Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / SpaceX aims to launch Starship after Memorial Day - Kathy Leuders talk

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SpaceX aims to launch Starship after Memorial Day - Kathy Leuders talk · Elon Musk Podcast

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Welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
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with You. So we don't do anything small
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and and you know we have obviously extra links got a
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small 8mm or 8mm stacks that are really are part of our what
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where we end up when you see a startling mission we end up
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sending out thousands of those to build out our constellation
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and then you have the size of Dragon.
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But really what we've been building over the last 20 years
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is starting out with Falcon One, which was just A1 stick building
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the Falcon 9 program, continuing to build up capabilities with
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the Falcon 9 Heavy program. But as you can see, Starship is
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beating them all. It's got two times the thrust of
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a Saturn 5. When I was when I was in NASA,
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one of the things I I came in right well, at the very the
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middle stages of the shuttle program.
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But there was a lot of people in the shuttle program that would,
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when I would go to shuttle launches, they would say, oh
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Kathy, the shuttle launch is nice, but man, I knew the launch
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you missed was a Saturn 5. And and now what is really cool
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last year is I was able to see a launch that was two times the
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thrust of a Saturn 5 just here in the Rio Grande Valley.
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Really, really amazing. And this is the game changer I
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talked to you, if you can we can figure out how to get twice the
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mass up on our missions then it really enables so much more
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space exploration. Next slide.
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So I'd say, you know at the beginning we talked about the
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company starting in 2002. At the very beginning it was
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just about how do you build rocket engines.
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And then it was about how do you begin to learn about launch
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building and launching rockets, which is what happened when
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we're working the the initial Falcons.
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And then it was about how do you build a medium class launch
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vehicle. But as you can see, over the
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last 10 years we've been kind of speeding up, and we went from
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the Falcon 9 region's first orbit to the first spacecraft,
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private commercial spacecraft, going to the International Space
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Station in 2012 to beginning what is really a game changer.
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We reentry. People used to say if you that
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it was impossible to be able to return a first stage.
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So going back to the goals of cost effective transportation,
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what's the most cost effective method is to not throw away your
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hard work, but to be able to return it, reuse it, turn around
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and flag it again. So that was another major game
3:23
changer that SpaceX did to be able to get its cost of launch
3:27
down. We had the Crew Dragon near and
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dear to my heart as I was a Commercial Crew Program Manager
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for NASA. So the first mission that took
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US astronauts back to the ISS on AUS commercial vehicle occurred
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in in that May of 2020 time frame or 2021.
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And then we had the our first high altitude Starship flight in
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May of 2021. And then as you know, we're
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beginning to get ready. This April is a little bit of an
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old date, but we're actually getting ready at the vehicles
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ready now. We're getting ready to do our
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stacked test in our wet dresses over the next few weeks.
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And then hopefully right after the Memorial Day weekend or
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close to it, we'll get our FAA license and be able to get ready
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for our next Starship launch. But this is a company that
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continues to learn, develop, make things better and grow and
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move to the next thing. And it's it's as you can see
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there's been a lot of growth over the last 15 years.
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So now I'm talking a little bit about Starbase.
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So for us, we're very, when you see it now and you see we're
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actually in the process of really expanding the capability
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of our our little really at this little island at the end of Hwy.
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4 and really and building it up for us to be the premier
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location for producing all of our starships and being one of
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the major launch sites for the star show.
5:07
Next slide, obviously what's really, really important is you
5:12
can't do this without a lot of people.
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This is one of my favorite pictures.
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You know, every once in a while you've got to get everybody
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together. We had just stacked the vehicle
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for a flight in November and we got a bunch of people out.
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God took a picture because you had to like sit there and really
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appreciate the fact that we had rebuilt the path, got the
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vehicle stacked and we're ready to fly again for that second
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mission. But all of this needs like a
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full production capability. When you're building the tallest
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rocket launch in catch shower, you have 500, almost 500 feet.
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So if you think about a story is in a in a building that's about
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1010 to 12 feet where you're looking at A50 story building,
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that's the height of it. I mean when you're standing on
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Hwy. 4 looking up at the vehicles, it's a long ways up.
