Delivery by rocket could revolutionise parcel delivery, according to Morgan Stanley

According to financial firm Morgan Stanley, SpaceX, the rocket and spacecraft manufacturing company owned by Elon Musk, could change the way parcel delivery works.

SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket is a planned transportation method that could send passengers anywhere on Earth in less than an hour, for the price of a plane ticket. The 42-engine rocket would in theory hold around one hundred people.

However, it would also have a payload capacity of 150 tons that could be used for cargo.

Musk wants to ready Big Falcon Rocket to deliver two cargo ships to Mars by 2022, followed by human habitation, but he has also pointed out that the same technology could be used for transportation on Earth.

Morgan Stanley’s analysts believe that the parcel service industry “could see a fundamental reset with the introduction of rockets as a transportation modality”, akin to the drastic changes brought about by aeroplanes and Panamax cargo ships in the last century.

This may be the shake-up the industry is waiting for: the analysts note the current slow 2-3% yearly growth of the industry and its problems with overcapacity.

Morgan Stanley also reports that SpaceX could become worth more than $50 billion with the launch of their low-orbit satellite broadband network, which would provide gigabit-speed, low-latency broadband internet worldwide.

(Source: CNBC)