Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / SpaceX Starship Update #20 - Orbital Flight Test

Transcript

SpaceX Starship Update #20 - Orbital Flight Test · Elon Musk Podcast

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.
0:02
I have with me today, Neal Thorne part of our team.
0:05
And today, we're going to be talking about the upcoming
0:07
testing of this Starship, super heavy vehicle and the orbital
0:12
flight test, that could be coming in the next month or two.
0:17
Are you doing you good? How are you doing?
0:19
Well, I'm doing fantastic. Thank you very much.
0:21
Awesome. So we have some, some really
0:24
exciting things happening down at Starbase Texas with the the
0:27
Starship super heavy vehicle. There's on Going testing ships,
0:31
been stacked. On top of booster seven
0:33
recently. Oh, I love that video to see the
0:35
Drone video of that SpaceX. Put out of that.
0:38
Yeah, I cried. I cried a little bit.
0:40
That was amazing. A is insane.
0:42
I'm so the cool thing is Ilan has been tweeting about, you
0:47
know, the Starships going to launch soon.
0:49
Starship launch next. Couple months over the last like
0:53
four or five months. He's been saying those things
0:55
and he's also said last year, but now SpaceX actually tweeted.
1:00
Something and said, hey we're getting ready for this launch
1:04
and that's a pretty good indicator that SpaceX is Twitter
1:08
account. You know, they said that.
1:10
And I mean are you suggesting even for a moment that Elon
1:14
might exaggerate timelines? I would never I would never say
1:17
that Ilan. The I think it's very optimistic
1:21
with his predictions but as an engineer I can see where he
1:25
would think that things were moving fast and that things
1:29
aren't going to go wrong. Wrong.
1:30
And if everything goes well, you know, things are just going to
1:33
move straight forward and things are going to fly like the
1:36
Starship is going to fly. So now that we have sort of
1:38
confirmation, I guess from SpaceX that that's going to
1:43
happen, maybe late February, March ish, according to SpaceX
1:50
is, you know, a tweet, which they said they have to do a
1:54
3300, static fire, and they also have to do some more cryo
1:57
testing, and tank testing and things like that.
2:00
So we'll see what happens. You know, in my research, just
2:03
to what we're going to talk about on this show and how it's
2:06
going to go. It was amazing.
2:07
All the different things that are going to have to happen.
2:09
Before this thing go much, it's quite a complex process.
2:13
Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts
2:15
and yeah, the thing that's the thing that's really important
2:19
that Elon is mentioned in the past is the the orbital launch
2:21
Mount and how important that is to the whole thing, like the
2:24
stage zero stage 0 and if anything happens to that thing.
2:29
So Oh, they're going very cautiously and they're working
2:33
hard to get everything in place with the, you know, the testing
2:37
schedule that they have right now.
2:40
So I think overall we need to everybody needs to remember
2:43
that. This is just a test vehicle,
2:44
right? It's a test vehicle as much as
2:46
the launch mode is everything. It's never launched anything
2:49
before. Everything is a test right now,
2:52
man, if anything goes wrong, hey, it's part of the testing,
2:56
you know, and they expect things to go wrong.
2:59
There's In numerous times, that a line has said, it's going to
3:02
be cool if it leaves, you know, leaves the pad and actually
3:05
clears the tower. And if yeah it's the most
3:08
dangerous part of this whole thing.
3:09
Yep. And not only from just the
3:12
engineering of how it in the physics of getting this rocket
3:16
out of this, you know, beyond the towers range.
3:18
Getting it off the ground to begin with is the hardest part.
3:21
But also, if anything does go wrong it will destroy that Tower
3:24
and set them back months and months.
3:26
Yeah. And you know the FAA is part of
3:29
that hole. Process to because they'll have
3:31
to report everything. The FAA, even though it is a
3:34
test vehicle and the FAA is aware of that.
3:36
Next, we'll have to make sure that the FAA is aware of what
3:40
happens in why that's ship, you know, write it on the pad but
3:44
lets you want to talk about what's going on like at Starbase
3:47
right now, before we get into the actual launch itself.
3:49
Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, let's let's go over,
3:51
what's happened? I think the ultimate goal is to
3:53
not read on the Launchpad so we'll talk about what they're
3:56
doing to prevent that. Yeah, that's right.
3:59
Now, we've got stacked Starship, we've got before on top of
4:02
booster 7 sitting on the launch Mount, what's next?
4:06
Well, they're doing cryo tests today.
4:09
There's been numerous tests, starting today.
4:12
In, there were some yesterday, there were some very, very small
4:15
initial tests yesterday, which only lasted if somebody
4:19
yesterday might have been to the ground ground level stuff that
4:22
they were testing, yet the ground system, making sure
4:24
ground systems. Making sure all the valves and
4:28
all the cryostat. Duff was working on the ground
4:31
before they started working on the ship.
4:33
Yep. And today they're they're
4:35
filling the thing up but fill it up.
4:37
It looks like they're filling up the booster booster 7.
4:39
I haven't seen any condensation on the ship quite yet today, so
4:43
it looks like they're testing the internals of the booster and
4:46
filling it up and doing some cryo test with that.
4:49
So yeah, pretty much, I think most likely using liquid
4:52
nitrogen as opposed to methane to just to test things out.
4:55
Yep. Get it cold.
4:56
Get it right cold? Yeah exactly.
4:58
And moving on. From here, I mean, they're going
5:01
to have to do, they might even do numerous cry at like,
5:04
different cryo, tests every single day, this show is brought
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Ilan. So they have road closures for
7:20
the next. What is it week or so down
7:22
there. So it shows that they're going
7:24
to be testing between like 8 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. yeah 8 a.m.
7:28
and 8 p.m. a whole 12 hour test schedule so they could possibly
7:32
do numerous tests in a day but we're not going to see a static
7:36
fire any time soon. Not at all no ice.
7:38
And as far as I'm aware, I think they're done with status firing
7:42
as 24. I think they're they've finished
7:45
with that unless they prove me wrong of course.
7:47
But say It seems to me that this next month is month and a half.
7:50
Two months is all sort of my guess is that they're doing a
7:54
lot more recording of the tests and and documenting of the test
7:59
so that they can formally submit something to the FAA to get this
8:02
thing off. The ground, sort of going
8:04
through a process more than just going through tests.
8:07
Yeah, I believe so too and ship 24.
8:10
Like you said, was it's been tested since July June June or
8:14
July of this year like that? Yeah, yeah.
8:17
And and s24 before that, like it's I think they've done so
8:22
many cryos on these vehicles, that there's really no point in
8:26
doing them, except to make sure that they've got everything
8:29
documented in their got all their T's crossed.
8:32
And there's I doubted. Yeah, and after the booster
8:35
seven static fires, they've done.
8:37
Fuse, different static fires with booster 7.
8:39
So they have to make sure that the internal still work before
8:42
they, you know, have a stack of ship 24 on top of it.
8:46
And also, you know, they got to make sure that those things
8:49
work. So when they actually do a full
8:52
wet dress rehearsal and then they move on to the static fire
8:56
and they'll have to do a wet dress, a full wet dress
8:58
rehearsal before the static fire to make sure everything was
9:01
absolutely ship and the booster And so I think, I don't know.
9:07
I the timeline here is kind of it's It's kind of rolling,
9:11
right? So we don't know exactly what
9:14
they're testing right now. We know they're doing cryo
9:16
testing, we're going to be testing the internals.
9:20
Yeah, we can physically see what's being tested by the fact
9:23
that something is getting Frosty or not Frosty or you know, it's
9:27
foggy here or not foggy there but there's also probably a lot
9:30
more going on behind the scenes that we have no idea.
9:32
Yeah there's a lot of data collection going on.
9:34
On and start base headquarters and at SpaceX headquarters in
9:37
Hawthorne and lot of data data analyst kind of processes going
9:44
on right now in once all that happened.
9:47
Like once the cryo stuff, seems okay.
9:49
Like what those what's all those tests are done.
9:52
They're going to do the full wet dress rehearsal, basically
9:56
getting the ship, and the booster ready for flight, and
9:59
then just not hitting the button to go.
10:02
I guess what? It seems like right now.
10:04
That seems like the next possible stage.
10:07
That's right. Yeah, once they've done all the
10:08
cryo so maybe wet dress is next might as well.