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So you need to have towers and facilities to be able to
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maneuver the vehicle, be able to work on it and then get it
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ready, test it out and ready to fly.
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And we're going to talk a little bit too about we are expanding
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our village and our other capabilities out there because
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if you have over 2100 people there every day, just Spacexers
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alone. And then on top of that, all of
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the contractors that are working in the pad at Starbase Village
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at the production area, you can imagine we have over 3000 people
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that are there every day working there that at the end of Hwy. 4,
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excellent. I appreciated the mentions of
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all the investment that SpaceX has done.
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I mean this is obviously been a major investment for the
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company. You know we've been putting in
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billions into this area to get the facilities ready to be able
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to do that. It takes, it's not easy building
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at the end of IOA 4 and we've been building our star
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factories, our utility structures, our all of our
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support buildings for all the moves and everything else, plus
7:23
homes, amenities and other things that we need to be able
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to support the families that also we're that are staying
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close to the production areas. So when you look at the numbers
7:35
here, these numbers are growing. We're getting ready to put out
7:38
our new economic impact report. It'll be coming out over the
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next few weeks. And when you see those, these
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numbers are growing and growing as really also the communities
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are gaining the benefit of the missions.
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You know, it used to be before, you know, obviously when we were
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doing the Hopper missions, those were interesting, but there's
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nothing like an orbital flight. And so we we've been very happy
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that there that people are enjoying these missions and
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people are coming out to see them.
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This the last mission I was out watching out at South Padre and
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it was really great to be there standing with a whole group of
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people that were cheering for us to be able to get that mission
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going. Next slide I will tell you one
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of the things that make our folks really happy is helping
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the communities and so want to sell as many jobs is to go bring
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her out. How to engage in the community
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in a way that helps them but also lets our people really
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reach out and have an impact on the community.
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They do care and so some of the things that we do are obviously
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we do. We went to the to bark, we went
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to the dog shelter and painted buildings and watched dogs and a
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few people brought dogs home too.
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I think it was like a it was very smart in the shelter to
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have us come out. If there is one thing Spacexers
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like is they like their dogs. But we've also packed lunches at
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at centers. We've we're a major sponsor of
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the turtle rescue. One of the favorite thing for
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our folks is to actually go out and be with the volunteers for
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the the Turtle Rescue Mission and and rescue.
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It's a major deal. When we actually find turtles
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and are able to like bring them on the hovercraft back over to
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the rescue facilities, you would have thought that, you know, we
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had this cold snap. I can't believe how many people
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were out there rescuing turtles and then releasing them, but
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that being able to be part of the community, help the
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community, it's a big deal for the folks and one of our big
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draws. So next slide do it
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the. So a lot of things changing
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that's also a little bit of our recruiting videos.
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That's why you see the coffee and you see food like the dog
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park, a dog park for to keep the dogs occupied while their folks
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are at work. Because really this is about us
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getting the work done. As you can see we there's a ton
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of work that needs to happen when you're building the
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Rockets. I mean we start out with rolls
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of steel on one end of the star factory and it comes out the
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other end with boosters. And so you saw the the big high
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base, those are high base for us to be able to work on our
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boosters and our Starship. And the other thing I we if you
12:15
notice the towers, a very different tower than what I grew
12:18
up with, but it's another innovation to have what we call
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those chopsticks to be able to come in, grab the vehicle, be
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able to move it and use it for stacking.
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It's another innovation where typically you'd either have to
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stack in a in a building and roll out or do like we do at the
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Cape, which is you have an Erector that actually pushes up
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that would be very, very tough to have that on a large
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Starship. So it's another innovation where
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we're trying to get to the place where we're able to have these
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vehicles come in, be able to to stack them, test them and then
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be able to launch because it's that launch cadence that's
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really going to allow us to be able to get the amount of
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materials that you need to be able to do long term missions in
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space. So let me talk a little bit
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about straight, get a little sense of Star Basin and that
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video. We're actually going to have to
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do a new video because we don't have those tents anymore.
