Fresh off its historic and successful mission to the International Space Station, last week SpaceX announced even grander plans.
Company founder Elon Musk, took to Twitter, if you can believe it, to announce that the company is planning to construct floating, marine-based spaceports around the world. These aqua-bases would be used to launch rockets into space, including Mars and the moon, as well as to support hypersonic passenger flights around the globe.
Musk even doubled-down by linking to another tweet regarding a job posting for an offshore operations engineer position at SpaceX’s Brownsville, Texas location.
According to the notice, SpaceX is looking for an individual to "work as part of a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility."
It also stated that applicants "must be willing to work significant overtime.” The ability to create perplexing and outlandish social media posts was not among the list of qualifications.
Currently, SpaceX launches rockets from Cape Canaveral in Florida. But Musk has been hinting since last November that the company could look offshore for future launch sites as a way to help manage noise levels and ensure higher levels of safety once the company starts providing daily launch services.
While the focus on space-based launches and craft has been well documented, the prospects of earth-bound flights at hypersonic speeds has only recently re-surfaced.
In the past Musk has alluded to the potential of offering passenger flights traveling at over 4,000 mph. This would get North American travelers to Asia in under an hour.