London’s a lovely city to explore, but let’s face it, it’s a long, long away. 

Well, if latest plans come to fruition, that seven-hour flight over to England’s capital could become one heck of a lot shorter. Likewise if you were hoping for a quick hop to Sydney. 

Elon Musk, the hugely ambitious tech entrepreneur (who founded Tesla - which recently joined the Dubai Taxi fleet), has just come out with plans to build a new rocket ship – codenamed “BFR” – and it’s supposed to be able to get anywhere on earth in under one hour.

Musk’s proposed rocket ship will, ostensibly, head out into a near-Earth orbit and shoot around the planet in hypersonic speeds. Flights from Dubai London and New York theoretically possible within half an hour. A flight over to Australia’s Sydney will take you just 40 minutes, thanks to a rocket with a max speed of up to 27,000 kph. Other flight routes include New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes and Los Angeles to Toronto in just 24 minutes.

“Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that,” Musk posted on Instagram, with a flight to China expected to cost less than US$3,000 (Dhs11,000).

To make a global flight in under an hour possible will require a staggering feat of engineering, and Dubai is well placed to serve as a travel hub to help make that happen.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on Monday Octoberber 2nd, 2017 http://bit.ly/timeoutelonmusk