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We right now have a huge star factory and you'll see it and
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and that with just Elon a year ago said, you know what, we need
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to get rid of these tents and we this is now going to be a
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permanent location for us to be producing and launching
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vehicles. So we're going to build a a Giga
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Starship factory and so we are in the process of building
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1,000,000 square foot factory. We're actually pretty with you
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drove down Hwy. 4 right now. You can see we've almost got all
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the corners pretty finished up. So it's been a huge endeavor for
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us. We're also bringing in and
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building. We've been building a office
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building so that we can consolidate our folks and office
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building and then we'll probably be in the process of building
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another highway. We are building a second pad
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right now too. So you can imagine that's a lot
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of building going along along with us building homes and
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everything else. All of this is to get us ready
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to be able to start meeting the production and launch rate that
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we need to be able to accomplish our missions.
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So Starship is the largest, most powerful rocket in history.
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It's not just a little bit more powerful.
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Like I said before, it's two times as powerful as the Saturn
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5, you know, 400 feet tall. And actually moving that up,
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we're actually extending it up with the pad and everything
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else. It's almost 500 feet.
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So just standing at the bottom and looking up at it, it's
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pretty frickin amazing, designed to be reusable.
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We've talked before about the first stage, you know, on the
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importance of returning that we would.
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We're looking at bringing back and reusing the boosters and the
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star shifts. And so we're still figuring this
15:13
out. You know, we're a big test.
15:17
You know, fly, really monitor and learn from each flight,
15:23
obviously making sure that each mission is conducted in a way
15:26
that is safe for the people and the general public that's out
15:29
there. But it's OK for us to maybe not
15:32
meet all the mission objectives because that's the best way for
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us to learn. And so, you know, as we've been
15:39
working through this, we've been using first the upper missions
15:43
as the suborbital missions to be able to learn and then take that
15:47
learning into our orbital missions.
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And each of our orbital missions we've taken a little bit farther
15:53
based on the learning that we have that we gained from the
15:57
last mission. And so we call these our orbital
16:01
test flights. If you notice, they're not just
16:04
weird. We haven't jumped into the
16:05
mission yet because we're still testing and we are learning on
16:09
every flight as we're testing continuing to you know the first
16:15
flag we got through the initial booster piece.
16:20
The second piece which we added the hot staging capability,
16:25
which is really a capability that had not been done by any
16:28
U.S. company before where you actually start your second
16:32
stage, the the Starship part of the of the vehicle before you
16:38
start the engines on there before you separate and and so
16:42
to ensure that you're able to help with the separation of the
16:46
two vehicles. That all worked on our flight
16:49
last November. And then the key thing out of
16:51
this last March was and all we're talking about this in a
16:54
few more missions is US really getting to those, those orbital
16:59
flight test projectors. This is all people go, why are
17:04
you doing this? So one of the reasons why we're
17:06
doing this is because we are aiming towards being able to
17:10
land and be the Lander for a human, for a NASA crew member on
17:16
the moon. And for us to be able to do
17:18
that, we have to be able to have multiple missions.
17:23
Tanker missions where we are being able to conduct and fill a
17:28
tanker that's in orbit around the Earth and then fly a
17:33
Starship up to the tanker, have it be fueled.
17:38
And then that tanker, that will be the fuel that then will take
17:41
that Starship and fuel that Starship to be able to get to
17:44
the moon, be able to rendezvous with a Orion spacecraft, and
17:49
then be able to then land those crew members on the moon.
17:53
All this is going to take us a lot of learning for us to be
17:56
able to get these next steps, but we're continuing to buy down
18:00
and prove out that capability as we work through our test
18:04
missions going forward. So there's some of those
18:35
confirmations that we the.
19:32
So it was what's been a lot of fun for me coming in from NASA
19:36
is people it's the learning in these test flights that's so
19:40
critical. And what's great about SpaceX is
19:43
they're able to go say, Oh yeah, that yeah, that was kind of a
19:46
big blow up. But guess what, we learned all
19:49
these things here. That really is what enables us
19:53
to make that progress faster. So it it it's a very different
19:58
concept. Companies typically view that
20:01
having some people visible like that is viewed as a failure.
20:04
But we actually learned a ton from this, and it's what's
20:08
enabled us to not just be able to fly once every like three
20:13
years, four years like we've been able to make successive
20:17
engineering progress by being able to safely and.
