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Elon Musk Interview Satellite 2020 · Elon Musk Podcast

0:00
Hi everybody. Welcome to the satellite 2020.
0:09
Sorry, we got off to a late. Start DC traffic is a killer,
0:12
but my name is Jeffrey L. I'm conference chair.
0:15
And I'm here with Elon Musk chief engineer and founder of
0:18
SpaceX. Elon, thank you so much for
0:20
being with us. Thanks, thanks for thanks for
0:21
having me. I guess it was a 11 years ago
0:23
that we met. Yeah.
0:25
And when we met 11 years ago, we were talking about Falcon 1
0:30
Falcon 9 at the time. And when I asked you, what's the
0:33
point of all this, you said it's a send human beings back into
0:36
space on a u.s. built rocket from a u.s. built.
0:39
The Scylla T so that we could permanently resettle other
0:42
planets. And here we are.
0:44
We're right on the brink here of sending humans back into space.
0:48
The, the crew dragon is in Cape Canaveral.
0:51
How do you feel that you're on the doorstep here?
0:55
Yeah, it's great that we're about to launch people to oh
0:58
Bert. It's been a long time, a long
1:03
road, 18 years. Yeah, it could be a kid giving
1:07
college right now. Is it like sending your kid off
1:11
to college? Well, we haven't done it yet,
1:14
but it's a long time. You're packing your packing, the
1:18
bags, you're ready to go. Can you talk about the the talk
1:24
about the the road from the space shuttle to the crew.
1:28
Dragon. Let's talk about the the What
1:30
are some of the challenges that you faced in creating a human
1:34
rated space for spacecraft for for human spaceflight?
1:39
What were some of the challenges that you encountered along the
1:41
way? Well, thing, that the thing that
1:46
concerns me most right now is that unless we improve our rate
1:49
of innovation dramatically, then there is no chance of a base on
1:52
the moon, or a city on Mars, not I'll be looking.
1:57
Yeah, this is my biggest concern.
2:04
Crew Dragon was we're already taking it to the space station
2:07
are back. That's good.
2:09
A lot of people aren't aware that we just had like a
2:12
basically a dummy, you know. So And it says, what?
2:17
Then we're done. Massive amount of testing, you
2:20
know, pushing all the corner cases, and I just truly
2:27
ridiculous amount of testing, it's like definitely had his off
2:32
to the dragon engineers and supporting team at Nasa for
2:38
going through a truly staggering number of tests.
2:44
Now that now that that said, dragon really is just a low
2:49
earth orbit, Transport vehicle. It's it's really just, it's
2:56
capable of taking a few people at what is still a very high
3:01
cost to Earth orbit. I technically, we could send
3:04
people around the Moon on Dragon but not sure we'd want to, it's
3:09
too small. so, it's good. Good to get this done, but it's
3:20
I think we need to be very careful of getting stuck in a
3:23
local maximum. And, you know, the space shuttle
3:28
was something that was really stuck in a local maximum for a
3:32
long time. And Yeah, we don't want to be
3:38
that situation. I mean, frankly, why is why does
3:42
soil, is still fly on a car life is probably turning in his grave
3:45
right now, interesting. It's been quite it was designed
3:50
in the 50s. Yeah, right, right.
3:54
If you told them where you're told Carla over the other guys
3:56
that they'd still be, we're still be flying.
3:57
So years in 2020 there, like that's crazy.
4:01
We are so we don't want to be that situation you know to solid
4:07
vehicle. It's just like it's time to move
4:08
on, right? Right.
4:10
And so, we know we started late. I Source a lot of these
4:14
questions from from the public in the audience.
4:16
We're also going to do a Q&A here.
4:18
So I'm just going to jump right into the questions that we
4:21
receive. So I mean, the most popular
4:24
question, we got was like, what are the greatest challenges are.
4:27
The biggest challenges we Face expanding our presence in space
4:30
and exploring. And eventually resettling new
4:32
worlds. There's really just one thing
4:37
that matters that is a fully and rapidly reusable rocket that at
4:43
the one thing that matters. And it needs to be reasonably
4:48
big, or your payload to non payload ratio, will be kind of
4:57
whacked, you know, what'd be good.
5:00
So just like you wouldn't want a supertanker.
5:03
Growing, like your container ships.