10:11
Make sure everything's running the engines Prime up and start
10:15
spinning and and then canceled last second before you hit the
10:18
fire button, right? And that's the important part,
10:21
right? Yeah.
10:23
The launch the sharing have it clamped down to just?
10:25
Yeah, well, having them down. Yeah.
10:27
And they have a clamp down for sure.
10:28
And that's what they were testing.
10:29
I guess last week, or week before, they had the huge amount
10:32
of weight on those clamps. To test that the weight that
10:35
they are, the forces that they may encounter during a static
10:39
fire and actually the firing of the the rocket.
10:42
So just testing to make sure that those are strong enough to
10:45
withstand 33 engines doing a static fire.
10:48
Yeah. And so I'm will get into this a
10:52
little bit later but that's the 3300 static fire is going to be
10:56
impressive but first they have to remove the ship from the
11:01
booster, right? They have to take the ship off.
11:03
I had thoughts about Boat that. I mean they probably will they
11:06
probably will remove s24 from the top but I wonder whether
11:12
they leave it in place to see what, what happens, what kind of
11:14
vibrations, they can feel and how does that?
11:17
How does the the connection point?
11:19
The fueling Point, all that stuff.
11:21
How does that actually interact with the vibrations that are
11:24
coming from Below? I wonder if they leave it on top
11:28
for a static fire. Maybe maybe not 33 engines, but
11:31
perhaps some there would be a would be a because they haven't
11:35
done that yet, right? They haven't actually seen, I'm
11:37
sure they've they've monitored the vibrations that are
11:39
happening throughout the booster, but they haven't done
11:42
it with a ship on top. Yeah, that's true.
11:45
You know, they could do and if I were putting something door, but
11:48
I'd certainly want to know how it's going to react before you
11:51
do that. Yeah, I agree.
11:53
I agree with you, so what? There's a few different theories
11:57
here is one is the they leave it on for a few engines.
12:02
If you had just had a fire maybe like a 10 or 15 engine static
12:05
fire and you know just like you said, the vibrations make sure
12:08
everything stays in place, ten or ten or fifteen like they've
12:12
ever done more than a life. Like no big deal.
12:14
Nobody does filmmaker 1520. Who knows, throat?
12:17
Yeah, whatever. Whatever number they feel like.
12:20
But they have 33 engines. So they have to kind of get a
12:22
feel of what it's going to be like to Forecast a ton of
12:27
engines, you know? Like the 33 engines is going to
12:29
be an insane, insane sight to see.
12:32
So in here it here. Yeah.
12:34
That's going to be another thing.
12:35
It's going to be loud and it's going to be possibly destructive
12:40
to the to the pad but we'll also talk about that a little bit
12:43
later. Yeah.
12:44
That mean they certainly tried to tried to reinforce the pad.
12:47
I think we saw a video or photo yesterday about SpaceX looks
12:52
like they're testing concrete testing engine block.
12:55
X just to see what kind of concrete might be able to
12:59
withstand these forces better. So yeah, they're certainly
13:02
certainly anticipating some damage to the tower.
13:06
Well every static fire before this from from the booster
13:09
there's been some sort of damage to the to the pad to the can
13:13
already see new things, added new shields added to the the
13:17
still little legs and different things.
13:20
Yeah. So it's going to be an
13:22
interesting thing to say, It's gotta be wild.
13:24
Nobody's ever shot a rocket this power.
13:25
Pull up. Yeah.
13:26
So so so the when you were saying the static fire of the
13:30
ship, you know, ship 24 on top of the booster so going back to
13:33
the theories that are out there right now.
13:35
There's one well do 10 to 15 engine static fire with the ship
13:40
on top but also if they do that, the May remove the ship and move
13:48
it to the side. Remove the lift points on the
13:51
ship. And then fill those in with
13:54
thermal protection, which right? You know, which is probably one
13:59
of the things that they're going to do anyway, you know, so
14:01
everything yet. So the lift points being where
14:03
they would lift the, the ship of the Kareem res opposed to using
14:06
the Chopsticks, right? Right.
14:08
And then they put it back on top and then they would do an actual
14:11
33. Static fire 3300, static fire
14:13
with it on top and that may be an FAA ruling, you know, they
14:18
may have requirement. Yeah, it may have to do it will
14:20
be full, static fire because they do, It with every other
14:23
ship, you know, Falcon heavy, they do it.
14:26
They do with Falcon 9, they do with every other.
14:28
Rock it out there, they do quick static fire.
14:30
It doesn't have to be long. It's just like just like Falcon
14:34
boosters landing on chips. This will all seem s, you know,
14:38
old hat and before you know it they'll still have a booster
14:43
rocket on top of a booster. They'll they'll fire up thirty
14:46
three engines in the next day off, they go.
14:48
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
14:50
It's gonna is gonna be quite excited.
14:51
Yeah, the next 10 years of space.
14:52
Slater going to be absolutely wild.
14:55
Did you see that? They did the Falcon heavy static
14:57
fire? The other day, two are for the
14:58
no, I missed that. Yeah, they have a Department of
15:01
Defense Mission coming up, but that was a that's kind of an
15:04
indicator because it has, you know, Falcon few Falcon 9's
15:09
attached to it. Yeah.
15:12
That's 27 minutes right there and they have to stand in fire
15:14
all those so 33, even though they are the most powerful
15:17
engines in the world, you know, the more than likely have to
15:20
static fire, everything with everything attached.
15:22
To it. So, yeah, I'm assuming that's
15:26
what's going to happen. I mean, we think of these things
15:28
as two different pieces, the the booster and the ship.
15:31
But if you look at a falcon 9, they're attached already, right?
15:36
Update? They come pre-attached.
15:38
The top being priest, priest attic fired somewhere else and
15:41
then they attach it like it's really one rocket.
15:44
We have start thinking of it as a Starship, as opposed to a
15:46
booster in the ship. You know, that's how they're
15:48
going to come. Yep, it's they may be in
15:51
different pieces but it's all one.
15:53
Yeah, in the manufacturing process is a little bit
15:55
different, you know, the they mate the fairing of a falcon 9
16:01
differently than they do with the Starship.
16:03
The Starship has the chum sticks and the Falcon 9 they, you know,
16:07
it's a different process. So, but at the end, like you
16:09
said full rocket. When you're done, when you're
16:11
ready to launch the thing, it's not to Pieces.
16:13
It's one big thing. Until of course you get to the
16:17
place where you do separate them on the way up.
16:20
Yeah, which happens with every other rocket out there as
16:22
exactly. So, Nova single stage to orbit
16:25
does not work very well. Yeah.
16:26
So everybody has two stages at least.
16:28
Yeah, exactly. So the I mean, the will they
16:35
leave? Will they leave this ship on top
16:37
probably? That's what we're guessing
16:39
right? I think that's weird.
16:41
I would think that certainly for certainly for one of the static
16:45
fires of the booster, they leave the ship on top.
16:47
Yeah it's my guess maybe for the first 33 engine set a fire
16:51
they'll take it off because they haven't done that.
16:53
With the booster yet and then maybe it goes back on and leave
16:55
another. I'm not sure.
16:56
Yeah. And the 33 engine static fire of
16:59
the booster could possibly be you know one of the one of the
17:03
pieces of this whole thing that sets them back a little bit.
17:08
Who knows who knows what's going to happen with a full 33 engine?
17:11
Static fire and they're going to have to go through all the data
17:14
make sure everything works right if everything works absolutely
17:19
perfect they'll make the ship back on top.
17:23
And then do possibly, you know they may do another wet dress
17:26
rehearsal in another cryo after that just to make sure
17:28
everything works but and then just get it ready for flight you
17:32
know. Get do another static sighs.
17:34
Yeah. Absolutely.
17:35
I think it's important to note that you and I and all other
17:39
space enthusiasts are in a hurry.
17:41
A star Starship SpaceX is not in a hurry.
17:44
No, they uh they don't certainly the certainly they want to get
17:46
this up in the air as soon as they can, but if something makes
17:50
them stop and pause and start over Over then they're going to
17:53
do that. If there's too much at stake to
17:55
be rushing this. Yeah.
17:56
And even though we love to see these giant tests happening, you
18:01
know, this this whole test schedule is amazing and it's
18:04
just cool. I can steer a rocket like I
18:06
could just stare at a rock and watch it frost over four hours.