20:23
And for us, it's not a failure because we learned a bunch, but
20:26
safely have the vehicle gracefully fail in a way that
20:30
still keeps people safe. But then we can make sure that
20:35
we're learning from every vehicle.
20:36
It's really, really hard to make sure a spacecrafts going to
20:40
absolutely work when you're trying to build something that's
20:43
never been done before, right. And so us being able to learn
20:47
and enroll that learning back into very quickly is what's
20:50
really enabled us to kind of push the envelope on a lot of
20:53
these things very quickly. So let me just run through the
20:58
last few tests. I already kind of stuffed on or
21:01
talked about each of these briefly before, but I wanted to
21:03
give you kind of a contest before you saw that video.
21:07
So we had our first integrated flight test a little over a year
21:12
ago and it really established that the fact that Starship,
21:18
that the booster was working and that and and verified the thrust
21:24
and that we were able to show how the engines and the
21:28
interaction of the engines were working together.
21:32
We had the second flight test in November.
21:34
I was lucky enough to be able to be here at the time, all 39.
21:39
It's amazing. It was an amazing thing for us
21:41
because the booster actually worked perfectly.
21:44
And so we were, we were able to launch and separate with the hot
21:49
staging we had. We were able to get the Starship
21:52
vehicle to an altitude we are. We like the engines and then be
21:58
able to terminate the both the the Starship and the booster
22:03
vehicles. That was for us an amazing
22:07
flight. Just being able to do that hot,
22:09
first time ever hot staging all 33 engines worked.
22:13
The relight of the Starship, all being able to see the the
22:17
systems, all working on the major parts of the propulsion of
22:20
the vehicle was huge for us. The other thing that was was a
22:24
big deal when we had, you know, when you saw the pad, that pad
22:29
design is also a very unique pad design.
22:31
Normally pads have huge flame trenches in them and one of the
22:36
things that Elon had really wanted to prove was to see if we
22:39
could do a clean pad interface. Well we ended up finding out on
22:45
the first mission that didn't work really well, so we had to
22:47
re engineer, add a water diverter system to and then that
22:53
helps protect the concrete surface of the pad.
22:57
And we ended up finding out that that worked beautifully on the
23:00
November mission. I was able to go out and walk
23:03
the pad right after the mission and we it it it looked
23:07
beautiful. The reason we want to do that is
23:09
because it's another place where if we don't need to refurbish
23:13
flame trenches, we don't need to be refurbishing the pad after
23:16
every launch. It lets us be able to get the
23:19
next vehicle up and be able to launch it quickly.
23:21
So it's another place where Elon's really pushing us to be
23:24
able to get into this flight cadence that we need to be able
23:29
to do our missions. This accomplishment help hold
23:37
for. Stage 4 Stage 2
24:34
That's. It.
25:05
The so where you could see the red,
25:59
wherever you're seeing like that red glow around, that's that
26:02
video footage that I was telling you that was just like amazing
26:06
to me. Because we always, when we had
26:09
the crew capsules coming in, the part of the mission that always
26:14
makes my heart stop is there's a blackout period where you don't
26:18
have calm during that phase and you lose contact with the crew
26:22
members and you always are like holding your breath until you
26:27
get to the other end. And so to be able to have calm
26:31
through that period as as were working re entry to me, it would
26:36
mean that maybe I wouldn't have to.
26:37
I'd always feel like I held my breath for like 3 minutes.
26:41
So I'm looking forward to the Starship Re entries because
26:44
it'll when we eventually few more years, but eventually we'd
26:51
be like people after we really gained the reliability data we
26:57
need to have for the star shows. But it's going to be awesome
27:00
because we won't have those big blackout periods with the with
27:03
the Starman com. So that was the video of our
27:08
third integrated test that we had in March.
27:11
You know, like I'd already talked about, we were able to
27:14
add reliability upgrades. We're always learning and
27:17
updating the vehicles as we're flying.
27:20
Once again, it's really nice. You can always see when all the
27:23
booster or when all the engines are working, it's a nice 33 all
27:27
lit up at the back end and able to see how things are working.
