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Back in 2015 ISSRDC - A Conversation with Elon Musk!!! · Elon Musk Thinking

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Speaker 1: So it is my great honor to introduce a man
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Speaker 1: who needs no introduction. I'm not sure where he's at,
0:06
Speaker 1: but I'm sure he's going to come in here somewhere.
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Speaker 2: Where is he?
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Speaker 1: Okay, there you go, a gentleman who we can call Elon.
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Speaker 1: In everybody, at least in this country, I know exactly
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Speaker 1: who you're talking about. But mister Elon Musk, he's the CEO,
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Speaker 1: lead designer of SpaceX. Everyone I think knows this. SpaceX
0:28
Speaker 1: is an amazing commercial company. It's the first company to
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Speaker 1: launch commercial rocket and to low Earth orbit with their
0:38
Speaker 1: Falcon one launch. Then in two thousand and eight they
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Speaker 1: were one of the winners of a contract to bring
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Speaker 1: services to the International Space Station, the first commercial company
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Speaker 1: to birth with the International Space Station bringing supplies. They're
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Speaker 1: also the first commercial company to return a sizeable returned
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Speaker 1: vehicle with all the components still intact, which is very
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Speaker 1: import to us back to the surface of the Earth.
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Speaker 1: And so it's an amazing company. Has done a great
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Speaker 1: job and continues to push the boundaries. You'll hear from Elon,
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Speaker 1: but his interest really is not so much in lower
1:13
Speaker 1: Earth orbit as it is going beyond low Earth orbit
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Speaker 1: and making sure humanity will continue to live by exploring
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Speaker 1: beyond beyond Earth. Elon has a varied history of things
1:27
Speaker 1: that he's been involved in. This was This is one
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Speaker 1: of the things that makes it so exciting to have
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Speaker 1: this conversation with him today. He's not one dimensional space guy.
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Speaker 1: He's involved in Tesla Motors, which he is a co
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Speaker 1: founder and CEO, and also a major player in the
1:42
Speaker 1: design efforts and what they choose to go build and how.
1:46
Speaker 1: Of course, he was a co founder.
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Speaker 2: Of PayPal and zip too.
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Speaker 1: He's deeply involved in a number of other industries as well.
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Speaker 1: And so it's my great honor to welcome Elon Muska
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Speaker 1: to the stage. Thanks for coming, appreciate it. Okay, well,
2:18
Speaker 1: these are great chairs, you guys.
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Speaker 2: Look at those chairs you're in.
2:25
Speaker 1: Let's see. So Elon, you've you and I were gonna
2:28
Speaker 1: have a little chat this morning. We said it was
2:30
Speaker 1: gonna be a fireside chat. So minus the fireside I
2:32
Speaker 1: guess we're ready again. I've, as you heard, I've encouraged
2:36
Speaker 1: folks to ask a few questions along the way, but
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Speaker 1: I have a few, a few questions I thought to
2:41
Speaker 1: get us started. So the first one, which is probably
2:44
Speaker 1: on everybody's mind is perhaps you want to discuss a
2:46
Speaker 1: little bit about the recent loss of the dragon in
2:51
Speaker 1: the Falcon nine here on SpaceX seven.
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Speaker 3: Sure, well, I mean I think it's it's obviously it's
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Speaker 3: a huge loads to to SpaceX and and or do
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Speaker 3: we take these missions incredibly seriously the invest Everyone that
3:11
Speaker 3: can engage in the investigation of SpaceX is very very
3:15
Speaker 3: focused on that. And in this case, the the data
3:21
Speaker 3: does seem to be quite difficult to interpret, Like whatever
3:25
Speaker 3: happened is is clearly not not a sort of simple
3:29
Speaker 3: straightforward thing. So we want to spend as much time
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Speaker 3: as possible just reviewing the data, obviously going over it
3:37
Speaker 3: with with NASA and with the FA and with the
3:41
Speaker 3: number of other customers, and just sort of seeing what
3:45
Speaker 3: to feedback everyone has based on their prior experience, to
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Speaker 3: see if we can get to what the most likely
3:53
Speaker 3: root causes, look at look at both what we think
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Speaker 3: most likely happened and then anything that's a close call,
4:01
Speaker 3: and try to address all of those things and maximize
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Speaker 3: the probably of success for future missions.