5:07
You have a container ship with thousands of containers, you
5:10
don't, you know, have like a bunch of tiny ships with little
5:14
outboard. Words on them, cruising across
5:16
the Pacific, there will be silly.
5:18
So you have big shifts when you want to go long distances with
5:22
serious cargo to read a value big, but definitely rapidly and
5:28
completely reusable rocket. This is the fundamental thing
5:30
without that, we're going nowhere.
5:34
And what level of reusability is a SpaceX actively pursuing for
5:39
her Falcon 9, for Dragon, for Starship?
5:46
I think folk night a dragon have.
5:50
There are asymptoting that there are Tech their technology
5:54
architectures asymptoting, meaning like it really would not
5:59
make sense to have a block 6, Falcon 9, you know, from where
6:04
we are right now, it just doesn't make sense.
6:09
That's why we have a big focus in terms of new technology
6:13
development on Starship. For Falcon and the Falcon and
6:18
dragon are kind of like operational vehicles at this
6:20
point. So they're they're good products
6:22
their operational but but there's not really but we need a
6:29
whole new architecture. And that's what Starship is
6:32
about and social BC fully and completely reusable and rapidly.
6:40
So I mean it's it's being designed for about an hour.
6:47
Two TV really want relaunched an hour after landing.
6:51
With with zero nominal work like this, you could have scheduled
6:54
maintenance you or you could have like something like a
6:57
squawk issue, just like commercial aircraft, but you
7:00
were expected. The only thing you expect to
7:04
change on a regular basis is propellant.
7:09
And it's got to be fast. So that now the for the ship You
7:16
Gotta Wait unless you're launching duties from the
7:20
equator, you've got to have figure out some way to get the
7:24
ship orbital, ground track to pass over the landing site
7:30
otherwise you're too far away so the ship Maybe.
7:35
It might take you three Orbits for of its, maybe to get back
7:41
over the launch site. But it, but I think we want to
7:46
aim for a capability of three flights a day for the show, most
7:53
of which is taken up with getting the orbital ground track
7:58
to come over the launch site. And then an hour for everything
8:02
else. And you know, everybody's
8:06
interested in the mission to Mars planetary resettlement.
8:11
I'm talking about reuse ability for the launch vehicle.
8:14
What are your thoughts on in space resource utilization?
8:18
For example, water oxygen soil, from the Moon?
8:21
Perhaps maybe they go to Mars, do you have any plans to utilize
8:26
resources in space for the Mission to Mars?
8:32
Nope, I mean apart from orbital refilling, I think that's very
8:38
important. So you better So there's one
8:42
exit besides a fully and we're fully in Raptor rapidly reusable
8:47
rocket. You need to also have orbital
8:49
refilling Ori tanking that's got to be that's fundamental because
8:56
then you can essentially recoup All of your mass fraction Delta
9:02
V in a little bit. You can leave with full tanks
9:07
and it could be from media low earth orbit or, you know
9:11
something that's maybe electrical or something like
9:13
that if you want to go higher energy but that's that's crucial
9:17
for getting to Mars. The Moon is neither here nor
9:20
there. I mean using the moon would be
9:22
like, okay if you want to cross the Atlantic, Maybe you want to
9:27
go to Iceland, probably not, you know, but you know to visit
9:32
sure. But you know, it's not like a
9:34
mandatory stop, you know. Yeah. so, and also For the
9:41
Mission to Mars. What advancements?
9:44
We talked a lot about hardware and physics problems and what
9:48
about advancements in software? You know, reason I bring this
9:52
up, it recently familiar with a game designer, Jonathan Blow, he
9:58
referenced you in a keynote, the show is brought to you by
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Ilan backblaze.com he Lon he was given and he said that you would
12:14
talk about technology naturally decays because skills naturally
12:19
fade, and one of the things he identified was decay in
12:23
software. Degradation software, is this
12:28
something we have to address in doing something like going to
12:31
Mars and since all of the stuff runs on software, What was the
12:35
software is an increasing part of any piece of technology?
12:41
I mean Tesla, the car is extremely configurable.
12:44
It's basically like a laptop on Wheels.
12:47
So software matters enormously there.
12:51
And really, for example, for full autonomy, the Oni gating
12:54
factor of software. The hardware is all there.