27:31
The other nice thing when you watch a video and you see it
27:34
taken off the pad, there's always this concentric when the
27:38
engines all work together and and they're really working
27:41
efficiently you can kind of see the flame kind of come together
27:45
and push up and that's that's when you have a really nice
27:49
integrated propulsion burn. So as a as an old propulsion
27:55
engineer I that that's always one of my favorite parts of
27:59
seeing the that booster piece. So as you guys are looking at
28:03
future flight test missions, really appreciate how those
28:07
engines work together. We made it through boost back.
28:12
If you notice that you saw a little bit of the videos that
28:14
was coming in and we really began to see how we can work the
28:18
GNC learning, how does the the booster operate coming back.
28:22
So we got some initial data on and and we're rolling in changes
28:27
to our GNC design for this next mission see if we can get it a
28:31
little bit farther And then first time that we ever started
28:35
working through the Starship reentry phases.
28:37
And so and I've talked about the live video over and over because
28:42
I that's the first time ever everybody that saw that today,
28:46
that's the first time that we've anybody in the world's been able
28:49
to see footage like that. So more to come nowhere right
28:57
now the vehicle's ready. If you go out to the pad now
29:01
we've got a a Starship and a booster sitting there.
29:06
We're getting ready to do our integrated wet dress.
29:10
We call it our wet dress to make sure that we can flow off
29:13
propellants everything you know, you want to make sure you've got
29:17
all the kinks out. We've tested both of these
29:19
sections already, but now we are going to do an integrated test
29:24
and we'll be looking at doing that in the next week.
29:28
You know these are test flights. But it has been so much fun to
29:35
me like we talked about at the beginning.
29:37
For me to be able to experience with the team all their
29:41
dedication hard work as we continue to learn and take each
29:48
and and be able to build out each of the phases that we need
29:52
to to be able to conduct their long term lunar.
29:55
And really Elon's whole vision of making us an interplanetary
30:02
species and being able to eventually go to Mars.
30:06
So one day I'm not sure when somebody I was gonna doing a
30:09
speech and they were like tell me when we're gonna go to Mars.
30:11
And it's like we got a lot of learning to do before we go to
30:14
Mars. But I do know, I do know that
30:18
one day out of the Rio Grande Valley, there will be the
30:22
Starship going to Mars. Thank you.
30:39
You got some questions, but I'm not sure who's going to pull out
30:44
to see it or I could take questions, however.
30:50
Go ahead. What do y'all have set up for
30:53
lightning protection because that is so high?
30:58
Yeah, we do. We have towers, but we also have
31:01
our on site. We have two on site meter all of
31:04
this too. But you always have to have
31:06
lightning towers, yeah, to be able to do that.
31:09
So we do watch the weather we like we have folks that are
31:13
always constantly watching the weather because not only that
31:15
but if you know we're we're by a big body of water.
31:20
We've got pads we've got outside areas we've got the hangar,
31:24
we're always moving people around.
31:26
So it's also just from an overall safety perspective that
31:30
we're we we have a bunch of tall structures on a very, very flat
31:35
area. So we gotta make sure we got
31:37
lighting protection on actually all of our buildings.
31:43
Are you guys planning on buying any more beach in Poca Chico?
31:48
We are pretty much limited by that the beach area, I mean
31:53
because of the Texas Parks area that's there we there, there are
31:58
small areas but they're they're not really great to be building
32:02
on. One of the great things if you
32:05
look at all the big major ranges that are out there, they are in
32:10
the middle of wildlife regions because guess what if you didn't
32:12
have a wildlife region you probably won't have a bunch of
32:16
open land. So it is definitely a there's
32:20
only a limited amount of commercial land that's there,
32:24
but it is nice to be in the wildlife reserve because it
32:28
would not be good for us if people are building you know
32:30
complexes around there. So first commercial spaceport.
32:35
So one of the challenges we have typically space boards are
32:41
federally mandated and so we have to obviously be working
32:45
with the federal government, state, Cameron County and for us
32:49
to be able to as as a commercial orbital space board figure out
32:54
how do you coexist with all the other activities that need to
32:58
happen and keep people safe. Can you talk a little bit about
33:05
Booster 11 testing just recently and the other starships that you
33:09
have in mind? Seems like Starship 30 and 31
33:12
are being tested at the same time, prepping for the next
33:15
flight and when the next flight. Yeah.
