Long-haul flights could soon be a thing of the past, according to experts who are backing SpaceX as the company to take us there.
Using the SpaceX Starship, a trip from London to New York would reportedly take only 29 minutes, while London to Sydney would also take less than an hour – by travelling outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
Such trips are set to wipe out long-haul flights as we know them, as Swiss investment firm UBS is predicting the market for point-to-point rocket travel will be worth £15 billion ($19.7bn) a year by 2030.
The company is also backing space tourism, and reckons that will be also be raking around £2.3bn ($3bn) a year by 2030.
Jarrod Castle and Myles Walton, analysts with UBS, told MailOnline:
Although some might view the potential to use space to service the long-haul travel market as science fiction, we think there is a large market.
While space tourism is still at a nascent phase, we think that as technology becomes proven, and the cost falls due to technology and competition, space tourism will become more mainstream.
In 2018 alone, 150 million passengers spent over 10 hours on a long-haul flight. Analysts predict that even if a small per cent turn to space travel, the market will still be considerable.
The firm also thinks space tourism will soon be on the rise, with hotels signing up to build resorts in stations outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
Analysts are predicting the space industry as a whole – currently worth around £300bn ($400bn) – will rise to £610bn ($805bn) by 2030.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.