18:09
I have a second Monitor and I have one of my windows open over
18:12
there and I have it cued into two different YouTube channels
18:17
that have live footage of the Starship test facility and I
18:22
watch All the innocent, it literally just a rocket that's
18:24
getting Frosty or like you know, a semi truck rolls down the
18:28
highway with some propellant in it and I get excited.
18:31
So yeah for sure like I was when they were doing some work with
18:34
cranes, back in the day maybe building the tower, the launch
18:38
Tower. I stopped and thought to myself,
18:41
this is just a crane lifting, a piece of metal.
18:44
Yeah. What am I?
18:45
Am I watching this? Yeah, but see, it's exciting.
18:48
I think it's, it's exciting. That the end result of that.
18:51
We know what? What it's for and what it could
18:54
potentially end up doing and being and I think that's what
18:56
excites us. Yeah, it's the whole process.
18:59
You know, once we have this whole thing is complete and once
19:03
they actually figure out the whole process of launching these
19:07
things catching them, relaunching them.
19:10
There's going to be sending people to filling in space.
19:12
They're going to be sending people to the Moon, you know,
19:15
with this rocket and also eventually sending people and
19:19
things to Mars with it. It's Exciting just to watch any
19:24
part of it. And that was, you know, I, you
19:27
know, when I went down to Texas to cover this for 10 months, it
19:30
was basically because I was super excited about it.
19:34
It wasn't like, it wasn't a business move or anything like
19:36
that. It was more sir.
19:38
Yeah, exactly. I still covering it.
19:40
But, you know, I moved down there because I was so excited
19:43
about everything. And I like every day, I'd wake
19:46
up and cover this thing and it some days were just like
19:50
torrential downpour you know, but I'm like what do they do?
19:52
In a Starbase and I would go down and check it out, but every
19:55
day it's exciting and it's still exciting, you know, just
19:58
watching the cameras. So I think it's an incredible
20:00
thing that we're able to watch it.
20:01
Yeah, exactly that. It's that's happening in the
20:04
open. It's, you know, they're building
20:07
rockets in the air which is outstanding to me.
20:12
It always seemed when I was a kid.
20:13
It always seemed like something that would happen in a
20:15
climate-controlled room with cycled are and everybody.
20:19
And, you know, the old NASA pictures of in the current NASA
20:21
figures of people. You know, dust suits and
20:25
decontamination suits and that sort of thing around these
20:28
satellites that they send up there.
20:30
That's that's was always growing up my impression of what the
20:35
industry was and here we are, they're building it out in the
20:38
open air middle of the welds that you can click clearly see
20:41
and you know, they get better at those every time they do it too.
20:44
But it's just rather amazing to watch the iterations happen.
20:48
Yeah. And it's not even, you know,
20:50
it's a brutal environment down there too.
20:52
So you see it, you see it on YouTube or, you know, wherever
20:56
you see the footage and you don't realize how hot it is.
20:59
It's like 100 degrees every day Fahrenheit.
21:02
And there's sandblasting everywhere because it's next to
21:05
the beach. There's, you know, there's just
21:07
humidity, that's ridiculous. But they're doing this all out
21:10
in the open for everybody to see and it's it's a wonderful thing
21:15
and it gets people excited about space flight and excited about
21:18
the future. So I'm I'm as excited as anybody
21:22
else. Else you know watch all the
21:24
videos and watch all the updates and also produce videos and
21:29
updates and make podcasts about it.
21:32
Like we do it because we love it you know.
21:34
So I'm excited about the next phase which is moving over to
21:38
Florida which with this thing you know they're testing it in
21:42
Texas now but they're going to move over to Florida.
21:45
Yeah, I think it's still up in the air how they're going to get
21:47
Rockets over there. I think I saw some where there
21:50
was a potential what would you call it?
21:52
Like a basket that would fit in the back of a truck to transport
21:55
these boosters and Rockets horizontally by road?
21:58
So that's certainly one way. They could also fly them over.
22:02
If I get good enough, there's no reason you can't fly a booster
22:04
or rocket over 2 or just the cape and land it down.
22:08
I know that they're certainly getting ready over there that
22:11
the towers built. And I think that I think I saw,
22:14
yes, Say that the Chopsticks were on their way over to the
22:17
tower. So they're going to be installed
22:19
in the next week or two. So that's pretty exciting too.
22:22
Yeah that's that's a huge building.
22:25
A secondary Tower launch Tower over there.
22:28
The same as the one in Texas. Yeah.
22:31
And now that once they had the the Texas Tower kind of flushed
22:34
out and built in, they know what to do which is pretty cool that
22:40
they use this as a test bed for just the tower, you know, most
22:44
of these towers. That are already built kind of
22:46
use knowledge that somebody else had in the past like somebody
22:50
like NASA built a launch Tower. So somebody two years ago.
22:54
Yeah, exactly. So, but now this is a whole new
22:56
thing. You know, the the Chopsticks
22:59
brand-new, no one's done it before so that no one has ever
23:02
caught a rocket before before certainly, especially a rocket
23:06
of like 400 feet tall like that. Yeah, it's insane.
23:09
You know, like the the booster itself is what 225 feet tall,
23:13
somewhere around there, something like that?
23:14
Yeah. Yeah.
23:15
In the ship is, you know, 150 ish feet tall.
23:18
So it's about 400 feet tall, it catching each one of these
23:22
things separately. It doesn't make any sense like
23:26
the booster not. Not, ya know, like boosters and
23:30
again, Landing what? He's doing your boosters on a on
23:33
a ship at Sea didn't make sense either?
23:35
At one point the boosters like an apartment building.
23:37
It's 20 stories tall you know? It's huge.
23:40
Yep. Yeah.
23:42
It's pretty crazy. Yeah, and the can't wait to see
23:44
you that I can't. Yeah, I hope it's.
23:46
I hope it works. I mean, they're going to plug in
23:48
have to test it in Florida. Are in the Texas.
23:50
I don't think they'll let them test that in Florida.
23:52
Not at all know that Florida. One is a working Tower, I think.
23:56
Yeah, I don't think that that's a test Tower.
23:57
I haven't had a really good look because because of the distances
24:00
away from it. It's not quite the same as
24:02
what's in Texas, but I don't know whether they've improved or
24:05
changed anything on that Tower. That they're building in
24:08
Florida. I'm not sure.
24:10
Yeah, most of the shots are from frill far away.
24:12
It's hard to see ya. My guests, my guess is that
24:14
there's improvements. There's that, it's an iteration
24:16
the same as the, any ship is. So, you know, booster 9 that's
24:22
been tested a couple times. Has a lot of improvements over
24:25
booster 7 already without it being even launched yet.
24:28
So, my guess is that the tower would be the same thing.
24:31
Yeah, they probably learned a lot of manufacturing and
24:35
implementation of just Just the the wiring in the way that
24:39
things work, the piping and things because I when, you know,
24:42
as we were watching, this thing be developed in Texas, there's
24:47
iterations of even little things like a switch box, you know.
24:52
We're we're a bunch of cables enter the Box in one spot one
24:56
week. And then I would notice that
24:58
they are like they're not there anymore.
25:00
What happened to this whole box? They would move the Box off to
25:03
the other side of the of the orbital flight pad.
25:07
And right, it's like, why did you do that?
25:10
How did you do that? Like, what was wrong with the
25:12
first one? Did you need more slack?
25:14
Like what's going on? What's going on with that?
25:16
So there are perfecting things in Texas, they'll move that to
25:21
Florida for another four. Other orbital flights and other
25:26
missions, including the hls mission to the Moon eventually,
25:30
but they will have to do some tests for the hls before they
25:34
actually sent people there. To make sure that the Starship
25:36
can Fuel in orbit and also, you know, land on the moon because
25:41
if it can't land on the moon then what's the like, they can't
25:45
have the hls contract, right? So we're sure, yeah.
25:49
Those how many refuels is it? Seven refuels.
25:52
I have to do this baby. Yeah, it's somewhere along that
25:54
line. Something like that.
25:56
Yeah, so I mean, that test alone is going to be pretty crazy.
26:00
Yeah. Just just getting that the sheer
26:03
number of ships up in the space orbiting around.
26:06
In situations where they're able to be.
