.
The Falcon 9 currently costs around $37 million to manufacture, which is considerably cheaper
than an A380, but only 75% of the Falcon 9 is reusable and still requires a lot of costly
refurbishment, only to be thrown away after about 10 flights.
Compare this to an aircraft like the Airbus A380 which typically has a lifespan of around
27 YEARS and can make about 35,000 flights before being retired.
If these airplanes were thrown away after just a few flights,
there wouldn’t be a market for commercial air travel.
Unlike the Falcon 9, the BFR is designed to be fully reusable and able to endure hundreds
of flights before any refurbishment is needed.
So for a flight like New York to Shanghai, the ticket price for a BFR ride will need
to be somewhere between economy class and business class in order for SpaceX to make a profit.
One of the biggest challenges of all will most likely come in the form of seeking government approval.
Getting governments around the world to co-operate and approve something so complex and risky
is not going to be easy.
So to protect the population from falling rockets and to reduce the sound disturbance,
the BFR will initially launch and land at sea.
This is another obstacle for BFR passenger transport since it would only be able to travel
between big coastal cities, leaving the traditional airliners to take care of the small regional flights.
Another objection to BFR Earth travel is the intense acceleration that passengers will
be put through during launch and landing.
Elon Musk mentioned that the G-forces would be similar to a roller coaster ride at around 2 or 3 G’s.
This rules out a large chunk of the population like the elderly, pregnant women and those
with heart conditions who will prefer to fly on a cheaper and more comfortable ride
which airliners currently offer.
So although the idea of rockets replacing airliners is currently just a dream,
which many people think is impossible,
It's important to remember that the same thing was once said about airplanes.
To understand where we are in terms of the aviation curve, let’s look at what things
were like in the early days of airplanes.
Back in the early 20th century, the only airplanes that existed were being built in people's
garages and looked like this.
Then, the government realized that airplanes could be used for delivering mail
to other parts of the country.
So they started to give out contracts with prize money to those who could build the plane
that travelled the fastest, the highest and the furthest.
Airplane technology started to develop and planes became safer, engines became more advanced
and the planes themselves started to grow larger and larger,
allowing them to carry more mail.
Then, people started to realize that instead of carrying mail, they could carry people.
The airline industry was born.
Throughout the first and second World War, the need for advanced airplanes was at an
all time high and aircraft technology developed rapidly with the first jet powered aircraft
going into service in 1943.
Fast forward to 2018 and it’s easy to see how much things have improved.
Air travel is now one of the safest forms of transport and airplanes are capable of
flying 9,000 miles whilst carrying 850 passengers at a time.
We really have come a long way!
So although the idea of travelling around Earth in a rocket is met with many obstacles.
It is very exciting to see that such an ambitious idea is actually being pursued.
What do you think of BFR Earth travel?
Will it come to fruition or will struggle to reach the safety standards of traditional airliners?
Let me know in the comments below.
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Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.