SpaceX: Rocket for moon, Mars and NY-to-Shanghai in 39 mins

SpaceX chief Elon Musk's elaborate plan for a mega-rocket to carry astronauts to Mars may have some down-to-Earth applications.

At a conference in Australia on Friday, Musk said if you build a ship capable of going to the moon and Mars, why not use it for high-speed transport here at home. He proposes using his still-in-the-design phase rocket for launching passengers from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes flat.

This artist's rendering made available by Elon Musk on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 shows SpaceX's new mega-rocket design at the International Space Station. With the 350-foot-tall spacecraft, Musk announced that his private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022. (SpaceX via AP)

Los Angeles to New York, or Los Angeles to Honolulu in 25 minutes. London to Dubai in 29 minutes.

"Most of what people consider to be long-distance trips would be completed in less than half an hour," Musk said to applause and cheers at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide.

A seat should cost about the same as a full-fare economy plane ticket, he noted later via Instagram.

Friday's address was a follow-up to one he gave to the group last September in Mexico, where he unveiled his grand scheme for colonizing Mars. He described a slightly scaled-down 348-foot-tall (106-meter-tall) rocket and announced that the private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022.

"That's not a typo," he said, pausing, as charts appeared on a large screen. "Although it is aspirational."

This artist's rendering made available by Elon Musk on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 shows SpaceX's new mega-rocket design on Mars. With the 350-foot-tall spacecraft, Musk announced that his private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to the red planet in 2022. (SpaceX via AP)

Two more cargo missions would follow in 2024 to provide more construction materials, along with two crewed flights. The window for launching to Mars occurs every two years.

For the approximately six-month, one-way trips to Mars, the SpaceX ships would have 40 cabins, ideally with two to three people per cabin for a grand total of about 100 passengers. Musk foresees this Mars city growing, and over time "making it really a nice place to be."

Scott Hubbard, an adjunct professor at Stanford University and a former director of NASA's Ames Research Center, calls it "a bold transportation architecture with aspirational dates." A demonstration of some sort in the 2020s will add to its credibility, he said in an email. And while more details are needed for life-support systems, "Kudos to Elon and SpaceX for keeping the focus on humans to Mars!"

Former NASA chief technologist Bobby Braun, now dean of the college of engineering and applied science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, also sees Musk's plan as a step in the right direction, building on technologies SpaceX already has demonstrated, like reusable rockets.

"While the timeline and capabilities are certainly ambitious, I'm bullish on U.S industry's ability to carry out challenging and far-reaching goals," Braun wrote in an email. "It's great to see the private sector lead in this way, and I hope we see more of it."

This artist's rendering made available by Elon Musk on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 shows SpaceX's new mega-rocket design on the Earth's moon. With the 350-foot-tall spacecraft, Musk announced that his private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022. (SpaceX via AP)

NASA is charting its own path to what it calls the "Deep Space Gateway," beginning with expeditions in the vicinity of the moon in the 2020s and eventually culminating at Mars. The space agency has handed much of its Earth-orbiting work to private industry, including SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Boeing.

Earlier Friday in Adelaide, Lockheed Martin presented its vision for a "Mars Base Camp" in partnership with NASA. Astronauts could be on their way in about a decade, the company said. This first mission would orbit the red planet, rather than land.

Musk intends to finance his $10 billion Mars endeavor by using a rocket that's smaller than the one outlined last year. Fewer engines would be needed: 31 versus the originally envisioned 42. Its lift capability would be 150 tons, more than NASA's old moon rocket, the Saturn V.

He wants one type of booster and spaceship that can replace the company's current Falcon 9 rocket, the soon-to-fly Falcon Heavy rocket designed for heavier satellites, and the Dragon capsule presently used to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and, as soon as next year, station astronauts.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk gestures as he delivers a speech at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. Musk's elaborate plan for a mega-rocket to carry astronauts to Mars may have some down-to-Earth applications. (Morgan Sette/AAP Image via AP)

That way SpaceX can put all its resources toward this new system, Musk said. Revenue from launching satellites, and sending supplies and crews to the space station, could pay for the new rocket, he said.

Musk said the same spaceship for moon and Mars trips — long and cylindrical with small shuttle-like wings — could fly to the space station. He said the mega-rocket could be used to establish a lunar settlement, with spaceships being refueled in Earth orbit versus creating a vital fuel depot at Mars.

The mega-rocket doesn't have a name but for now is called BFR. The B is for big; the R for rocket. As for the F, well, you get the idea.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia and Ukraine on Monday traded blame before the United Nations Security Council for the attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said have put the world “dangerously close to a nuclear accident.”

Without attributing blame, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency has been able to confirm three attacks against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant since April 7.

“These reckless attacks must cease immediately,” he told the Security Council. “Though, fortunately, they have not led to a radiological incident this time, they significantly increase the risk … where nuclear safety is already compromised.”

The remote-controlled nature of the drones that have attacked the plant means that it is impossible to definitively determine who launched them, Grossi told reporters after the meeting.

“In order to say something like that, we must have proof,” he said. “These attacks have been performed with a multitude of drones.”

Zaporizhzhia sits in Russian-controlled territory in southeastern Ukraine and has six nuclear reactors.

Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been at the forefront since Russian troops occupied the plant shortly after invading in February 2022. Continued fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces — as well as the tense supply situation at the plant — have raised the specter of a disaster.

Ukraine and its allies on Monday again blamed Russia for dangers at the site, with the United States saying, “Russia does not care about these risks.”

“If it did, it would not continue to forcibly control the plant,” U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council, which met at the initiative of the U.S. and Slovenia.

Russia, for its part, said Ukraine was to blame for the attacks.

“The IAEA’s report does not pinpoint which side is behind the attacks,” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “We know full well who it is.”

“Over the last few months, such attacks not only resumed,” Nebenzia said, “they significantly intensified.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.N., Sergiy Kyslytsya, called the attacks “a well-planned false flag operation by the Russian Federation,” which he alleged Russia had designed to distract the world from its invasion of its neighbor.

The Zaporizhzhia facility is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. Fighting in the southern part of Ukraine where it is located has raised the specter of a potential nuclear disaster like the one at Chernobyl in 1986, where a reactor exploded and blew deadly radiation across a vast area.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine in recent months has been able to make significant advances along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line crossing eastern and southern Ukraine. Drones, artillery and missiles have featured heavily in what has become a war of attrition.

Russia and Ukraine have frequently traded accusations over the Zaporizhzhia plant.

The most recent strikes did not compromise the facility, which is designed to withstand a commercial airliner crashing into it, the IAEA said.

The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

FILE - The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, is seen in the background of the shallow Kakhovka Reservoir after the dam collapse, in Energodar, Russian-occupied Ukraine, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. Officials at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant said that the site was attacked Sunday April 7, 2024, by Ukrainian military drones, including a strike on the dome of the plant’s sixth power unit. (AP Photo/Libkos, File)

IAEA warns that attacks on a nuclear plant in Russian-controlled Ukraine put the world at risk

IAEA warns that attacks on a nuclear plant in Russian-controlled Ukraine put the world at risk