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12 Years Ago, Elon Musk Interview About Rockets!!! · Elon Musk Thinking

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm here with Elil Mosque.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: They found out off paper and space entrepreneur, electric car entrepreneur,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: and sol a power entrepreneur. So thanks so much for
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: joining us, and just a few few questions. Earlier this year,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: you made history with having the first product spacecraft SpaceX's
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Dragon to dot the ISS.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You must be feeling pretty confident now.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I feel reasonably good about things, but I don't
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: want to be complacent.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: And you know, we definitely want to keep a.
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  Speaker 3: Piece of the technology progression as rapid as possible. So
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  Speaker 3: if so, we wanted to do lots of launchers which
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: are kind of out bread and butter, and then keep
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  Speaker 3: pushing the envelope in parallel on new technology.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, and have you have you identified the causes of
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: the anomalies from the October Carbot color flight. You know,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: the there was a little bit of issues with the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: rocket and on what have you?
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  Speaker 4: Just a scratch, just a pleasure, so it.
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  Speaker 1: Won't have any impact on the human rated Dragon development.
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  Speaker 3: No, No, we actually file flight plans. When we filed
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  Speaker 3: a flight plan, we filed flight pan with zero one
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  Speaker 3: and two engines out. Okay, so it wasn't even considered
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  Speaker 3: from from the Air Force and FA standpoint, it wasn't
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  Speaker 3: actually considered a normally because it was one of the
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  Speaker 3: prescribed flight plans.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: And beyond the Falcon nine you've got the Falcon Heavy
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  Speaker 2: rocket waiting in it.
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  Speaker 3: It was considered a normally but not a failure. Sorry.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So you you have the beyond the Falcon nine,
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  Speaker 2: you've got the Falcon heavy sort of rocket in development
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  Speaker 2: or waiting in the wings.
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  Speaker 1: So you know what was that all about? And is
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  Speaker 1: there really is about a market for it?
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  Speaker 2: Because satellite seemed to be getting kind of a lot
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  Speaker 2: smaller these days.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think they're getting smaller and bigger, so so
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  Speaker 3: on the on the on the small side, you've got
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  Speaker 3: companies like sorry which I used to be an investor
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  Speaker 3: and until it was required.
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  Speaker 4: And assimily my work they're doing in small satellites.
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  Speaker 3: And then on the big side you've got the big
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  Speaker 3: geosynchroance satellites, where particularly for places that have a limited
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  Speaker 3: number of geostationary spots, they actually want the satellite to
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  Speaker 3: be as big as possible. So I think you've got
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  Speaker 3: this wiification going to both big and too small, but
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  Speaker 3: probably with fewer.
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  Speaker 2: Medium okay, and also with the human rated systems. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I say it's obviously NASO after the retirement the spatial
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  Speaker 2: natur that's is very keen to get you know, a
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  Speaker 2: U s S system.
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  Speaker 1: There funding a lot of a lot of you know
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  Speaker 1: you and your competitors. So the communic case.
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  Speaker 2: Are going from no US systems to to several in
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  Speaker 2: the next few years, you know yourself.
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  Speaker 4: Grade would be really great.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think this room enough for all of them?
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  Speaker 3: I think I think as long as we're making revolutionary
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  Speaker 3: improvements in space transport, I think there is room for
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  Speaker 3: for a lot of companies. But but we really need
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  Speaker 3: to get to rapidit, rapidly completely reusable rockets, just.
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  Speaker 4: Just as as is the case with aircraft. I mean
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  Speaker 4: aircraft are rapidly completely reusable.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean they have a maintenance cycle and everything,
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  Speaker 3: but basically put fuel and flight again and you can
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  Speaker 3: land a seven forty seven and take off an hour
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  Speaker 3: and a half later.
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  Speaker 4: And you should be able to do that with rockets too, okay.
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  Speaker 3: And if you do that then the coasts would come
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  Speaker 3: down to dramatically that I think they could.
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  Speaker 4: We could find many uses for rockets.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, and give us an update on the air launch
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  Speaker 2: structure launch system that was announced last year. You're your
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: partner in there, you're gonna do that they root rocket
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  Speaker 2: launch bit.
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  Speaker 1: You know what's that all about?
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  Speaker 2: And where does it kind of fit into your sort
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  Speaker 2: of sort of family of rockets launches.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's that's definitely not one of our main initiatives.
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  Speaker 3: And I think there's there's likely to be some changes
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  Speaker 3: in that program, but nothing I could comment on myself, Okay.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, and you've also dropped hints of a more
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  Speaker 2: powerful rocket engine undevelopment Raptor MCT. People seem to be
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: talking about what does mc T stand for? And and
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  Speaker 2: is that is that right?
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  Speaker 1: You know?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: I mean now again it sort of just throw something
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  Speaker 3: out just for fun, and the.
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  Speaker 4: I can confirm that the name.
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  Speaker 3: Of the engine is Raptor okay, And and I'd like
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  Speaker 3: to announce movies some details about the engine next year.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: But perhaps what's even more interesting is the spaceship that
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  Speaker 3: that's attached to.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, and and just them and mc T stand for
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  Speaker 2: what it can do with Mars or Marsian.