26:09
Sort of you know like a like a concrete truck, delivering
26:13
concrete to a job site, they'll sort of line up, right?
26:16
So your next guy you go in your empty.
26:18
Now you leave there someone comes in same thing as space
26:21
you're going to have these seven boosters aligned are not
26:23
boosters 7. Refueling ships lined up and you
26:27
know okay next move it into place, hook it up and start
26:31
loading fuel. Yeah.
26:34
And they're they're different ships to than something that
26:37
will send somebody to the moon. It's a whole different iteration
26:40
of initially so they're gonna have to have different types of
26:43
ships. So they'll have the hls ship,
26:45
which is their main focus right now is just make sure that
26:49
people can get to the moon. So the, the current build which
26:53
I'm guessing is just like, you know, they were building in any
26:57
way, then they got the hls contract.
26:59
They have to test all this stuff.
27:00
Anyway, you don't really need heat shields on the hls ship,
27:04
but this is an iteration that will be used in the future for
27:08
people going and coming back and also sending cargo to orbit and
27:13
coming back. Yeah.
27:14
Yeah they hls Landing ship will just be a tube.
27:17
Yep there won't be any heat shields won't be any fins on it.
27:20
No. Need to four fins when you can
27:22
just there's no atmosphere to interact with the moon so it
27:27
won't have that. Yeah.
27:28
And that's going to be a wild in a wild touchdown.
27:31
On the thing like we were saying before it's a huge ship.
27:34
It's 125 feet tall, 150 feet, tall, somewhere around there and
27:39
less gravity. Lot less gravity but also it's
27:42
huge that the healthiest. I could just keep some coming
27:47
back to it. It's just a gigantic.
27:48
I mean the the Apollo Lander was all his like 40 feet tall, I
27:52
think altogether, 30 or 40 feet off somewhere, around that range
27:55
there between 30 and 40. So that also is pretty huge and
28:00
yeah you know, the the picture Of that ladder, don't give do
28:03
it. Any justice at all the whole
28:05
system. There was just immensely
28:07
complex, especially for the time 50 years ago, so they having
28:11
something that's triple that size land triple plus that size
28:16
land. Oh boy, I can't wait, it's gonna
28:18
tip over. It's not gonna make it.
28:21
That's good. It's gonna taste not gonna be
28:23
and I think it'll help. I think they'll be fine.
28:25
Their propulsion team is absolutely amazing.
28:27
So I believe they'll be. I think that the, the landing on
28:30
the moon is actually fairly Simple.
28:32
I if they can land, you know, ship 15 then they can land on
28:36
the moon easily because just because of the gravity is so
28:39
much less. Yeah, there's a lot less
28:41
problems. Like probably have they can
28:43
probably you know, boost themselves back into space if
28:46
they absolutely had to and try again kind of like a plane
28:48
according a landing but it's The Landing Pad that I've always had
28:52
an issue with that here on the moon as well as on Mars in the
28:55
future. You need something to land on,
28:57
you know, that's not going to gum up the engines.
28:59
It's not going to be uneven. It was, was it Apollo 13, the
29:04
the eagle who they barely Miss some cracks, I think when they
29:08
were Landing in the Moon, that would have just torn him apart.
29:13
So really, really dangerous up there.
29:15
That's not very, not very flat, it's not very Square.
29:18
Yeah, it's not built for Rockets.
29:20
There's lots of sorry. I think that though they may
29:23
need to send some robots to build a landing pad or
29:26
something, or a spot. I don't know.
29:29
Be really interesting to see how that all works out, but I think
29:32
that that's that's a number of years away now got a lot of
29:35
things to worry about before that for the Stick of the
29:37
launch. This thing they got a launch it.
29:38
Yeah, so after they do the 33 engine, static fires and after
29:41
it's been wet dress rehearsed all of those systems have been
29:46
checked out, everything is good looking to launch this thing and
29:50
that is another huge thing. There's so many moving parts to
29:56
that so many things. Oh, my Oh so it's a I'll do a
30:01
quick run-through of what they're going to be doing with
30:03
this Starship when they launched like what the test is for.
30:06
You know the there this is a test flight.
30:09
Like we said this before this a test flight anything can happen
30:13
but the the ship and the booster will launch from Starbase Texas,
30:19
the ship eventually we'll make it too Kawaii this about 62
30:23
miles Northwest of kawaii and it's in a place where they're
30:26
done yet but what has he done? So that's that's that's the end.
30:30
All right. But in between them there's a
30:32
ton of things that they need to do.
30:34
It's going to be about a 90-minute trip for the ship and
30:36
they're going to be possibly transporting some sort of cargo
30:40
in this one. But we're not sure what it is
30:43
because they may have to do some sort of test of cargo but we
30:45
don't know if anything is in the actual that anything's actually
30:48
other ship. Yeah, I think that sort of waves
30:51
with any test, there's they always put something in there
30:53
just to simulate having some cargo but it won't be.
30:57
It's the least important. And part of the entire Mission.
31:00
Yeah, exactly. So it's going to be, you know,
31:02
the booster will fly the ship up and about 170 seconds into.
31:06
It will separate the boosters going to come down to the Gulf
31:09
of Mexico and the ship's going to keep going.
31:13
So going to go all the way too Kawaii and that's like the most
31:16
basic that you'll ever hear anybody ever explain this.
31:19
But let's go. You want to go into some detail
31:21
about this because this is sure. Yeah, and I mean there's,
31:24
there's so much so much to talk about every part of this.
31:26
Yeah, I mean, the the most dangerous.
31:29
And probably the most complex part is the launch.
31:31
Yep. You've got a booster with 33
31:34
engines firing. It's got a clear attack.
31:36
Our that's never had a launch from it before the tower itself
31:39
has to operate the way. It's supposed to all the quick
31:42
release mechanisms for fuel and and electricity.
31:45
All refs have two separate on time and the way they're
31:48
supposed to and clear, the launch pad, the arms have to be
31:51
out of the way and not get in the way the Chopsticks.
31:54
I mean, there's so much that could happen.
31:55
Even just at the launch that, it's it.
31:58
It. I would say if they get past
32:00
that they have a sort of probably an 80% chance of
32:03
succeeding at the rest. I would think I would think that
32:05
most of the problems are going to have or have any eye right
32:08
there at the launch. Yeah, that's the most important
32:11
part it have, you could have Raptors that don't fire.
32:14
You could have, you know, any vibrations that could cause a
32:17
problem with the connection to the stew, the ship, they could
32:21
damage the tower - they could rapidly.
32:25
Unexpectedly dismantle, I can read it and just blow up
32:29
everything that they've been working on for the last two
32:31
years. Mhm.
32:32
So, I mean, it's a really dangerous spot, but on the other
32:36
hand, they've done this many times, right?
32:39
They've launched so many Falcons.
32:41
My goodness. I was going to say, raptors,
32:43
I've watched so many Falcon, 9's from Florida like several
32:48
months. Sometimes, several a week that
32:50
took a lot of experience doing this.
32:53
And I think that they're going to use every ounce of experience
32:56
in getting this thing off the launch pad as safely as
32:59
possible. And all the tests that we've
33:02
been talking about are all going towards making sure that that
33:05
happens happens. Wait supposed to be and if
33:07
anything happens during the initial phase of launch in the
33:12
you know, they have a read on the launch pad.
33:15
Like you said, it could set them back months, possibly a year,
33:19
many might have to rebuild everything, they may need to
33:23
rebuild the tower whole thing. So Ali and and if in effect, if
33:27
it goes further than the tower and they get to the storage
33:30
tanks. That could be huge.
33:31
Yeah, right. So I think that everything
33:34
they're doing is to prevent that right now.
33:36
Yeah. So I agree they need to I need
33:38
to make sure that that doesn't happen.
33:39
So as much as they can, anyway, So once they've launched, let's
33:44
say they clear the thing. Keep in mind that the ship
33:46
itself has a way to self-destruct at any point along
33:50
here and it will probably would assume most likely be automated
33:54
so that if it sees anything wrong that might endanger people
33:58
the mission, anything it will distract itself and you'll see
34:02
something that's similar to the ship 11.
34:04
That hadn't had an explosion above the ground total pieces
34:07
everywhere, so and that's just to keep people safe.
34:09
That's that's the whole reason behind it and if that And its
34:13
success for them if they happen to have a problem and the ship
34:16
takes care of itself, that's a good thing for SpaceX.