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Speaker 1: Any hints on where you think the problem lies, well.
4:13
Speaker 2: And I know that there's there's media in the audience,
4:15
Speaker 2: so you have to be there, right.
4:18
Speaker 1: I never really learned that, but that is a lesson
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Speaker 1: working on.
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Speaker 3: So so it's yeah, I mean, I you know, the.
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Speaker 2: I think, I think.
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Speaker 3: I think we'll be able to say something.
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Speaker 2: More definitive towards the end of the week.
4:39
Speaker 3: At this point, really the only thing that's really clear
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Speaker 3: is that there was some kind of over pressure events
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Speaker 3: in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank, but the exact
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Speaker 3: cause and the sequence of events, there's there's still.
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Speaker 2: No clear theory that fits with all the data.
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Speaker 3: So we have to determine if some of the data
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Speaker 3: is a measurement error of some kind or whether there
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Speaker 3: is actually a theory that matches the sort of what.
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Speaker 2: Appeared to be conflicting data points.
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Speaker 1: Okay, very good. I'll just make a comment. The tweets
5:15
Speaker 1: you put out regularly, particularly when events like this happen,
5:19
Speaker 1: are really useful to everybody. We really do appreciate it.
5:22
Speaker 1: You'd be amazed at how many folks quote what you
5:24
Speaker 1: said and how glad they are that you just step
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Speaker 1: right out and at least give some sign about what's
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Speaker 1: going on and that you know we'll get through it.
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Speaker 1: Things are going well.
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Speaker 3: So we appreciate that absolutely, and for sure, as soon
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Speaker 3: as we think we've got a clear line on what
5:40
Speaker 3: happened and we've sort of cross checked it with as
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Speaker 3: many experts as we can, and certainly appreciate that the
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Speaker 3: feedback from NASA on this front, very.
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Speaker 2: Much appreciate it. We'll certainly put a put out that story.
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Speaker 3: I'm only reticence about saying something quite yet is I
5:58
Speaker 3: don't want to say something that subsequently turns out to
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Speaker 3: be a miss misunderstanding of the situation.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely understand that.
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Speaker 1: So one of the questions that I asked myself regularly
6:10
Speaker 1: is at what point does all this government help hurt?
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Speaker 1: So this event occurred, and we have you have the
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Speaker 1: NASA folks there from from about three different programs that
6:26
Speaker 1: intend to use your services, ISS being one of them.
6:30
Speaker 1: You have the FAA that's UH, that's involved, the range
6:35
Speaker 1: folks are there without feeling like you're giving your customers
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Speaker 1: a hard time? How is that interaction? And what what
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Speaker 1: should we consider doing differently so that we in those
6:53
Speaker 1: areas where we can help, we are helpful, and in
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Speaker 1: those those areas where we're really keeping you from getting
7:00
Speaker 1: your job done, we can modify ourselves.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Actually, I think the interaction with NASA has been
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Speaker 3: great this far. The big the biggest challenges that there
7:10
Speaker 3: are a lot of inquiries coming in simultaneously, so it's
7:16
Speaker 3: it's hard to sort of keep you know, respond to
7:19
Speaker 3: respond to everyone right away. But but actually it seems
7:22
Speaker 3: to have gone fairly well. The biggest thing that's needed
7:24
Speaker 3: in the in the sort of short term is the
7:26
Speaker 3: ability to sort of gather all the data create a
7:29
Speaker 3: very precise timeline so that you know, by by the melosecond,
7:33
Speaker 3: we know what each sensor was reading, and we can
7:37
Speaker 3: correlate that with the ground video. And actually, like one
7:40
Speaker 3: of the biggest challenges is matching the things to the
7:44
Speaker 3: exact time, you know, because when you're talking about you know,
7:48
Speaker 3: a matter of meloseconds, you know, being able to say,
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Speaker 3: what is the groundtrack video compared to the data as
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Speaker 3: received by the you know, by by the ground station
8:00
Speaker 3: from the rocket, and then taking into account for exactly
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Speaker 3: the actual time taking to generate a packet of information,
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Speaker 3: When was that sensor read, when was it encoded into
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Speaker 3: a packet, and when was that packet sent to the
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Speaker 3: ground When when you're doing in in mollerseconds, that all
8:18
Speaker 3: that stuff actually makes quite a big difference.
