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What's next for SpaceX? · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.
• 0:05
  This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads, the
• 0:08
  shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company and Neuralink.
• 0:13
  I'm your host, Will Walden, and on this episode we're going to
• 0:17
  be talking about IFT 4 some because that just happened,
• 0:20
  which is really great. It turned out pretty great for a
• 0:24
  SpaceX. Also, we're going to be talking
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  about what's next for Starship, IFT 5, IFT 6 possibly.
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  And then we're going to get into some of the next thing, which is
• 0:36
  a huge deal. SpaceX and Starship on the
• 0:41
  surface of Mars, retrieving some samples.
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  What's that all about? OK, so let's go to IFT 4.
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  It happened yesterday. Absolutely as perfect as you can
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  get for this flight. What SpaceX was aiming to do for
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  this is to soft land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico, which
• 1:04
  they performed. Florida State, Absolutely
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  perfect. There's one.
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  Raptor out. But that's OK.
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  As they flew out, it was fine. Everything was fine.
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  All the systems work great. Booster landed in the Gulf of
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  Mexico. They tip it over.
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  It's in the Gulf of Mexico now somewhere and it's about 7
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  minutes into the flight that all happened.
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  Boost back burned, everything was great, and then stage
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  separation, everything perfect. Everything was perfect,
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  everything looked great. And then the ship kept going.
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  The ship separated, kept going all the way to the Indian Ocean,
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  did the belly flop maneuver, which who knew that was going to
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  happen and who knew if that was going to be successful.
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  SpaceX had a pretty good hunch that it was going to be
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  successful and they did all the engineering possible to make it
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  successful. And what we saw was the Starship
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  going through the atmosphere, going as.
• 2:06
  Hot as possible. And then soft landing after it
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  did the kick maneuver so it could go straight vertical and
• 2:15
  soft landed in the Indian Ocean. Perfect.
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  We didn't have any video of it landing, but they did hear the
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  Raptors roar. As it touched.
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  Down soft landing in the Indian Ocean.
• 2:30
  Now this is for IFT 4. So IFT 4 is a massive success
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  for Starship. Not only did they successfully
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  do this mission, but now they set themselves up for the next
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  few missions. And what they?
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  Can accomplish now before IFT 4 started, before they even
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  launched the thing, Elon was on social media, he was talking
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  about what's next, what's up for IFT five?
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  Well, he wants to continue down this path.
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  The same thing he wants to nail the landing.
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  He wants to make sure the Starship lands in the Indian
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  Ocean, but he wants to make sure that the booster lands at
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  Starbase, on the chopsticks at Boca Chica, Texas, next to the
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  Gulf of Mexico, on land at their facility where they launched
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  these things. Not in the Gulf of Mexico where
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  it's safe, where they won't destroy anything if they mess up
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  or. Nowhere close.
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  To land they, you know, like IFT 4 was nowhere close to land.
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  So the IFT 4 incident report will be much less than IFT.
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  Three. Because nothing really happened
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  that was out of the ordinary. This is exactly what they
• 3:46
  wanted. So landing the booster in the
• 3:49
  Gulf of Mexico and landing the ship in the Indian Ocean.
• 3:52
  Exactly what they wanted. So IFT 5 Elon wants to bring the
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  booster back to the star base facility after only doing one
• 4:04
  test of the landing of the booster.
• 4:09
  Is this kind of an insane idea? And he was on Ellie in space
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  too. She interviewed him.
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  Go. Check out that interview, it's
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  great. But watch this whole thing
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  first. I need I need the the watch time
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  so. She interviewed him, he was
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  adamant about landing it. He's super excited about landing
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  it for IFT 5. Are they going to?
• 4:31
  Do that. I'm not 100% sure if they will.
• 4:35
  It seems like Elon wants to and if they get enough data from the
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  booster landing, this shows that they were absolutely pinpoint
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  precision in the Gulf of Mexico. I don't see why they.
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  Wouldn't try it. Other than there's not a really
• 4:51
  more than one test case. Whenever you do engineering,
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  whenever you do science, anything, when you're testing,
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  coding anything, test it against a few different things.
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  Test it a few times, test it three or four times.
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  Make sure everything works properly because the next one,
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  there might be something that's. Busted on it.
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  Might be something that's not exactly perfect, and it might
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  not land precisely, but even in that case you could.
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  Detonate it over the Gulf of Mexico if you.
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  See something? 'S wrong.
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  But what happens if something's wrong in the last few seconds or
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  the last, I don't know, 20 seconds when it's over?
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  Starbase ready to land? Well, that's a.
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  Whole different thing. And yes, the.