34:20
If that situation doesn't happen in this thing, you know, beers
34:24
often over direction is not supposed to and lands on land
34:26
somewhere. That's the worst-case scenario
34:29
for everybody. Yeah, exactly.
34:31
It's so, the great thing about, if I wouldn't shouldn't a great
34:35
thing, but a positive to the, you know, something like that
34:38
happening is that they already have another ship on.
34:42
Almost ready to go, you know better, she got better ship, and
34:46
there's going to be better ships down the line and they're
34:48
continuing to build ships, so in, and who's number one goal.
34:53
Number one goal is clear that launched our, yep, once they get
34:55
past that, the rest of it is is gravy anything that happens to
34:59
the ship and anything that doesn't work the way it's
35:02
supposed to at that point. Well that's just another ship.
35:05
That's just another booster which you know is what is it 33
35:09
million or a million dollars per Raptor?
35:11
So 33 million for the booster, and another nine million for the
35:16
ship. That's nothing.
35:19
It sounds. It's a lot.
35:22
It's a lot, but it's nothing SpaceX.
35:23
There they're prepared for that and they expect that.
35:25
Yep. But damaging the launch site is
35:28
the absolute worst thing that can happen yet, because the time
35:31
it would take them to repair is, is something they is time that
35:35
they can't afford. Yeah.
35:37
So yep. They're on a but anyway, so if
35:41
they're set selects, Suggestions bad oh for sure.
35:44
Yeah and who knows how long my guess is that they're expecting
35:47
some damage to the launch pad? I don't think you can launch a
35:51
ship and they've seen damage, every time they've static fired.
35:54
So they're expecting to repair. What's a rebuild is completely
35:58
different thing? Yeah.
35:59
That'll that'll take a while. The rebuild will take a little
36:02
while to take a little resources, you know, take some,
36:04
I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's a money thing
36:07
either when they rebuild, because they have a lot of
36:09
investment have, a lot of private investment.
36:12
And a lot like Millions hundreds of millions of dollars in the
36:15
bank, so it's not a big deal for them to, you know, just shell
36:20
out, another whatever, 50 mil, 60 million, whatever to fix the
36:25
tower. But like you said that the time,
36:27
okay, if you have to, if you have to spend six months, fixing
36:30
everything or six months, you know, refurbishing something
36:33
that needs to get, you know, fixed up.
36:36
It, it just takes, it takes too much time to time equals money
36:40
and they don't have and they Have a very pretty good schedule
36:45
set up for their main mission, which is hls, but also the
36:48
starlink missions to because they need to make money in
36:51
through that. So anything that says back, not
36:54
good, not good at all for sure. But what's the launch and once
36:58
they like if they clear the tower, that's going to be
37:00
incredible because then they're going to head towards Max q and
37:05
Max Q is the point of the flight where it has the most stress on
37:09
the rocket. And that's like once Yeah,
37:13
there's a balance between the thickness of the atmosphere and
37:16
the speed they're going. Yeah.
37:17
So at some point you know they're going really fast, but
37:20
the atmosphere is getting a little thinner each second.
37:22
So at some point there's a maximum pressure on the ship.
37:26
Yeah. And at that point kind of
37:30
anything can happen because it's it's a maximum pressure, you
37:34
know, it's never gone through Max Q tests before.
37:37
So be the first, max Q test of this rocket and, you know, are
37:41
the are The points between the ship and the booster hard
37:46
enough, that it won't separate versions of this.
37:49
And as a huge deal, you know, I think about the welds because
37:53
you've got, you know, a lot of air blowing around the ship at
37:57
that point and under pressure. And every, well, it's sort of a
38:01
catch point for the air. You've got the, the heat
38:03
shielding tiles. Exact same thing.
38:06
There every every one of those tiles is a point where that air
38:09
can grab and who knows? Haven't launched this thing yet
38:13
so we don't know what's going to happen.
38:14
Maybe it'll just be fine. Let's hope it is and it's a big
38:18
rocket, you know, and it's huge. It's a two-stage huge rocket in
38:24
the stages are different than say, the Apollo, the Apollo.
38:28
You know, the, the capsule was on the very, very top, right in
38:32
the there was a a stage in the middle of Starship.
38:36
Basically it wasn't there for Apollo or any other Rock.
38:39
And that's that big you know, that powerful.
38:42
So it's a, it's a breaking point, but the welds on the
38:45
outside, they're not perfect. You know, they're pretty good.
38:48
But like you said, any sort of aerodynamic drag on this thing,
38:51
could wreak havoc on the whole flight?
38:54
So, I mean, it'll it'll more than likely have enough power to
38:59
kind of push through all of that, but we'll see.
39:03
Oh, yeah, don't the powers there?
39:04
Yeah. It's whether the it's whether
39:06
that dragged from the, the atmosphere causes an issue,
39:09
right? Heats it up, too much with rips
39:12
it. Park Heats it up too much or it
39:14
just starts vibrating or you know you get sort of resonance
39:18
happening. Hmm you know and that can cause
39:20
the ship to go off course there's all kinds of things that
39:22
could happen. Yeah.
39:24
So that's why I'm Excuse a big deal.
39:26
That's why it's called out every time once you're past that it
39:29
gets a lot easier on the ship. At that point you're you're sort
39:32
of reaching space, outer space, outer space.
39:35
And we still call it outer, space action, space and and and
39:39
things are a lot easier on the ship.
39:41
Yeah. Of course, which leads to
39:43
separation. Soft Stuff has to happen there
39:45
as well, to make sure that we can continue our journey.
39:48
You know, the booster has to shut down all its engines, they
39:51
Coast for a little bit and then the the ship separates from it
39:55
and there's a lot of things can go wrong there too.
39:57
You've got engines that could that could malfunction or knots
40:00
not turn off right away. You've got the actual separation
40:03
of the ships could cause a problem.
40:05
I think it was Was it the original Falcon?
40:08
One mission the first mission or a second mission.
40:10
Maybe that they got right to separation stage.
40:13
They were on their way to orbit. And they started the engines too
40:17
soon after separation and they actually hit each other.
40:21
Yeah, I don't, I don't remember that one.
40:23
And that's, that's what caused the failure of the Falcon 1.
40:26
Oh, yes. That's the two ships.
40:28
Hit each other because they didn't allow enough time between
40:31
the engines turning off and the new engines turning on.
40:34
Oh wow, the second stage turning on.
40:35
So it's interesting. And yeah, so that's something
40:38
that they learned, they learn her lesson on so that's good.
40:41
Yeah, and that was, you know, decade ago plus so, yeah, you
40:46
know, they have all that time to fix that, you know, in the
40:50
Falcon 9, of course, obviously, that's been fixed.
40:52
Obviously, they fixed it. Yeah, they kind of know what's
40:54
going on with separations, but you never know, like you said,
40:58
engine could go bad and it's gonna happen is gonna happen.
41:00
A clamp, could just not could not unclamp, you know?
41:03
The only time they've separated, this is sitting on the launch
41:06
pad. They never separated it in space
41:09
moving. Whatever.
41:11
Yeah, so there's a mean, is I don't think that that's maybe
41:14
the biggest problem they're going to have, but it is
41:16
something that they certainly have to keep track of.
41:18
Yeah. And keep their eyes on the other
41:19
gonna have to stop. They're going to have to land
41:21
this thing to, right? So after they separate.
41:23
Yeah, that's the next stage. So we go.
41:24
Now we got two vehicles and space, right?
41:27
So you've got the booster, which is just turned off at all.
41:30
Its engine is starting to sort of reach its apogee and then
41:34
you've got the ship that moves on its way.
41:36
So we're will separate for now. I will come back to the booster
41:39
so it's got a complete much like the Falcon 9 booster does.
41:43
It's got a sort of reach, its highest point and start falling
41:46
back down to earth, eventually. The booster will sort of
41:49
turnover and do a boost backburn to get back to the launch site.
41:52
That's the future. We will be caught by the tower
41:54
somehow, right? But for now, this booster is
41:57
going to just fall into the ocean into the Gulf of Mexico.
42:00
And so, what are we expecting to see there?
42:03
Everything to go perfectly. Well, oh perfect.
42:06
Yeah, everything's gonna be completely fine.