8:22
Speaker 2: So that's the biggest sort of effort.
8:25
Speaker 3: We've been engaged thus far is just putting together a
8:28
Speaker 3: super detailed timeline and then just making sure that we
8:33
Speaker 3: have the sequence of events down as precisely as possible.
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Speaker 2: That's what we're working on.
8:38
Speaker 3: And but but actually, certainly with the interaction we've had
8:43
Speaker 3: with with Nason with us has actually been quite good
8:45
Speaker 3: thus far, and we've explained that this is what we're doing,
8:48
Speaker 3: and then we very much welcome any feedback or input
8:54
Speaker 3: or a view of the data that would lead us
8:56
Speaker 3: to a better understanding of the circumstances.
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Speaker 1: I thought we had a very productive discussion back when
9:03
Speaker 1: we had the Engine one anomaly, and so I found
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Speaker 1: it'd be very useful. But that's a perspective from a
9:10
Speaker 1: NASA perspective, so it's always interesting to know your perspective
9:13
Speaker 1: of that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's seems to be quite quite good actually. Right now, so.
9:19
Speaker 1: You're building the last couple launches, you've had landing legs,
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Speaker 1: and you've been working on landing the first stage back
9:27
Speaker 1: eventually to shore. Can you talk a little bit about
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Speaker 1: that and which your vision is for that and for
9:31
Speaker 1: SpaceX in general.
9:32
Speaker 2: As you go forward.
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Speaker 3: Sure, Well, the overwatching goal of SpaceX is to try
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Speaker 3: to advance the state of space transport, advanced space transport
9:44
Speaker 3: technology to a point where well it get as far
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Speaker 3: along the path as we can to where space travel
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Speaker 3: is hopefully commonplace at some point in the future, and
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Speaker 3: where we can send large numbers of people and cargo
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Speaker 3: to other planets. And you know, it's like that's the
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Speaker 3: sort of thing that that needs to happen for humanity
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Speaker 3: to have a great future in space. So we want
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Speaker 3: to keep pushing that, and I think like a key
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Speaker 3: to to that future is reusability. So that's why we've
10:16
Speaker 3: worked quite hard on reusability, and unfortunately we haven't succeeded yet.
10:20
Speaker 3: And in fact, the last launch ironically was we we
10:25
Speaker 3: actually had the best chance of landing the vehicle on
10:29
Speaker 3: the on the sort of grown ship that's keeping station
10:32
Speaker 3: in the Atlantic. So we're actually quite sort of geared
10:35
Speaker 3: up for hopefully this would be a really great launch
10:38
Speaker 3: and unfortunately ended up being the opposite on my birthday
10:41
Speaker 3: of all things, a real downer you'll remember it though,
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Speaker 3: definitely low point. But but but I do think in
10:56
Speaker 3: the in the future launches that that we've got a
10:58
Speaker 3: decent chance of on the ship and then bringing the
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Speaker 3: boostage back to land. And then the next challenge, of course,
11:07
Speaker 3: is trying to figure out how to if efficiently effectively
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Speaker 3: reuse it. And it is designed for easy reuse in theory,
11:16
Speaker 3: but we've got to see what the stage looks looks
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Speaker 3: like when it comes back to one piece. We have
11:24
Speaker 3: been able to over the last few years to do
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Speaker 3: a number of vertical takeoff and landing tests of hardware
11:31
Speaker 3: that's essentially in the flight configuration, so we know we
11:33
Speaker 3: can we can handle the terminal phase if you know,
11:38
Speaker 3: if things go right, we can take off land no problem.