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  Speaker 3: Or okay, I have to leave a little you know,
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  Speaker 3: that's show a little leg not all.
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  Speaker 2: You've also gone a vertical landing system, the Grasshopper in
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  Speaker 2: development term. How does that again, how does that fit
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  Speaker 2: into the sort of family of that that's that's the
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  Speaker 2: reusability of of of.
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  Speaker 3: Of rockets, right, So the Grasshoppers is kind of a
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  Speaker 3: test grig and it's intended to help us develop a
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  Speaker 3: vertical landing cability. Obviously, the rockets can certainly take off vertically,
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  Speaker 3: no one needs to make them land and so so
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  Speaker 3: Grasshopper is a very it has very robust landing legs.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's designed to be able to take you very
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  Speaker 3: or phenomenal landings. It's it's got a Falcon nine version
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  Speaker 3: one stage or and combined with the act of the
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  Speaker 3: more than one d engine that would go on the
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  Speaker 3: next generation of Pop the Night. So it's sort of
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  Speaker 3: a hybrid vehicle of past and future technologies. We'll use
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  Speaker 3: it to to sort of figure out a bunch of things,
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  Speaker 3: and then next year we'll upgrade to the actual flight
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  Speaker 3: design of the Falcon Line, the next generation Falcon Line.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so is the idea to cover the top stage
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  Speaker 2: or the whole thing or.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, a long term our goal is to recover the
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  Speaker 3: entire rocket and be able to relaunch the whole thing quickly.
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  Speaker 1: Okay this year.
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  Speaker 2: Also if we also say plant Planetry Resources launched, what
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  Speaker 2: are your thoughts on that?
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  Speaker 1: Did you think asteroid mining is viable? Are you?
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  Speaker 2: Are they ringing wanting to know prices on deep space
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  Speaker 2: sort of launch prices.
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  Speaker 4: Our rockets are standing back.
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  Speaker 3: I think there's potentially some market for mining asteroids as
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  Speaker 3: a kind of a refueling station on the way to
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  Speaker 3: Mars and other places.
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  Speaker 4: I don't see.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say that there's a case for
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  Speaker 3: taking say platinum or something that's found in and asteroid
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  Speaker 3: and bringing back back to it.
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  Speaker 2: And have you have you seen the the UK sort
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: of Skylar Skop space playe project?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Have you have you? What's your take on breathing?
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  Speaker 3: Don't know it well enough in the past whenever whenever
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  Speaker 3: I've done the basic math on having an air breathing stage,
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't seem to make sense. But I could be
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  Speaker 3: wrong about that, And you know, I always always like
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  Speaker 3: to sort of figure out, you know, how I can
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  Speaker 3: better understand things.
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  Speaker 4: So but.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's maybe easier just to increase the size
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  Speaker 3: of the boots stage than to add any everything stage.
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  Speaker 2: And you've obviously famously said you want to retire on Mars,
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  Speaker 2: which fantastic ambition. Is this something that you've got You've
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  Speaker 2: got a team at s SpaceX actively working on. Are
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  Speaker 2: they kind of looking at spaceships and habs and what
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  Speaker 2: have you? Describing the Musk retirement.
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  Speaker 3: Home right Well, there's no real work going on right
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  Speaker 3: now in terms of designing Mars habitats. I think we
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  Speaker 3: need to focus our energies and designing the Marks spaceship first,
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  Speaker 3: and then that would effectively be the first habitat.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, And how far away do you do you sort
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  Speaker 2: of see a Man of Mars mission?
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  Speaker 1: You know? And who do you think will be will
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  Speaker 1: be going there?
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  Speaker 2: Do you think it'll be in the US or China
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  Speaker 2: or international or commercial mission?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'm hopeful that from a space extandpoint, we'll be
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  Speaker 3: ready to do such a mission in the ten to.
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  Speaker 4: Fifteen year time break.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, So.
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  Speaker 4: We'll see if that occurred.
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  Speaker 3: And obviously that would be an American you know, it
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  Speaker 3: may or may not be a government or maybe some
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  Speaker 3: goverment involvement or no. And I don't know it quite yet,
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  Speaker 3: but I think SpaceX will be ready and in front
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  Speaker 3: will take.
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  Speaker 4: That time grade.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, well, you've had an exciting year obviously that this year,
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  Speaker 2: So what can we look forward to in twenty thirteen
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  Speaker 2: in terms of sort of SpaceX news and accomplishments.
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  Speaker 3: In twenty thirteen, I'm hopeful we'll be able to demonstrate
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  Speaker 3: high altitude supersonic left off in a return, so to
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  Speaker 3: being able to have the stage take off, go supersonic
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  Speaker 3: and then come back and land propulsively at the launch site.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, then.
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  Speaker 3: I hope we'll also demonstrate the farking Heavy towards the
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  Speaker 3: end of next year, and that will be the most
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  Speaker 3: powerful vehicle in the world by a factor of two.