33:18
So we the, I mean the vehicles are out, the vehicles that we're
33:22
going to be flying for our next mission are out on the pad
33:25
getting ready, waiting for a wet dress.
33:28
We were testing our next round of of vehicles, next round of *
33:33
shifts and we had a test anomaly that we're assessing right now
33:39
and understanding what does that mean.
33:41
We're kind of holding off on our wet dress because one of the
33:44
things you do, you know, we're always working on vehicles, but
33:48
when there's a problem on a vehicle that's in the blow, you
33:51
want to make sure that you can separate the cause of that
33:55
problem from your flight vehicle.
33:57
And So what the teams are doing right now is really going and
34:00
saying, is it the same design exactly?
34:03
Is there some other reason for us to have separation to make
34:07
sure that we're not going into a flight test with there being an
34:11
issue? I think right now they're
34:13
working through that and we'll probably have the vehicle
34:15
cleared. We're still working on licensing
34:17
with FA. They're going through a few less
34:20
crossing their T's, dotting their IS.
34:23
We're hoping to have the license by the end of May, early June
34:26
time frame and we're we're going to be ready like like always
34:29
we're going to have the vehicle stacked and the first day we get
34:32
that license we're going to fly on one of your last slides.
34:39
You've talked about it, the noise dampening and I.
34:43
Have a friend that lives close. To the tag and they said that
34:46
they didn't notice the rocket had even launched.
34:49
Is that because of that? Well, I think we said a
34:53
different it it we we are managing things, but I also
34:57
think like One Direction makes a big difference.
34:59
You know I noticed you know Lyssol and I kind of monitor
35:03
like the interaction. And one of the things we're
35:06
really working on is how do how do we make sure that the area
35:11
that maybe isn't used to orbital launches understands kind of
35:16
what's a feasible environment and what's not a feasible
35:19
environment. You know with rockets launching
35:23
and going up you get the the loud it's it's noise, but it's
35:26
it's a it's that it's a vibration of the air kind of
35:31
moving out. It's not in the ground.
35:34
So one of the things we have to educate people on is this is not
35:37
gonna hurt your foundation. It's not gonna hurt.
35:39
You know it's not your. We're not we're not doing
35:42
something in the ground which is kind of going to be permeating.
35:45
It's actually moving, you know through the air and you're
35:49
getting vibrations through the air what does impact it a lot.
35:54
And we we do a lot of monitoring in fact we have monitoring on
35:57
the old White House, we have monitoring in South Padre, we
36:00
have monitoring all around because per our SP licensing we
36:04
have to show that we're able to keep within our licensing
36:08
requirements for impacts. And so far everything is within
36:12
those those limits. In fact, we fight in a little
36:15
bit conservative in certain areas, which is makes sense
36:19
because when you haven't flown, you add more margin to your
36:23
calculations, but wind direction changes a lot.
36:28
I I lived in Florida outside Kennedy Space Center, some
36:33
launches you wouldn't even know they went up and some launches
36:36
depending on the wind direction, it would be like rapping in the
36:39
windows, right. So I do think there was a
36:42
difference in wind direction between the second launch where
36:45
we heard a lot of people from Brownsville were like man, that
36:48
was loud. And then the third launch,
36:50
everybody was like that wasn't very loud, you know, So I I I
36:55
think wind direction does help, but we also have to stay within
36:59
limits on wind direction. Like there's all these
37:02
conditions that we work with the with the FAA on that drive bus,
37:08
like our launch conditions that we have to stay within.
37:14
Yeah, being one of the most innovative companies in our
37:16
region and offering the most exciting opportunities here for
37:19
our community and students. Do you foresee a time when tours
37:23
for the public may be available again or perhaps the visitor
37:25
center? Yes.
37:28
So I think you know right now like I talked about we've just
37:31
got a ton of construction going on.
37:33
I mean we are we're we're we're struggling with how do we have
37:39
walk paths for our employees. Like we have all these like
37:42
we're always having to rework our walk path.
