It’s just after sunrise in New York City. The sky is bathed in pinks and orange as people walk along a long dock toward a white ship. They board the vessel and it sails out to a launchpad further out in the water, where a spaceship strapped to a giant rocket awaits. After they pile in, the rocket blasts off into the atmosphere. About 39 minutes later, they land halfway around the world, in Shanghai.

This is the scenario imagined by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who discussed the futurist transport system in a speech in Australia last week about the company’s long-term ambitions. The not-yet-built system—which Musk nicknamed BFR, for “big fucking rocket”—would, someday, ferry passengers from one major city to another. Long-distance trips from Bangkok to Dubai, or from Honolulu to Tokyo, for example, would take about 30 minutes and cost about as much as an economy airline ticket.

(The BFR would also subsume the duties of SpaceX’s current fleet of rockets and spacecraft, like the Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule, by launching satellites into orbit, transporting astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, and even bringing humans to the moon and Mars.)

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