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Speaker 3: So it's just a question of completing all the pieces
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Speaker 3: and hopefully later this year won't be able to do that,
11:49
Speaker 3: but that that's key. So but of course that doesn't
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Speaker 3: address upper stage reuse, but it addresses boost stage reuse,
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Speaker 3: which is sort of seventy percent to eight percent of
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Speaker 3: the of the of the CRS and but I think
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Speaker 3: would be a great step towards lowering the cost of
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Speaker 3: space transport.
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Speaker 1: So you know, if you look at your history, I
12:13
Speaker 1: guess zip to PayPal.
12:15
Speaker 2: These are.
12:17
Speaker 1: Largely software type efforts. Now you've got Tesla electric cars,
12:24
Speaker 1: you're building a battery plant solar City. I guess you're
12:30
Speaker 1: involved in solar City. So why space?
12:33
Speaker 2: It seems.
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Speaker 1: Space to me and just what I rate we with
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Speaker 1: you seems to be more of a passion than the
12:39
Speaker 1: others or are businesses. But I I can't tell why space?
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Speaker 2: Why are you?
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Speaker 1: Why do you think it's important for us to be
12:46
Speaker 1: having access to lowerth orbit?
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Speaker 2: Well, the I mean actually technically, I mean with with the.
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Speaker 3: Tesla and Solar City, they're about helping to solve the
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Speaker 3: sustainable energy problem.
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Speaker 2: And uh so.
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Speaker 3: We're trying to make progress in that front on the
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Speaker 3: with those companies. With with SpaceX, it's uh trying to
13:07
Speaker 3: help solve the kind of space bearing problem.
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Speaker 2: I mean I I I.
13:13
Speaker 3: Think that a a future where we're a space bring
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Speaker 3: civilization and a and a multiplanet species is very exciting, inspiring,
13:20
Speaker 3: awesome future. And in order for that to happen, we've
13:25
Speaker 3: we've got to dramatically improve the cost of spaceflight. And
13:33
Speaker 3: uh and that's that's why why SpaceX exists, is to
13:37
Speaker 3: try to try to lower the cost of space flight,
13:41
Speaker 3: which we've made some progress in doing, but still I
13:43
Speaker 3: would call up improvements thus far evolutionary, not revolutionary, and
13:50
Speaker 3: but with with a lot of continued work, and I
13:52
Speaker 3: think there's the potential for for order of magnitude or
13:56
Speaker 3: greater improvements. Reasonability being key to all of that, of course.
14:03
Speaker 3: And yeah, and then hopefully if you know, if we
14:05
Speaker 3: want to see if we can keep improving the constant
14:08
Speaker 3: space flight and eventually that trend is in the right direction,
14:12
Speaker 3: that could be leading to a city on Mars, and
14:16
Speaker 3: certainly along the way a lot of activity in low
14:18
Speaker 3: with orbit and the Moon and you.
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Speaker 2: Know, lots of other exciting things.
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Speaker 1: So one of the things we're trying to do with
14:28
Speaker 1: the International Space Station is try to figure out which
14:32
Speaker 1: industries will prosper from the use of lower orbit to
14:35
Speaker 1: try to understand or help grow the economy.
14:41
Speaker 2: Essentially in lower th orbit.
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Speaker 1: And folks who are doing that are all taking risks today.
14:47
Speaker 1: Our job is to try to reduce the risk as
14:49
Speaker 1: much as we can near term so that they can
14:53
Speaker 1: get the information they need to really have a business
14:56
Speaker 1: case for the future. But everyone's trying toulate a risk.
15:01
Speaker 1: So is there an e long Musk philosophy of risk
15:07
Speaker 1: Bursted benefit? And when you when you think is the
15:10
Speaker 1: right time to jump in. I mean, what is your
15:13
Speaker 1: thought on on how to approach new industries, innovative areas
15:17
Speaker 1: and when's the right time to jump in or not?
15:21
Speaker 1: Or do you just is there no crystal ball or
15:24
Speaker 1: is it a crystal ball or wigi board? I mean,
15:26
Speaker 1: how do you how do you figure out what you
15:27
Speaker 1: should go after?