42:08
Like we don't know what they're going to try and do that
42:10
boosters. I'm just going to fall into the
42:12
ocean and that's the end of it. Or are they actually going to
42:14
try and simulate a landing? I think they're going to try to
42:17
simulate a landing because I would think so I don't know why
42:20
you would write, there'd be no reason to skip that phase
42:23
because yeah, so when I, when a falcon 9 booster is landing at
42:26
land launch, it relights one of its engines to slow the booster
42:32
down and they don't land it. Roger the, the ship.
42:34
So my guess is that they're going to, you know, light
42:39
anywhere from three to five engines and try to land this
42:43
thing on the ocean. Theoretically, or at least
42:45
probably get it to a point where it's hovering, you know, 50
42:48
feet, the air, where the Chopsticks might be grabbed it
42:50
and future. Yeah.
42:52
And what a, what? And then just sort of slowly
42:55
fall into the water after. Yeah.
42:57
If they can hover this thing over the water, over the gulf.
43:00
I'm going to, I'm going to lose it.
43:03
I'm going to first her lip out. We're going to have a watch
43:05
party in Discord or something so everybody can watch this going
43:08
to be amazing. Yeah it's going to be amazing
43:10
but yeah so maybe maybe we could plug I miss.
43:12
My favorite part is my favorite part of any Falcon long.
43:14
Yeah it's it's so easy. It's yeah it's mind-blowing.
43:19
It's the future and happening now.
43:21
Yeah. And it's going to be like it'll
43:24
be the first time that they hovered a booster, right?
43:27
So this will be a first of the hover and also of first of like
43:32
a flea e functional booster Landing like actually Landing
43:38
because boosters don't have legs.
43:39
So there's no way for them to land at.
43:41
There's no landing gear on them. So this is the only way they can
43:45
land other than the tower. So other than the Chopsticks
43:48
catching them and putting them back in the tower.
43:50
So yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to flip out.
43:54
I'm going to flip out. Yeah, yeah and I to me this is
43:57
the most realistic part of this entire thing work again.
44:00
This is they've done this. I've done this hundreds of
44:02
times. Now The food with the Falcon 9.
44:04
So I just see that this, this part of it working.
44:08
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't apart from those
44:11
engines not restarting. If you only, that's the only
44:15
question mark in my mind is that they have to to start the
44:18
engines to get into the atmosphere to slow down a little
44:20
bit. And then they have to do it to
44:22
stop. The stop, the booster from in
44:25
the water really fast, so that's the only part of it.
44:28
That's, that's a question mark in my mind is those engines
44:30
making sure that those those Raptors start up again but
44:33
Anything beyond that. I think they got this, no
44:35
problem. Yeah, I think so too.
44:37
I think they're going to get to put on a good show irregardless
44:41
of what happens after Max q and separation.
44:44
I think that the booster Landing is going to be wild but then
44:48
they have to go higher. The second engines start up for
44:51
the for the ship while all of this is happening, there's two
44:53
things happening at once. So the boosters coming down like
44:57
falling back to Earth, then the ship keeps going up.
45:00
The ship. 24 keeps going up, they start their engines again
45:02
and then Different into the vacuum engines this time.
45:05
Yeah the Raptor value this time. It's first time.
45:07
Yeah this is three vacuum engines and three regular
45:10
engines. Yep, so the launch the light,
45:13
the three vacuum Raptors, which have a just a much larger bail
45:16
on them to help with air pressure pressure and yeah.
45:20
So that that those engines are going to have to get this thing
45:22
up to and I think that they're going to try and reach orbital
45:25
velocities. I think that they're going to
45:27
try and get to the point where if they just turn the engines
45:30
off, it would orbit. They're not going to they're not
45:32
going to go one full. All orbit around the Earth but I
45:34
think that they're going to try and get to the get to that
45:37
point. They've got an hour and a half
45:38
up there. Why not?
45:41
Yeah, they may as well stick all the systems, you know, even
45:44
though they have to be cautious as possible, especially if they
45:47
decide to launch some launch, some starlink satellites while
45:54
they're at it. They'll need to get up to orbit
45:56
velocities. Yeah.
45:57
Yeah. And the next couple flights are
45:59
going to have to do that. I think they're going to they're
46:01
going to do more testing more flights with this thing and then
46:05
eventually something will go into orbit whether it's a sure
46:08
I'll probably start. Click, he said more than likely
46:11
but yeah, they get it up to orbit and they'll, you know,
46:14
eventually have a really great opportunity here to come back
46:19
down. What's their environment?
46:22
You know, they're gonna have to do your bit, we're gonna have to
46:23
come back down to earth. And yep, let's say, you know
46:26
what series star orbital velocity, this is going to be a
46:28
wild ride, right? And again, yeah, I think that
46:31
they'd understand this part. They know how to get things into
46:34
orbit, if they've done it hundreds of times.
46:37
And the only question mark here again, is those engines but
46:40
haven't always. Nobody is turned on a vacuum
46:43
Raptor and space yet. So that's the big question.
46:46
Yeah. Well it reunite it will if
46:47
you'll be in the right place where it to reignite, will
46:49
everything not slosh around, you know, will the absolutely humps
46:52
work properly, will everything all the the pipes inside of this
46:56
thing? Because it's a very complex, not
46:58
just the engine, but all the inner workings of this rocket.
47:01
Yeah. Yeah.
47:02
Keep in mind every soon as separation happens with the
47:04
booster there zero G's, huh? There's, there's no gravity up
47:08
there until they Launch. Those are like the vacuum rap.
47:11
Yep. So they're going to have to make
47:13
sure that the there's fuel where it needs to be.
47:16
Yep, absolutely. Yeah.
47:17
And then they'll come back down, the re-enter, come back down
47:20
towards Earth. Yeah.
47:21
But have to slow the ship down, I'll probably turn it around and
47:24
turn the engines on and then just to slow down the craft.
47:27
So it starts to fall loses. Its orbit, I mean, they're
47:30
always falling up in space. That's what orbits are.
47:32
But two, there's have be falling at the same speed that they're
47:35
moving, so they don't actually hit the ground like falling
47:38
around the Earth. So to deorbit slow down vehicle
47:41
and it starts to lose its speed relative to the Earth and starts
47:45
to re-entry. And that's another.
47:48
That's another stickler point for this Starship is what's
47:50
going to happen to re-entry? They've never done anything this
47:53
high before they never re-entered or had a ship at this
47:57
height they've had, you know, belly flops at Texas but never
48:02
in space. So this thing is going to be
48:05
whippin back. We're not exactly sure what
48:07
speeds, it'll have, but Will more than likely.
48:10
You know, the belly-flop maneuver will be used again to
48:14
get this thing back down for sure.
48:15
For, you know, for a safe landing off the coast of Kauai.
48:18
So it's going to be a soft ocean Landing.
48:21
Apparently, according to SpaceX soft, we forgotten apart here.
48:27
We got to go back to re-entry. Yeah this thing's got to come
48:29
through the atmosphere that's scary and it's very scary.
48:32
It heats up quite a bit. Yes.
48:34
Certainly past the melting point of the stainless steel, this
48:36
things made out of. So they've got heat shield.
48:39
Miles on one half of the ship a little bit more than more than
48:42
1/2 and those tiles are going to have to absorb all that heat
48:46
from re-entry and all the forces that happen during reentry.
48:50
I'm not sure how they're going to how they're going to do the
48:53
re-entry. Maybe they try and slow the ship
48:55
down. Even more using the engines
48:57
before they they flip over and sort of plane down but I'll have
49:02
to see what they do. Yeah I do but that's a s
49:05
extremely dangerous part because they've had these tiles fall.
49:09
All off, almost almost every. I think maybe all static fires,
49:13
they've had they've had tiles fall off.
49:15
So it's still an ongoing work in progress and if they launch,
49:20
what if they lose a few tiles during the launch to?
49:22
That's why the static fire of 33 engines with the ship on top of
49:26
it is an important part of this flight test because if they do
49:30
lose a few of those tiles, during the launch that allows
49:34
the the heat to just go right past it right through the steel
49:39
and The sucker down. So depends.
49:41
I mean depending of course on how many tiles they lose if they
49:44
lose one tile, I think they'll be all right.
49:46
They might damage it. You have a blanket behind it, a
49:49
blanket can help yet little blank but those tiles are the
49:52
most important part. Yeah.
