SpaceX IPO: Why Starship Could End Overnight Business Travel

Article excerpt

SpaceX's potential IPO has some investors envisioning a radical future: Starship ferrying business travelers point-to-point across Earth, bypassing commercial airlines entirely. The idea isn't science fiction, Elon Musk's company has already demonstrated the rocket's reusability and payload capacity. If SpaceX can solve the regulatory and infrastructure challenges of launching from cities, Starship could compress a 15-hour flight to Tokyo into a 45-minute suborbital hop. That prospect threatens not just Boeing and Airbus's aircraft sales, but the entire airline industry's dominance of long-distance travel. Investors betting on SpaceX's IPO see this as the company's biggest prize, larger even than its satellite internet business.