12:58
That's required in and has been for the last couple of years.
13:02
What will the final piece of Hardware was up?
13:04
Grading the computer to have more computing power.
13:11
So software is extremely important, the point relating
13:16
to, which is that, you know, was referring to is technology.
13:20
Does not automatically improve right.
13:22
People are used to the phone being better every year.
13:29
And I mean iPhone user, but I think like some of the recent
13:31
software updates have been like not quite certainly feeding it
13:34
to that point like broke my email system.
13:37
Like with the he's like quite fundamental so Yeah.
13:48
It sure is a lot of software out there and some of its like the
13:52
people that wrote it are retired or maybe dad, you know.
13:56
So like now how do you fix it? It was gonna be an issue.
14:01
We definitely need a lot more. Smart people, working software,
14:06
not just troubleshooting old problems, but just
14:09
troubleshooting old problems. It's actually very important to
14:11
retire old code bases, and not just maintain them forever,
14:16
because the difficulty of maintaining them M becomes
14:19
extremely high and it's certain point.
14:21
You just gotta read you the code base.
14:25
So we'll come back to the Mars mission because I know we've got
14:27
some audience questions on that, you know, we're at a satellite
14:30
conference so I'm going to ask you some questions about
14:33
satellites. Starlink what's the long-term
14:37
vision for starlink? How do you see the role of
14:40
starlink as it relates to mobile broadband and 5G?
14:46
Oh sure. So I mean that's the whole
14:50
purpose of SpaceX is really to help Mike life multiplanetary
14:55
and then but the revenue potential of launching rocket
15:00
launching satellites servicing. Space station whatnot.
15:03
That's you know, Taps out around three billion dollars a year but
15:09
I think providing Broadband is more like an order of magnitude
15:13
more than that. Probably 30 billion a year.
15:15
And as a rough approximation and we're so alike, probably below
15:20
5% at that point so it's not like I want to be clear like
15:23
sun-like Star like is some huge threat to telcos.
15:25
I want to be super clear. It is not in fact, it will be
15:29
helpful to telcos because Starling will serve the hardest
15:36
to serve customers that telcos. Otherwise have trouble doing
15:41
with with land lines or even with with cell radio stations.
15:45
With cell towers, if I've G is great for high density
15:52
situations, like being here in DC or, you know, New York, San
15:55
Francisco, that kind of thing. Five G's great for high-density
15:58
situations, but it's actually not great for the countryside.
16:03
You know, for rural areas. It's it's not it's not great.
16:06
You need, you need range. And so any, any kind of sparse
16:10
environment if I were Jesus is really not not Well Suited.
16:15
But it's great, great for in it for for City density situations.
16:20
So Sonic will effectively serve the.
16:23
I don't know three or four percent hardest to reach
16:27
customers for telcos or or people who simply have no
16:30
connectivity right now or the cart, every is really bad.
16:35
So I think it will be actually helpful and take a significant
16:40
load off the traditional telcos. And I was I was going to ask
16:45
you. What customers were ideally
16:47
suited for Starling but I guess since you mentioned that it
16:51
would be, it would be these three to four percent at the
16:54
very like that, at the very edge.
16:57
What is the customer experience? Like then for those people and
17:00
what's the cost of acquiring the services, Well, it will be
17:07
attributed, great experience because it'll be very low
17:10
latency and we're targeting lazy.
17:13
See, below 20 milliseconds. So somebody could could could
17:17
play a fast response video game at a competitive level like
17:22
that's the threshold for the latency.
17:28
So then and bandwidth. The bandwidth is a very complex
17:34
question. But let's just say somebody will
17:38
be able to watch high-def movies, play video games, and do
17:42
all the things they want to do without noticing speed, right?
17:47
And then the, the challenge for anything that is space-based, is
17:52
that the size of the cell is gigantic?
17:55
So it's like, said it's great for For very low to maybe maybe
18:02
mediums sort of sparsity situations.
18:06
But it's not, it's not good for high density situations.
18:10
We will have some small number of customers in LA but we can't
18:14
do a lot of customers in LA because the bandwidth per cell
18:17
is simply not high enough. What is what is the equipment on
18:23
the ground look like for this order?