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  Booster is about 250 feet tall, it's made out of stainless steel
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  and it's absolutely massive. So if it does come into Starbase
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  scream in a hot and they can't destroy it on its way back,
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  well, there's going to be some problems.
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  And that's something that I don't know if the SpaceX
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  engineers will push back against with Elon, because sometimes
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  Elon pushes back against them. There was early times in Space
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  XS history that the engineers want to do something with carbon
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  fiber or some sort of synthetic. And Elon pushback said, hey,
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  let's do this in stainless steel because stainless steel's easy
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  to get, It's easy to manufacture.
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  And also we can ramp this up really fast because we have to
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  iterate these designs. We have to do hundreds of these
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  rockets in order to make life on Mars a thing.
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  So do you think the engineers are going to set like push back
• 6:28
  on Elon? I don't know.
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  That's going to be, that's going to be a tough one for the
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  engineers because Elon's the head of engineering over there.
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  He's the head of everything. So if they push back against
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  him, I don't know I I think that they should wait a few times
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  I've talked about this before, but I do think they should wait
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  a few times before they actually land the rocket back at starbase
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  just to make sure that everything is absolutely
• 6:54
  accurate with the landing. Let me know in the comments down
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  below if you think it'll land on the.
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  Fifth attempt IFT 5. Now there's something else that
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  Elon and company over at SpaceX are going to be part of in the
• 7:10
  near future. Well, I would shouldn't say near
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  future, but in the future with NASA, this is a huge deal.
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  So right now we have a Rover on Mars which is collecting samples
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  of soil and possible life, you know, old life on Mars.
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  And they need some way to go pick up those canisters.
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  And Eli and the company of SpaceX have just won a.
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  Contract with NASA. To go try, and I shouldn't say
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  go try and pick it up yet, but they're going to demonstrate how
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  they could pick up these little canisters like this big, like I
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  don't know how to say it on the screen, but about that big of
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  Martian soil, Martian, Martian regolith that could contain
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  ancient life. So if they get this contract,
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  it's like a $1.8 million contract around there, almost
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  $2,000,000. I think it's 1.5 actually.
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  Then if they do this properly, SpaceX would be launching a
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  Starship to Mars. But the Starship alone can't get
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  the the samples of the regolith of the soil from Mars.
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  They have to have some sort of Rover.
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  So SpaceX may fit what I think they're gonna do.
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  I think they're gonna get a cyber truck and put it on Mars
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  and equip it with something, I don't know, or maybe a small
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  Rover, I'm not sure. But they can fit a massive
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  amount of things into a Starship.
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  So whatever they have to do, whatever they have to do,
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  whoever they have to team with to get another Rover down there
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  to go pick up all these samples. I think SpaceX will one.
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  They're already partnered with NASA to land on the moon, right?
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  They're already partnered with NASA to fly astronauts.
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  They're already partnered with NASA for all the Falcon Nine
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  things. So Starship, once it's proven on
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  the moon, could easily, I shouldn't say easily because
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  engineering's super hard, but they could make it.
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  And Elon has said this, that it's easier to land on Mars than
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  it is on the moon because there's actually some gravity
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  there. And it, it'll be a fun, fun
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  thing to watch if they can actually get the Starship to
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  Mars, land it, and then a Rover pops out of the Hatch.
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  Or what if they send people to Mars?
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  What if that's their proposal? What if what their proposal
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  isn't, hey, we're going to send a Rover like everybody else.
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  We have 4 astronauts that are willing to do this and we can
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  train them, we can give them space suits, we can do
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  everything. And they can walk on Mars, go
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  grab these samples, bring them back.
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  And maybe there's a Rover that would look like a cyber truck
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  that they drive around to get these samples.
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  That would be, they'll be so cool, but that's all speculation
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  right now. They haven't won the contract
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  yet and they have a little while to do this.
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  So we're going to keep our ears and eyes open to see what
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  happens with this. But this, that's a huge, huge
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  deal. Now, IFT 6, what's going to be
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  happening with that? We're not 100% sure because if
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  they try to do the landing at Starbase, then IFT 6 is going to
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  be similar to what they do with IT5 unless IFT 5 completely
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  fails, then they'll go back to the drawing board and go back to
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  the go back to the Gulf of Mexico.
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  But IFT 6, IFT 7, not 100% sure what they're going to be doing.
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  But if they do land a booster on IFT five, I think IFT 6, they're
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  going to try to go to orbit and I think they're going to launch
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  a few Starlink satellites just as a test.
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  Even one would be a a great test.
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  So let me know what you think in the comments down below.
• 11:00
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• 11:16
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• 11:20
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  good thing. So thanks everybody for watching
• 11:30
  today. Take care of yourselves and each
• 11:32
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• 11:40
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• 11:42
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