49:54
So we'll see what happens. I mean it's a different thing.
49:57
Static firing the ship repres has versus the booster.
50:00
Yep. You know the ship isn't quite as
50:02
close to the engines as the as when it's doing its own static
50:06
fire. So perhaps they'll be by fine on
50:09
us. On a launch but we'll have to
50:12
see but I, but we'll know that will know that as soon as they
50:15
as soon as they've launched a will know what's happening with
50:17
the tile. So have so many, so many cameras
50:21
on that just to check all that stuff.
50:23
And they'll have probably have external cameras on the ship and
50:25
that sort of thing just to check so much.
50:26
The can what's happening with those tiles?
50:29
Yeah and they there again, we set it.
50:31
This is a test vehicle. Yeah, it definitely is a test
50:35
vehicle in these tiles. There are produced by some of
50:38
the people that have you know, Worked on the space shuttle
50:40
tiles and worked on the same sort of Dynamics for these sort
50:45
of re-entries for decades. So very, I mean the production
50:50
of these tiles. Absolutely incredible.
50:53
But keeping them on the vehicle is I think it's impossible.
50:57
I don't know if they'll ever figured out it seems like it's
50:59
impossible. They, I think they will figure
51:01
it out but it's, it's gonna figure it out.
51:03
Yeah, I want to, I want to re fly these things and within a
51:05
couple hours, right? Yeah.
51:07
And not lose any eventually. Yeah, and not losing its not.
51:11
Was this the first zero, man, this is the first test, so I'm
51:14
expecting a few tiles to not be there when they land this thing.
51:19
Yeah. When they do re-entry.
51:21
Yeah. Yeah.
51:22
When they do it, and who the other whether it makes it
51:24
through a re-entry or not is a secondary question.
51:27
And the pieces will land the pieces?
51:31
Yeah. If it does make it through, if
51:32
it doesn't make everyone's eventually everything will come
51:35
down yet back down to earth if they can make it through
51:38
reentry. Oh, Do you think?
51:40
So I'm thinking they'll do is like you said.
51:44
I think they're going to use some sort of boost back burn
51:48
like they do with the boosters of a falcon 9.
51:50
I think they're going to do something like that but they
51:52
slow it down and then they use the heat tiles to, you know to
51:58
protect the the ship on the way down.
52:00
They'll have to do that. I mean the belly booster is
52:02
going a lot slower than an orbital Rock.
52:04
Oh yeah so I don't know that it boosts back to Safely D orbitals
52:10
is ever going to be possible. They have too much fuel.
52:13
Let certainly slowing it down as much as possible before it flips
52:16
over. Yeah, the array entry is, you
52:18
know, the use every every ounce of fuel.
52:20
They possibly can but they don't need for landing.
52:23
Yeah. They use think every trick in
52:24
the book to get this thing back. Yeah.
52:26
And it's going to be it's going to be a cool thing.
52:28
And like you said that, if they do a hover of the booster over
52:34
the Gulf of Mexico, I think they're going to do that with
52:37
the ship to when they land if they make it through the I would
52:40
hope so. I mean, if you're gone that far,
52:42
why wouldn't ya, right? Yeah.
52:44
Come down, do the do the, the flip over and, and try and sort
52:48
of hovered that land, this thing, again, might be 200 feet
52:52
in the air that they do it. If they're sort of thinking
52:54
about, you know, where it might be in relation to the catching
52:59
chopsticks on the launch Mount. Yeah, and then, perhaps it, you
53:03
know, the engines go cold that point at false.
53:06
Our but yeah, it's going to be something to watch again.
53:09
Yeah. The The Landing is going to be
53:14
cool. It's going to be really crazy.
53:16
They're going to be landing in like a Naval Shipyard.
53:19
It's like an old well in the naval graveyard, so to speak off
53:23
the coast of Hawaii. And it's been used for decades
53:26
by other Navy and the Department of Defense to sink like
53:29
submarines and warships and we don't I don't think they're
53:34
going to retrieve this ship. I think they're just gonna let
53:36
it sink because that might take too much.
53:39
We're gonna get as much data as they can from it.
53:40
Well, I mean, if it, think about what it is, right, it's going to
53:43
be a big Hollow empty shell. Yeah.
53:45
So it's going to float, right? It's going to be a, it's going
53:48
to be a boat for a little bit. Yeah.
53:50
And maybe, who knows, maybe the Navy will, what they do is they
53:53
launched, they launched artillery at these boats and
53:56
they sink them. So, how cool would it be if they
53:58
did? That's possible.
53:59
Maybe they, yeah, that would be crazy.
54:02
Maybe they use the automatic destruct.
54:04
Yeah. Yeah.
54:05
At that point. And just blow it up.
54:07
Yeah, individuals. Yeah eventually I think it will
54:10
but I mean it's like a wrench for me.
54:12
I would love to get my hands on those Raptor engines and and
54:15
review them. Take a look at them and and
54:18
examine what? Yeah, what happened?
54:20
You know what? Shape, they're in.
54:21
There's a lot to be said for saving this thing.
54:23
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
54:24
And then, of course, put it up in a rocket graveyard somewhere.
54:29
So, everybody can stare in awe of the ship yet.
54:32
Bring it back down to Brownsville almost impossible.
54:34
Yep. Bring it back, down to
54:36
Brownsville, ship, it back to Boca, Chica Beach on the ground,
54:40
the port of Brownsville. There's a road turned it into a
54:42
kids play instrument, right? Somehow, I don't think that's
54:47
good. Stainless steel is probably not
54:48
the best thing for kids to play on the middle, son in Texas.
54:51
But yeah, the they built a road from the highway for, which is
54:56
the road that leads down to Starbase.
54:57
There's a road that goes from Highway for over to the Bay so
55:03
they can transport ships. And boosters on that road as a
55:08
huge road is super white. It's like a six Lanes wide or
55:11
something, I believe it's a big wide road, I don't think it's
55:14
six Lanes, but it's pretty big. And I believe you can use that
55:18
road to get over to the port and bring the ship back.
55:22
So they just have to put it on a boat, you know, bring it back.
55:27
Get whatever they can out of it and take a look at those Raptors
55:30
or maybe even just, I mean, I don't know how this will be
55:33
almost impossible to do, I think, but Move the Raptors in
55:37
the ocean which would be incredibly difficult and then
55:41
yes. But this let the ship sank but
55:43
get the Raptors back. But yeah I mean if we get to
55:48
that point where we're discussing what to do with
55:50
Raptors that have been flown on an engine and and landed
55:53
properly who cares at that point we're we're so far beyond our
55:57
mission goals here. That's where happy is as Pigs in
56:01
a blanket. Yeah, exactly.
56:04
If that's the saying. Yeah.
56:06
It's that's that's the ultimate goal right there.
56:09
If we can get a rocket that lands itself in the ocean, my
56:13
goodness. Yeah, I mean, what is going to
56:15
be cheering for days? If if this thing survives, this
56:18
whole it'll be the most exciting time in space flight since
56:22
Apollo. I think I think that's and then
56:26
after this I think it's going Goosebumps.
56:28
Yeah, getting because everything everybody will get goosebumps
56:30
the whole We'll get goosebumps to be a weird phenomenon that
56:34
happens once. Yeah.
56:35
But then after this, the Artemis to missions where people fly
56:38
around the Moon, that's going to be a huge deal to you and then
56:41
Artemis 3, when they launched a Starship for that mission and
56:45
they send people back to the moon.
56:46
This is all the beginning, like, without this flight, there's
56:50
none of that there's none of the Artemis 3 mission.
56:52
So this is literally one of the most important space flights of
56:57
all time. You might not be wrong there for
57:01
sure. It's it's huge for the future of
57:04
spaceflight, for all Humanity. Yeah its massive.
57:07
It's yeah, the the ship is massive.
57:10
Yeah. That's that's that's why it's
57:14
such a big deal to is because the ship is massive.
57:16
The biggest fairing that's ever flown to space.
57:19
We're talking, but we're talking a hundred percent reuse ability,
57:22
right? That's a hue Natsu.
57:24
That's massive, it's it. It's something that nobody else
57:28
is even attempting. At this point.
57:30
So if if that happens, it's reduces the cost of space by 100
57:36
volt. And that's massive as well.
