Bao Weimin, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced that China’s top space travel researchers are working on a new technology that would allow people to travel anywhere in the world within one hour.

The announcement was made at a conference this week that the jaw-dropping technology may become a reality in the coming decades. Speaking at the 2020 China Space Conference in Fuzhou, the academic said that the extraordinary journeys may become as routine as taking an airline flight by 2045.

Bao, who is also director of the Science and Technology Commission of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, explained that hypersonic flying technology and reusable carrier rocket technology will be essential for the lofty target to be met.

While 2045 may seem like a long way in the future, it should become apparent pretty soon how the project is progressing as the first tranche of key technological developments need to be achieved by 2025.

The academic further outlined that by 2035, airliner-like space travel will have grown to such an extent that it will have seen thousands of kilograms of cargo and passengers shipped.

Another decade after that, the overall system for space travel will be fully completed and operational. When running at full speed, the system could carry out thousands of flights every year, involving tens of thousands of passengers.

China is trying to catch up with Russia and the United States and become a major space power by 2030. It has taken several steps towards making space flights more economical in recent years. It is developing reusable rockets and successfully launched and landed a reusable spacecraft earlier this month.