Morgan Stanley: Latest SpaceX rocket could disrupt parcel service industry

Morgan Stanley has caught the Elon Musk hype, specifically, for a 150-ton payload SpaceX rocket destined for Mars, that could also be used to transport cargo from point A to B here on earth. Last week, analysts with the New York-based financial services firm said that the parcel service industry in particular, “could see a fundamental reset with the introduction of rockets as a transportation modality.”

Analysts’ high-flying expectations are based on Tesla founder Musk’s statement late September that, “If you build a ship that’s capable of going to Mars, what if you take that same ship and use it to go from place to place on Earth?”

The speed and capacity of the latest SpaceX rocket could, once scaled up, disrupt extant modes of transport in much like the hyperloop, Musk’s other transport project.

Morgan Stanley analysts equated the rocket’s potential with past developments that started with little fanfare, but ultimately had profound impacts on the economy. “When Elisha Otis demonstrated the safety elevator in 1854, the public may have struggled to comprehend the impact on architecture and city design. Roughly 20 years later, every multistory building in New York, Boston, and Chicago was constructed around a central elevator shaft,” analysts wrote. “It all comes down to SpaceX.”