18:28
It just looks like well, I guess like says it looks like a
18:31
little. You it looks like a UFO on a
18:32
steak. So at least the version one of
18:37
the users have an old will actually have actuators on it so
18:40
that it can it can improve the pointing accuracy so you don't
18:45
have to it's very important that you don't need a specialist or
18:50
so to install the goal is that this that the Instructions in
18:56
the Box will just two instructions and they can be
18:59
done in either order pointed Sky plug-in.
19:05
We do it either order. See you in this matter and it
19:09
will work. Plug-and-play literally also
19:13
pointed sky Was that can see the silence.
19:18
You can't see the satellites. You can't see you.
19:22
Just wanted to talk about just some of the design concerns that
19:26
were raised by astronomers can talk about a little bit about
19:30
how you working maybe working with astronomers to alleviate
19:33
these concerns or are you working on the design or
19:36
altering? It or is are the concerns
19:40
overblown? I mean, how do you feel about?
19:42
What has been raised? I am confident that we will not
19:50
cause any impact whatsoever in astronomical, discoveries 0.
19:56
That's my prediction, will take corrective action if it's above
20:00
zero. So you're not giving like Orion
20:06
a hat or anything like that. It would everything's no.
20:09
I mean this there's a social get a little excited because when
20:12
the when the satellites are first launched that they're
20:17
tumbling a little bit, so they were like, they're kind of like
20:19
they're going to Blink and because they have a stabilized
20:24
and then, and there, they're raising her orbit.
20:27
So they're lower than you'd expect, and they're kind of
20:29
necessarily going to reflect in ways.
20:31
That is not the case when they're on orbit.
20:34
Now that the satellites are on orbit, I'll be impressed if
20:39
somebody can actually tell me where, where all of them are.
20:45
I've not met someone who can tell me where all of them are
20:47
not even one person. Yes thing.
20:51
So that I mean it can't be that big of a deal.
20:58
We are taped here, we are actually working with he
21:01
remembers of the the the science community and Tina were
21:07
astronomers to minimize the potential for reflection of the
21:12
satellites. So, you know, we're running a
21:17
bunch of experiments to, for example, just have a paid the
21:27
Phased array antenna black instead of white.
21:32
And we're working on a, a sunshade because that there are
21:38
like certain angles where if the sun gets just sort of just,
21:43
right? And is not like a little sun
21:46
shade when I'm talking about a lot here, then you can get a
21:48
reflection. And so we're launching a
21:52
sunshade changing, the the color of the satellites and otherwise
21:57
minimizing the potential for any impact even like the
22:05
aesthetically, this issue should not be an impact.
22:08
I think. Recently Gwynne, Shotwell in
22:13
Bloomberg was quoted as saying that you were exploring
22:17
splitting? Starlink from SpaceX, could you
22:20
talk a little bit about that, why that would happen?
22:23
And how you see both of these independent companies
22:26
functioning and just talk a little bit about them?
22:30
Were thinking about that 0, is that we're thinking about that?
22:33
What 000, not thinking about it at all, we need to make this
22:39
thing work. It's far from obvious that.
22:43
I mean, it's real important to just set the stage here for Leo.
22:47
Communications constellations. Guess how many Leo
22:51
constellations didn't go bankrupt?
22:57
0. Right. 0.
23:04
It already is doing okay now but the Iridium one went bankrupt.
23:08
Overcome went bankrupt, globalstar bankrupt, Tell It
23:13
music bankrupt? I'm leaving you without this
23:17
bunch of others that didn't get very far.
23:19
And also went bankrupt in with a warrant bankrupt.
23:23
So focusing on making it work first, not to bankrupt, right?
23:27
And not going to, there's a big W, big stuff.
23:32
It's have liked more than 0 in the not bankrupt category.
23:36
How would you, I mean, with how does it work?
23:39
Then with the the business of SpaceX and she was like I mean
23:42
you are launching other constellations.
23:44
Is that is that an issue? Is that caused a conflict or
23:48
we're launching other constellations you launch the
23:51
other satellites as well? Yeah, sure whatever.
23:53
Yeah, no problem. Of course, right?
23:57
So there's no, like even giving them a good deal, like, no
24:02
problem and we won't. You constellation on SpaceX.