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  Speaker 4: And more than a factor of two. Actually, yeah, so
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  Speaker 4: that's twenty thirty shun exciting year.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. How many people now work at sort of SpaceX
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  Speaker 1: and what a kind of the recruitment plans?
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  Speaker 2: I get a lot of feedback from we were saying,
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  Speaker 2: how do we get a job there?
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's quite difficult for us to employ people that
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: don't have a green card because of our u s I,
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  Speaker 4: our rules.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so my first advice would be do anything you
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: can to get a green card. We have been able
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: we haven't successful in a few cases with getting permission
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  Speaker 3: from the US State Department of Defense Department to employ
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  Speaker 3: non US citizens, but it's very difficult to do that, unfortunately.
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  Speaker 4: I wish it were easier.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, And where do you where do you get your
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: passion for space from in the first place? Where did
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  Speaker 2: it kind of start that sort of inkling or that
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  Speaker 2: you wanted to do to be in this field?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean I was always a big a fan
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  Speaker 3: of science fiction movies and books, and and I always
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  Speaker 3: thought that we were on our way to on our
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  Speaker 3: way to becoming a space brewing civilization, just excuse me,
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  Speaker 3: just to be like the stories that we wanted to
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  Speaker 3: read about. And then I was disappointed to learn that
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  Speaker 3: it didn't seem to be happening. And that's why I
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: got into That's why I started space X, is to
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  Speaker 3: sort of make that a reality and not just be
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: forever a fiction.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: And what do you attribute to the to the success
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  Speaker 1: of SpaceX so far.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the last time you were here, you'd just
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  Speaker 2: done the launch and that had gone well, and I
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  Speaker 2: think a lot of you'd kind of surprised and were
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  Speaker 2: pleasantly supplied that a lot of people have said, Wow,
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  Speaker 2: you know, this is someone who's kind.
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  Speaker 1: Of seen and done it right first time, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're quite shocked in a way. What do you put
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  Speaker 1: down to that sort of the success there?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're something we're very, very determined to succeed, and
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  Speaker 3: unfortunately we had just enough money to make it to
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  Speaker 3: the fourth launch, which which was the one that worked,
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  Speaker 3: Thank goodness.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, but I think we had a critical
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  Speaker 4: mass of technical talent.
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  Speaker 3: And just enough money and the design that was sensible,
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  Speaker 3: and those were the three ingredients that were resulted in
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: success eventually.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, and you you've always got anunt of different enterprises
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  Speaker 2: going on at the same time, such as Telsa and
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the solo passer.
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  Speaker 1: So how do you split your.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Time and kind of juggle between them, you know, which
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: how do you divide your time and the sort of tension.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I spent my time approximately evenly in between the
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: two companies, but although depending upon which company needs me
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the most, I might allocate a bit more time to
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: their company at time. So right now I put a
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  Speaker 3: majority of my time on Tesla, but earlier this year
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: was a majority of my time on SPA six.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, and.
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  Speaker 2: If you were obviously, you know you're you're in the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: commercial sector. But there's there's sort of a NASA kind
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: of beavering away there. What if you if you know,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: if if you were the head of NASA, you know,
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  Speaker 2: what would be your priorities, what would you what changes
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: would you make? And you know, how would use of
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: steer space policy for example?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think NASA is actually doing a pretty good
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  Speaker 3: job overall. I mean if they've been a very pro
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: commercial space and I really have really nothing but good
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: things to say about what else is doing?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Another thing that that sort that we mentioned as
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: well as Mars is something called hyper loop, which I
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: don't know is an aerospace a train system.
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  Speaker 3: Or you know.
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  Speaker 4: It's funny.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: It's a sort of a combination of electric and aerospace,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: you know. It's I'd like to publish something before the
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: end of the year, hopefully, but I want to make
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: sure I bet it with with a few few people
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: within SpaceX and Tesla and maybe a few outside people,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: and then that just sort of put it out there
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  Speaker 3: this is something that I think would be sensible, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: then and then ask people to add to it and
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: modify it, and maybe people have I'm sure people have
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: good ideas about making it better and then try to
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: come up with some sort of standard design that anyone
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: can from it in the world. I think that be
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: kind of cool, you know, sort of like an open
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: source operating system, like an open source transport system that
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: we really really need. Okay, but the basic thought behind
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: it is to have something like that that that's a cross.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: Between a rail gun and a concord.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, now some people and actually I sort of like
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: saying that because some people are going to be scared
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: about that, and some people are like, yes, that's awesome.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I'm appealing to the second.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And that would be using kind of a maglev in
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: a possibility vacuum.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: To Okay, well we're almost their final question. Man, you
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: said you're a big science fiction fact.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've gotta ask you, what's your favorite fictional spacecraft?
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, fictional spacecraft?
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I have to say that would be
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: the one in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that's
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: powered by the improbability drive.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Fantastic.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, that thing's awesome. This is the most unexpected things, right,
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: So that's.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Keep in half.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: But the MCT will be powered by the infinite probability
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: to train exactly brilliant. It's been fantastic talking to you
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: and very much looking forward to hear you later later,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you,