37:45
So right now we've kind of held off on doing tours just because
37:51
I, you know, I'm everyday working to keep people safe on
37:56
site and just with all the construction going on, just
38:00
don't want a bunch of people that don't have to be exposed to
38:03
that on site. But we one of our licensing
38:06
requirements is actually to give tours to students and
38:11
educational areas and be able to have people benefit from STEM
38:15
interaction. So we are when we get the
38:18
million square foot factory down, when we're kind of have
38:21
don't have cement trucks going down Hwy. 4 and working through
38:25
it. When we get the road a little
38:27
bit better. I mean, we're working very hard
38:29
with Tech Stop because I don't know if you guys have been on
38:31
Hwy. 4, but I'm pretty horrified sometimes that we've got the
38:37
people, my our all these employees, our children and
38:43
their school buses going down that road.
38:45
So when we get those conditions better than absolutely we're
38:49
going to be working towards that.
38:51
I do think we're going to have another educational day in
38:56
October and we're hoping that things will be a little bit less
39:00
crazy then and looking forward to having a large group of
39:05
children out again. We did just sponsor in April 2,
39:10
supported the big beach cleanup, which is also kind of fun and we
39:13
always have a free lunch that everybody can go get up by the
39:17
restaurant and kind of enjoy the area for that too.
39:20
So we're trying to figure out other ways to get it done with
39:23
that, but yet not adding to any additional exposure for people
39:33
like a timeline. For Star Factory, just like
39:35
20252026, it's always. We've got to go back here.
39:40
So no, I think we're shooting for a star factory.
39:43
We're in the last phase right now for it to be done by the end
39:46
of the year. Yeah, Brownsville seems to be.
39:52
The tip of the sphere for developmental launches and even
39:55
Elon was quoted last month saying something like that was
39:58
two towers for Florida for the operational side.
40:01
The last thing that you said here, where we fly tomorrow,
40:04
here is encouragement and you. See that happening?
40:09
For will we be always the testing facility for we need to
40:12
talk to Florida and then they well.
40:16
Well, all I, we need two launch areas to be able to meet our
40:22
manifest for us to be able to do that.
40:24
So just a single landing requires 15 tanker launches, OK.
40:34
So you can so and they need to be done within a certain period
40:39
of time and so one of the reasons why this is gonna be our
40:43
our workforce area and but we will also need the Florida phase
40:49
two to be able to do the the number and the sequencing of the
40:54
missions. But if you're really colonizing
40:57
Mars, you need a craft photo missions to be able to do that.
41:01
And so I actually feel like they're we're trying to figure
41:05
out how to do the mix and but we really want to keep this ability
41:10
to be able to make changes and test and be able to roll those
41:14
changes into a vehicle and and have that be out of our star
41:20
based facility with crude launches.
41:24
You may not be able to have all of the changes and the structure
41:29
may be a little bit, but but for some of our tanker missions and
41:33
everything else, we really want to be gaining that efficiency,
41:36
right. And so we're still working
41:39
through this, but I think what's really cool is that we know
41:42
Starbase is going to be the home of Starship.
41:45
Yeah, sorry. OK.
41:51
So I have. I have.
41:54
A22 part question What are some of the challenges or attractions
41:58
facing the facility and employees when it comes over the
42:00
housing and quality of life projects may attract culture,
42:04
current future future employees in the area and how that may or
42:08
may not affect the operations. Well, I I think one of the main
42:12
challenges that I talked to you already is just getting the
42:17
infrastructure, if you realize all the infrastructure that's
42:20
need just getting down Hwy. 4, right?
42:23
I mean there's really understanding when you think
42:27
about the the the number of new companies that the forecast
42:32
coming into it at Brownsville and then the fact that we have
42:35
you know over 3000 people coming down Hwy. 4 and you look at the
42:40
infrastructure that's there. The there's a very critical need
42:45
for just being able to look at how flow and how just basic
42:51
supplies are flowing through that east side of Brownsville
42:56
there. And with supplies also coming in
42:58
from the port. So you know it's it's tough to
43:03
be able to sit down and say how do you plan for a major economic
43:08
growth area on this east side of town that really hasn't seen
43:11
that and but it's right now it's a critical phase for us
43:16
especially ABS. We're also clearing up for the
43:19
port to be gaining a lot of that Houston port traffic to and
43:24
obviously we're working these baseless are working with next
43:28
decade the port and other people on like what are the
43:31
infrastructure projects that we need investment from the state
43:34
and federal level to be able to support in that area.