24:04
Sounds good to me. so I mean I think that you know I think
24:08
there's the world seems to have an insatiable appetite for
24:12
bandwidth so we're certainly happy to launch other satellites
24:16
and you know we don't think starlink is got going to destroy
24:20
all other satellites or something like that or
24:21
definitely not All right. Yeah, we were sworn to be in the
24:26
not bankrupt category. That's our goal.
24:32
Since you're sincere now the company of SpaceX now you're
24:36
building a launching satellites. Are you looking at expanding the
24:40
business of SpaceX and other areas of commercial satellite
24:43
connectivity? Maybe like we talked a little
24:45
bit about the you're already building like technology on the
24:48
ground. Are there other areas that
24:50
you're looking to get into in terms of commercial space
24:54
connectivity or satellite services?
24:58
No, we're there's just this two major new technology programs at
25:04
SpaceX. That's starlink and Starship.
25:07
Well, it's kind of a star in the name of it too much and we were
25:10
just scolded like link and Chip. If you divide the one by the
25:13
other, it Stars net out and then it's just making sure that's it.
25:21
As I know. Anyway him through some secret
25:23
project that's so secret. I mean I don't know about it.
25:26
You know, I have a business under the chairs.
25:30
I don't think there's anything major, so I want to, I want to
25:35
give time for the people in the audience.
25:36
Asked some questions. But we talked about Starship.
25:41
So development at Boca Chica is moving along pretty quickly.
25:45
And yeah, actually, that was a real reason I was late is
25:47
because that book chica my apologies, as just working on
25:50
Starship in there. So it's pretty cool.
25:54
That they're actually, I like it.
25:56
And tell us a little bit about the work that's underway, what
25:59
we can expect in the future for Starship.
26:03
Well, we're building a production line.
26:06
Production line is the hard part is making?
26:09
What if something is, well at this point, like frankly,
26:14
designing Rockets are not that hard especially if it's an
26:18
Expendable rocket. It's not really a hard problem.
26:21
You can literally read books. It'll tell you exactly how to do
26:24
it. The hard part is that now
26:28
actually building that thing. Even once is hard then, building
26:32
a production line, Is 1000% hotter?
26:36
Like at least a thousand percent hotter.
26:38
Yeah, maybe more. So.
26:42
Just in general production and Manufacturing is
26:45
underappreciated, I think, especially in the u.s. frankly.
26:51
So we should really pay a lot more attention and care a lot
26:55
more about manufacturing. This is Yeah, this is not a
27:04
stage work me tell you. So, what inspired some of the
27:10
design Aesthetics of the spacecraft and stainless steel?
27:13
It's a striking design versus first spacecraft but would
27:19
inspired your vision for the way.
27:22
It looks way it functions like y stainless steel, why?
27:30
Well, we were going to make it out of advanced composites.
27:37
And the advanced Composites, the cost like $60 a pound over,
27:41
sixty dollars, a kilogram like a little more than that, maybe 130
27:44
dollars a pound. And there were 60 120 Plies
27:50
before the tank was taking forever.
27:53
You weren't making good progress cost crazy money.
27:57
I was like, okay, Switching to aluminum lithium is also a pain
28:03
in the neck. We do.
28:04
That's what we use for the Falcon 9 tanks because It's hard
28:08
to world because of the reactivity of the lithium.
28:10
So you know what's easy to weld? Steel feels really easy to world
28:17
and stainless steel doesn't even require paint.
28:19
That sounds great because the paint drops of pain in the neck
28:24
and you won't try painting something.
28:25
That's got a good at dropped, a cryogenic temperatures and then
28:29
bend a lot is, like, forget it and that paint wants to come
28:32
off. Like, there's no tomorrow.
28:35
It does not like to steak. So you could use special paint
28:39
and then the special paint also can't get like, when you going
28:43
vertically at like supersonic, you get basically static
28:50
electricity of old up code. Treiber electrification lowest
28:54
reminds me the trouble of troubles but you can basically
28:58
zap yourself if you have paint that wrong paint.
29:03
Yeah. So all right, there's no paint
29:06
is great. Yeah, because we need a big
29:09
friggin, big ass, paint shop for Starship well, that's problem
29:13
with one less problem. And paint, doesn't weigh zero.
29:17
You know, they used to paint the the shuttle external tank white.