57:40
Yeah, that's a whole new economy, you know, and the
57:43
economics of space flight. Right now are kind of in a I
57:48
think they're in a Tipping Point where SpaceX is taking over
57:51
space flight and the Old Guard is kind of finally thinking
57:56
about reusability because of 100 spaceflights last year, or they
58:00
want to do 100 flights this year.
58:02
And last year, it was 60, some odd.
58:05
I can't remember the exact number, but I think We're 60
58:07
sliding over numbers, but this year, they're aiming for 100
58:10
flights. So if you can get 100 flights
58:14
from one company, twice a week, twice a week, possibly three
58:18
times a week. Depending on what the, what the
58:20
launch Cadence is and you have Rockets Kennedy.
58:24
Space Center in your flying falcon, 9's and Falcon Heavies,
58:27
and Starships. Yeah, this is sort of a it's a
58:30
Tipping Point because the Falcon 9 is almost reusable.
58:35
The fairings aren't reusable. And a few other things aren't
58:38
reusable, but the Starship, everything stage.
58:42
Yeah. Yeah.
58:43
Starship is 100% reusable. So the cost of flight is going
58:49
to go down drastically in the cargo that you can put in that
58:52
thing. You can just drive your bus into
58:54
it. A school bus, several several?
58:56
Yes, it's not a big deal. Yeah.
59:00
Yeah, it's amazing. It's going to be amazing to see,
59:03
and in here and an exciting for If this thing works, if this
59:09
launch works and goes according to plan, it will speed up.
59:14
Research and production inflow in Texas and Florida tenfold
59:18
like it's they're just going to ramp up everything and we're
59:21
going to see you know, several more launches this year once
59:24
that happens to try and prove itself if they have any issues
59:27
with it. Well that's going to set them
59:29
back a little bit. Yeah but they'll still okay.
59:30
But they're not going to stop weird right?
59:32
They have. Yeah they're not going to stop
59:33
are going to keep pushing. Yeah.
59:34
And they have like we were talking about earlier.
59:36
They have the NASA money, they have billions of dollars from
59:38
NASA to create this Starship. And, you know, the the hls
59:43
program I think it was Almost 3 billion for that from NASA.
59:47
It's like two point eight, nine billion or something and they
59:51
have the money so they got to keep moving forward in.
59:53
The FAA, will they know it's a test vehicle so they'll
59:57
understand and from the start part of the part of the reason
1:00:01
for starlink was to pay for this research.
1:00:07
Yeah. Into new vehicles.
1:00:09
They have 100 know how many customer a million.
1:00:14
Uh, stammers or something. Yeah, now are starting over x
1:00:16
100 million dollars a month. Yeah, obviously there's there's
1:00:20
costs involved in running starlink and launching things
1:00:23
and that sort of thing, but a hundred million dollars every
1:00:27
month. Coming in from, there's got to
1:00:28
be some profits that they're feeding over to this.
1:00:32
Yeah. And I believe there was an IPO
1:00:34
scheduled, you know. I think it was I think it was
1:00:38
reported last year of end of last year.
1:00:40
The Starling could IPO in like 20 Five ish.
1:00:46
So that's gonna Infuse so much more money into space x dash.
1:00:51
Yeah, it got a, You've Got A system that clearly works.
1:00:54
Yep. And it's been running for a
1:00:56
couple of years and so that you're going to make it public.
1:00:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a very successful
1:01:02
launch. Yeah.
1:01:03
And I believe yeah, that a lot of that money is going to go
1:01:07
towards Starship development because they need a Starship to
1:01:11
launch all these Sterling satellites.
1:01:13
So, So and as soon as I can start launching Starling
1:01:16
satellites, they go from launching, you know, only a few
1:01:20
to hundreds at a time. Yeah.
1:01:23
And that is going to just speed up everything and it's cheaper.
1:01:27
You know, that's a crazy thing is, I think that a starling
1:01:30
launch on a on a Starship is going to be cheaper than
1:01:34
watching it on the Falcon 9 for more startling satellites.
1:01:38
Yeah, I believe that's true. I believe that's true.
1:01:41
I was it a million alone you're talking.
1:01:43
It's, you're talking to you. Cool.
1:01:44
Yeah it just feel at that point. Yeah.
1:01:47
Because it's yeah, there's other things too obviously but it's
1:01:49
just fuel. Yeah.
1:01:50
There's people, of course, they need paychecks.
1:01:53
But you know, ground Crews, ground systems, things like
1:01:56
that, but the development once it's done.
1:01:58
What's the developments of course like iterate and make it
1:02:00
a little bit better here and there but you know, the Rockets
1:02:04
there, the whole systems are there, ground systems?
1:02:06
Are there? Everything's ready to go and you
1:02:09
can launch star links whenever you need to.
1:02:12
Yeah. And SpaceX does not mind risking
1:02:16
starlings, you know. They'll put that on a test
1:02:19
vehicle. No problem.
1:02:20
Yeah, that's why I think you'll probably see some on this
1:02:22
diverse vehicle it just to just to test it, you know, see if
1:02:26
they can. Although I think that the
1:02:28
Heavenly the I think they've actually welded the launch area
1:02:31
shut on this vehicle. So, yeah, the Pez dispensers
1:02:35
one. Well, there might be one in
1:02:36
decide to that's the other thing like that could be the payload
1:02:39
because they're going to need a payload into test.
1:02:41
That. So that was another theory going
1:02:43
around for a while is that we never see the inside of a
1:02:46
Starship. So we don't really know what's
1:02:48
inside, but they could, before they launched this thing, they
1:02:52
could have already had a picture from inside, or they could take
1:02:55
a picture from inside this, the ship and go.
1:02:58
Hey, look, what's inside? We got to start Lake in that
1:03:00
hype. Sup starlink, of course, Right.
1:03:03
And you know, it proves that the payload is that they can ship a
1:03:07
payload. So in that of course brings in
1:03:11
more investment, brings in more people, brings in the best of
1:03:15
the best to work for the company.
1:03:17
And that's what SpaceX wants. They want to keep the hype train
1:03:20
roll into. So the really good at that, like
1:03:23
launching elon's car into space, for sure.
1:03:26
Yeah. So yeah, big publicity stunt but
1:03:28
it works exactly such only advertising.
1:03:31
They do. Yeah, exactly.
1:03:33
Tube channel is the best advertising for SpaceX.
1:03:35
So I think we covered everything with the Starship flight today.
1:03:39
I am, I'm excited. I'm excited for this.
1:03:42
It's going to be think that that's next obvious.
1:03:44
Next, we can couple months, we have a lot to look forward to.
1:03:47
Yeah, there's a lot of work to do, but also a lot to, I don't
1:03:52
know if you have now we're not going to work that hard.
1:03:53
I'm going to be excited, I'm just gonna be super pumped the
1:03:56
whole time. I'm going to talk about it in
1:03:57
like, for me, this is just this like the passion that we both
1:04:01
have for this in the excitement we have.
1:04:03
For space flight. Like I never record anything and
1:04:06
don't get excited and happy to talk about it because it's just
1:04:10
something that's great. Like I loved every second of
1:04:13
this. It is work.
1:04:14
Mind you, it does take effort but it's the best kind of thing
1:04:18
you could ever do. So sad, do a little bit of work.
1:04:23
Yeah, Basics does a lot more but I just talked about it.
1:04:28
So yeah, thanks for thanks for joining me today Neal because
1:04:30
we're going to thanks for having me.
1:04:31
Have fun and thanks to everybody.
1:04:33
Out there who's supported the show throughout the whole time.
1:04:35
We've been doing this. If you are a supporter and you
1:04:39
want to support us even more, please take a second and hit the
1:04:42
Subscribe button, on whatever podcast platform, you're on
1:04:45
right now. I've helped us out tremendously,
1:04:48
so, so much and if you're on Apple podcast, please do the
1:04:52
five star review thing. If you like this, kind of this
1:04:55
kind of episode where we get into depth, we go in depth about
1:04:58
SpaceX Starship and spaceflight because we love, we love this
1:05:03
stuff. Tough or passionate about it and
1:05:04
we know you do too. So a five star rating on a
1:05:07
podcast would be amazing. I guess that's it for today.
1:05:11
Yeah, thanks. Alright, thank you.
1:05:13
Yeah, see you guys later.