43:37
But also getting everybody else to be thinking about even a a
43:41
small thing like timing of the lights.
43:43
I know the city of Brownsville has been working how to time the
43:46
lights to be able to handle traffic flow.
43:50
There's also just a basic issue of how do we get people to
43:55
invest in hotels, restaurants, infrastructure on that east side
44:00
of town too to be able to and that we have to continue to work
44:05
with them with local providers on does.
44:09
Is there a business case for that on that side?
44:12
But if you look at just the amount like this, what we lose
44:15
and people driving through Brownsville, most of the hotels
44:19
are off 69 being able to come down and and be able to have
44:24
access to Starbase, You know we're always like how do you get
44:27
people on site even quicker and that's also another area like
44:31
how do we be able to create infrastructure there that can
44:34
support the business community that's not going on that site
44:38
now. So a lot of individuals that.
44:44
Are here are business owners themselves?
44:47
How can they learn about potential opportunities that
44:49
might exist with the SpaceX? So I think that the big thing is
44:56
to obviously money sells here because if that there's
44:59
questions or things that you have, please reach out to her.
45:02
We are looking at different kinds of open houses that may be
45:07
helpful for different suppliers, you know, she works with or
45:11
Nicholas Ramirez or is our local supply folks.
45:15
We're always looking for new contractors, new capabilities
45:19
that may be there to be able to put on different projects that
45:22
we have, but also let us know too how we can be helping out.
45:28
One of the things that Michel and I've been working on is how
45:31
to get people out into the community.
45:34
I appreciated when the mayor was talking about how far how many
45:40
of our folks live here. One of the reasons I'm here is
45:43
because we have a large population of folks that are
45:46
living in this area. And so one of the big goals that
45:48
we've been having is how do we get people that are newly here
45:52
out in the community at different restaurants, at
45:55
different activities, at different local family community
45:59
areas to be able to get them familiar too with the the
46:04
attractions and activities that are out here.
46:06
So if you've got things that you think would be a cool, you know,
46:10
activity for us to do, we've done Taco tours, wine tours,
46:14
beer tours, We got an El Paso Ranch event coming up with
46:19
obviously the Gladys Porter Zoos like an annual family event for
46:23
us. We've you know rented out the
46:25
water at the Sturtevant Water park after.
46:28
I mean there's. So we do want to figure out ways
46:30
to be able to get our folks also invested in the community,
46:34
because once we know, once they start putting their roots down,
46:39
then that's how we keep our best talent.
46:43
Do you have any plans to? Put in a tunnel of a bridge, a
46:50
ferry system or anything to connect Boca Chica back to like
46:54
100. We have looked at ways.
46:59
I mean right now what we invested in is a hovercraft
47:03
system that takes our employees back and forth.
47:08
But that is a well we looked at the cost of it.
47:13
It's a huge infrastructure cost. It's probably you know over 150,
47:17
close to $200 million. So we, we haven't invested in
47:22
that yet. I mean right now like I said,
47:24
we've been investing in getting the factory going, getting the
47:29
additional had built, which is also you know all of those are
47:33
huge investments for us. And then working on how do we
47:38
start building up and partnering with the state and federal
47:41
levels on these infrastructure pieces that we need to be able
47:45
to have in place for us to be able to conduct business long
47:49
term at the end of Hwy. 4. Thanks again for having me.
47:58
I really, really appreciate your time and thank you again for the
48:02
warm up. Or you step down.
48:15
I'd like to invite our mayor as well as an ABC Board president
48:20
have yet to be on to join me up on the stage.
48:23
Got a small token of appreciation, happy that
48:29
presented to her on behalf of the ADC as well as the City of
48:33
Pilots Little Bird Mullet that was very fond of chocolates, so
48:38
we made sure. Basket.
48:41
For her Harlem. Keeper Suites.
48:43
Awesome. Thank you so much.
48:50
Hey, thank you so much for. Listening today, I really do
48:52
appreciate your support. If you could take a second and
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49:17
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49:19
I'll see you tomorrow.