29:21
But then like, like we're adding a lot of weight to this thing
29:25
and it's big pain. The next year, we'll see.
29:26
We just have it. Stay orange, so just not
29:33
painting. It is great.
29:34
So Then, you know, we're not the first to use steel, like they
29:40
use 301 and the early Atlas program.
29:42
Charlie, bossert, I think it was It was his idea, obviously other
29:48
people involved. But Charlie blasted, by the way
29:51
that guy's underappreciated, he kicks ass.
29:53
It's really great. It's read about his stuff.
29:56
He's awesome. So here's 3 or 1.
30:01
So obviously it's not a new alloy.
30:03
I think we're going to start switching to a different alloy
30:07
pretty soon. And then just tweet the alloy
30:12
constituents because we should be able to better in 2020 than
30:15
they were that they didn't like the 50s, you know?
30:18
So, I mean, come on. So I will probably start
30:22
switching away from 301, maybe the next month or two Now, the
30:30
funny thing is that like actually knew that steel,
30:33
especially 301, full heart steel couldn't be that heavy, because
30:38
original Atlas had a very good Mass fraction, right?
30:41
So it can't be that wrong bad. And if you look at the moment,
30:48
sort of standard material sheet for 301 will usually not tell
30:54
you what that it work hardens dramatically and improves the
30:59
Like dramatically with work hardening.
31:02
And also at cryogenic temperatures, it improves
31:05
strength dramatically. So then the, if you combine the
31:09
work, hardening with the cryo strength Improvement, you get an
31:14
effective strength to weight. That is About the same as a bed
31:21
bands composite, everyone will generally make a mistake with
31:25
Composites because they're look at the material sheet and not
31:29
realize that. Okay, with Composites, you got
31:31
to have a big knock down because you basically have Composites
31:34
are string and glue and so you and There.
31:41
You can't just like, have like, let's say your problem cause for
31:46
having for pliers of carbon, you can't just have four players.
31:49
You need like five or six because in case you damage one
31:53
or something like that. And you say what's your worst
31:55
case allowable for a d Bond or something like that?
31:58
So the actual knock down you end up taking for Composites is more
32:02
than you would for a metal structure.
32:04
So people often it's like a classic movie mistake is to
32:07
overrate carbon fiber. It's just you look at the
32:13
material data sheet and looks like an obvious move, but it's
32:17
not so Airy. So at hygienic temperature is
32:23
the steel is has a de facto strength-to-weight about the
32:28
same as advanced composite, but that does not even counting.
32:32
The fact that you have to pay the composite.
32:34
Don't repeat this deal. Then there's a another factor
32:38
which is if you want to have a reusable vehicle it's going to
32:41
get hot composite don't like getting hot.
32:46
So you know typically your composite maybe is comfortable
32:52
up to around. 150 200 Celsius, something like that you know and
33:00
things start getting pretty sketchy around 250 C.
33:03
I mean like you start having to use Advanced resins and we'll
33:06
like kind of thing. So we're steals pretty happy at
33:11
1000 see you know no pain, no problem with by 500 considered
33:16
fiber, it sealed a and brief periods of a thousand seat.
33:20
No problem. So then for a reasonable
33:26
vehicle, you now need zero heat shielding on the leeward side.
33:31
Normally you need some heat shielding just tutored.
33:33
You to rate it a feeding on the back so you don't have a lot of
33:38
convective heating at Hypersonic.
33:39
Would you have radiative Heating and then you can thin out the
33:44
windward side of the heat shield because the thickness of the
33:48
heat shield tile is driven by The temperature on the backside
33:54
of the tile, where it mounts the primary structure.
33:57
So if your primary structure can take a high heat, that means you
34:01
can thin out the tile. So think anything of it like
34:05
these like like oven mitts or something?
34:07
You know, if you have like, how hot can your hand go?
34:11
And that has sets out that your oven mitt is right?
34:15
So then you can have like I said, no, no heat shield on the
34:19
leeward side on a And then heat shield on the windward side.
34:24
So now your actual total mass of a steel of reasonable steals
34:30
spacecraft is less than that of the most advanced carbon fiber
34:34
Bickle. You could possibly imagine.
34:36
Yeah, it doesn't happen by accident, by the way.
