Mars by 2024, New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes

Space X founder Elon Musk has been talking for quite a while about landing its Dragon crew vehicle on Mars by 2020, using the Falcon Heavy booster he's had in development. But that all changed Friday.

The "Red Dragon" plan had been to land a Dragon capsule such as already is being used to make deliveries to the International Space Station the same way old-time rocket ships used to land in the movies, using its engines instead of parachutes to break its descent to the surface. Musk says that he's still going to try that at some point. But right now, near-Earth Dragon missions will be using parachutes exclusively, and all the company's resources are going to be focused on a much more ambitious project: the so-called BFR (short for Big... uh, adjective deleted, Rocket), designed for colonizing first the moon and then Mars- the latter by 2024- and which can be used for all sorts of near-earth missions, too. Its crew vehicle, too, will use its engines to descend,

The picture shows the BFR on the left, the Falcon Heavy, second from the left, Big Ben, second from the right, and the conventional Falcon booster on the right (Photo credit: By Alistair Wick, with content from Markus Säynevirta [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons).

The BFR can also be adapted to provide an ultra-fast method of sub-orbital travel to various points on Earth,  making the trip from New York to Shanghai, for example, which takes 15 hours by plane, in a mere 39 minutes.

There are quite a few Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 components already in stock, Musk said, so he doesn't necessarily rule out using the old plan at some point before the BFR system is fully developed. But once it's a reality, the BFR will be the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. The reusable booster rocket and spaceship, when stacked together, will stand some 348 feet high, be capable of boosting 150 tons into low-earth orbit, and carry some 100 colonists to Mars on each trip.

The first unmanned Mars mission for the BFR is planned for 2022, two years before it carries humans to the Red Planet.

I had wondered whether I'd be alive to see the first human being set foot on Mars. Maybe I will after all. And though I doubt that non-wealthy 74 year-olds who aren't necessarily in top physical shape will be prime candidates to go along, if the first expedition needs a chaplain, I hope Mr. Musk gives me a ring.