34:40
It may sound like some great Insight, but it actually
34:43
happened because we were moving too slowly on composite and I
34:46
was like, we cannot move the slowly or will go back up.
34:49
So just Do this with steel. So yeah.
34:53
I mean, the design has to be focused on problem-solving,
34:56
otherwise, you're going to spend too much time.
34:58
Trying to figure out you. You don't start with a yeah.
35:01
Yeah, I'm like sort of taken to management management by
35:05
rhyming. If the schedule is schedule is
35:07
long, Your Design is wrong, right?
35:11
This is very true, good point. Yes, with that, I want to go to
35:16
some audience questions. We asked the audience through
35:19
the app, to submit us questions, so I believe we have a few that
35:24
we've pulled here. So we've got some over here.
35:27
Can we and can you come closer over here?
35:30
So we can, we can see it's like All right, our first question,
35:37
hello. I'm Jane zundel.
35:39
I'm a graduate student at Stanford.
35:41
My question for you is, as you look back on your career in the
35:44
space industry, what has been the most surprising or
35:47
unexpected challenge that you faced and along those lines?
35:49
If you were to go back in time and talk to your 20 year old
35:51
self, would you do anything differently?
35:56
Go back in time to your 20 year old self.
36:00
I mean, I think I could, if I get it, I think it would make a
36:03
far, fewer mistakes. I was the if I could go like,
36:07
here's a list of all the dumb things you're about to do.
36:08
Please do not hear them when we all be a very long list.
36:12
And like, here, let me Arabic me, write it down or something,
36:16
you know? I mean, it's hindsight is 20/20.
36:20
So, it's hard to say, I mean number I've made so many foolish
36:26
mistakes. I luck out honestly.
36:35
Recently things I just wish I'd like the the like that's simple
36:40
sort of Mantra management by rhyming.
36:43
I mean, it worked for him or okay management by rhyming is
36:52
That thing I was saying, like, if the schedules longer design
36:55
is wrong, we've overcomplicated, the design many times, and I
37:03
think we should just gone with a simpler design with the asset
37:09
test. Being, how long will it take to
37:12
for this to fly? And if it's going to take a long
37:16
time, don't do it. Do something else.
37:21
If you look at say Falcon, 9 has got a aluminum lithium tank.
37:26
But then the Unpressurized structures are carbon fiber
37:32
composite and really one of the worst possible things you could
37:37
do to a joint is take something with a high coefficient of
37:42
thermal expansion. High CTE put go take it from
37:49
room temperature to cry. Oh and then connected to
37:52
something that has zero CTE, you know, basically zero or like a
37:56
carbon fiber. So now Are you got a real pain
38:00
in the asteroid basically, right?
38:04
So in order for that to work, you've got to the tanks got to
38:08
shrink radially and you've got these super expensive, heavy
38:13
bolts that are like the beam in vending across that are then
38:19
taking load into. The interstage and they
38:25
desperately want to share off or snap off.
38:29
This is crazy. You know, really just have a
38:35
continuous metal structure but that's the obvious that should
38:39
be done every way better. You know, things expand to fill
38:44
the available resources. So then like we're some of you,
38:48
you should say no to things that you don't.
38:53
No, like the original Falcon one team, which the the fairing
38:58
tanks engines or everything. Pretty much was maybe a little
39:02
over 100 people. Now SpaceX is like 6,000 people.
39:07
I think something like now, So it's a really really just
39:14
simplify your product as much as possible.
39:25
And then like it was think of some of the ways in which how
39:27
does this smart engineer, make dumb, mistakes included.
39:31
You know, is optimize something that shouldn't exist, don't
39:38
optimize something that shouldn't exist, but people are
39:41
trained to do this in college. You can't say no to the
39:43
professor, you know, force is going to give you the exam and
39:46
you've got to answer all the questions.
39:49
Or they will get angry. So I give you a bad grade.
39:55
So then you you always optimize the yours answer.
39:59
The question, all the times you say, this was the wrong
40:03
question. Right.
40:06
In fact, the question is definitely wrong to some degree.
40:08
Just how wrong. And I think just generally
40:12
taking the approach that your design is some degree wrong,
40:18
probably a lot more than you think.
40:20
Your goal is to make it less wrong over time.
40:24
Do you have that? It's good right now.
40:25
The question. Hi.
40:34
My name is Julie, seven. Sage and mr.
40:38
Musk, you've said in the past that you think that college
40:41
degrees shouldn't be that important and that has been
40:44
showed in job listings in places, such as Tesla.
40:47
However, in places like sis industry, including even at
40:52
SpaceX in the satellite Development Area, many of the
40:55
job listings say that you need at least a bachelor's degree and
40:59
prefer at least a master's degree.
41:02
So My question to you is with more jobs, asking for higher
41:09
levels of degrees without scholarships are not changing
41:12
amounts and that is getting harder and harder every year to
41:15
pay tuition, even with using scholarships how can colleges
41:19
and industries, make it easier to afford college, but at the
41:24
same time, being able to pay grad students and employees.
41:29
Well, and also the make sure that there is a large-scale Us
41:33
to good colleges, especially to underprivileged communities so
41:38
that everyone can be a part of the future rebuilding.
41:41
Thank you. Well, first of all, you don't
41:45
need college, learn it learn stuff, okay, everything is
41:49
available, basically, for free. You can learn anything you want
41:52
for free. It is not a question of
41:55
learning. There is a value that colleges
41:59
have, which is like, you know, seeing whether somebody's is,
42:05
can somebody work hard at something, including a bunch of
42:08
sort of annoying homework, assignments and still do their
42:11
homework assignments. And and car Soldier through and
42:15
get it done. You know, that's that's like the
42:20
main value of college and then also, you know, if your you if
42:23
you probably want to hang around with a bunch of people, your own
42:26
age for a while, instead of going drag it right into the
42:28
workforce. So I think colleges are
42:32
basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores but
42:35
they're not for learning. And as I know, we started late
42:43
and I know we don't have much time left, but to build on
42:46
Julie's question here, how does somebody like you with a very
42:50
long-term Mission? Going to Mars?
42:52
How are you Colt evading the next generation of leadership to
42:55
take you there? Because I mean this is this is a
42:57
long-term project. You might we might not be around
43:00
to see us, finally resettle on Mars and or maybe I mean, I hope
43:06
I'm not dead by the time if you'll go to Mars, that would be
43:09
a great. Perkins, great outcome.
43:12
I think I might be, you know, if we don't improve our pace of
43:15
progress, I'm definitely, you know, going to be dead before we
43:18
go to Mars. So I'm just like, would like to
43:22
not be dead when by the time we go to Mars, that's my aspiration
43:27
here. So if it's taken us, 18 years,
43:31
just to get ready to the first people, to orbit, we're better
43:35
improve our rate of innovation or you know, based on past
43:39
trends And I am definitely going to be dead before Mars.
43:46
So we're going to improve our pace of innovation a lot.
43:50
So yeah. It's what I'd say is I can tell
43:59
you can see you. How do you communicate that
44:01
Vision? You have to that to the somebody
44:04
who could maybe take over for what you're doing and to see
44:06
things the way you're seeing them in terms of the mission.
44:10
Forever, a lot of good. Good people at SpaceX, that are
44:15
a lot of really talented people. In fact, I wonder like,
44:21
sometimes we how we can make use of their talents in the best way
44:26
because, you know, I think we're often not using their talents in
44:29
the best way. Yeah.
44:37
But you know, to the point of the question that was just asked
44:40
them to make sure Tesla recruiting does not have
44:42
anything that says requires University because that's
44:46
absurd. But there is a requirement of
44:50
evidence of exceptional ability like you just can't if you try
44:54
to do something, exceptionally must have evidence of
44:56
exceptional ability. I don't consider going to
44:58
college evidence of exceptional ability.
45:01
In fact, ideally you dropped out and did something.
45:06
And obviously you know, because look at like, you know, gates
45:10
are pretty smart guy, he dropped out jobs pretty smart.
45:14
He dropped out, you know, Larry Ellison, smart guy, he dropped
45:18
out, like obviously not needed. So, the Shakespeare even go to
45:24
college, probably not. Well, I'm thank you so much.
45:29
I wish we could take more audience questions.
45:31
I know we have it. We have a hard stop at.
45:32
Thank you meal on for stopping by.
45:34
Thank you. Let's give him a round of
45:35
applause for stopping by. And speaking through US, enjoy
45:41
the rest of your evening and Thank you.