15:29
Speaker 3: Well, definitely the course much more reliable than the crystal ball,
15:37
Speaker 3: So the yeah, I mean, I don't really like risk
15:44
Speaker 3: for risk sake or anything. It's and I do think
15:48
Speaker 3: that all the things are are very risky with a
15:53
Speaker 3: low chance of success. But if you want to try
15:57
Speaker 3: to come up with an introvertive breakthrough, that's kind of
16:00
Speaker 3: that's gonna.
16:01
Speaker 2: Be how it is.
16:03
Speaker 3: I an anything which which is significantly innovative is gonna
16:07
Speaker 3: come with the significant risk of failure. And but you know,
16:12
Speaker 3: if you you've got to take big chances in order
16:14
Speaker 3: for the potential for a big.
16:16
Speaker 2: Positive outcome, and.
16:21
Speaker 3: You know, just if and if if, I mean if
16:23
Speaker 3: if the outcome is exciting enough, then then taking a.
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Speaker 2: Big risk is worthwhile. Ye, it's really our approach it.
16:31
Speaker 3: But w but then once executing down a path, I
16:33
Speaker 3: actually do my absolute best to reduce uh risk, you know,
16:38
Speaker 3: cause or or or to improve the po another way
16:40
Speaker 3: of saying, to improve the pobality of success because uh
16:43
Speaker 3: wh when you try to do something that is very
16:47
Speaker 3: very risky, uh that you ha, you you you have
16:51
Speaker 3: to spend a lot of effort trying to reduce that
16:53
Speaker 3: risk as you emblock down that path. I mean when wa,
16:58
Speaker 3: when I start as SpaceX, I thought the odds of
17:01
Speaker 3: success were very low. I thought we'd most likely fail,
17:05
Speaker 3: but I thought, well, we should give it a try. Nonetheless,
17:11
Speaker 3: and and then I'm not sure if you know what
17:14
Speaker 3: what preceded SpaceX because the why I got into the space.
17:21
Speaker 1: I remember, you're trying to purchase a vehicle two from
17:24
Speaker 1: our Russian cor That's what I'm talking about.
17:26
Speaker 2: Well, actually it was.
17:29
Speaker 3: The reason I got into space was to try to
17:33
Speaker 3: increase NASA's budget.
17:35
Speaker 2: Well the.
17:45
Speaker 3: And but so I'll tell you so the roundabout way
17:47
Speaker 3: I thought that might be accomplished was I thought, well,
17:51
Speaker 3: if if NASA's budget was more, was larger than we
17:53
Speaker 3: could do more in space exploration. And I thought, well,
17:57
Speaker 3: what particularly if we could get the public excited about
18:01
Speaker 3: sending people tomorrows? And I thought, well, if I could
18:04
Speaker 3: do a small greenhouse and send that to the surface
18:07
Speaker 3: of Mars with seasons in nutrient jail, and you hydrate
18:11
Speaker 3: the gael and landing you have a little miniature greenhouse,
18:14
Speaker 3: and then you'd have The public tends to get excited
18:17
Speaker 3: about precedents and superlatives. So if we like the you know,
18:20
Speaker 3: sort of first life on Mars, the furthest lives ever traveled,
18:23
Speaker 3: and you get people sort of excited about, well, but
18:25
Speaker 3: where we send people.
18:26
Speaker 2: There, like the health plants, we should send people, you know.
18:30
Speaker 3: And then I thought, well that could if that could
18:35
Speaker 3: get the public really excited about sending people tomorrows, then
18:38
Speaker 3: that would translate into congressional support for a bigger massa budget.
18:41
Speaker 2: That was the goal.
18:43
Speaker 3: And then I didn't have enough money to buy and
18:47
Speaker 3: I thought that that outcome would have a hard per
18:48
Speaker 3: cent chance of no commercial success.
18:52
Speaker 2: So the harp cent chance of losing all the money.
18:54
Speaker 3: So compared to that SpaceX, which I thought maybe had
18:58
Speaker 3: a ten percent chance of success, that was an improvement.
19:05
Speaker 1: There You go, well, that makes that makes good sense.
19:08
Speaker 1: So are you still thinking about that? I do remember
19:10
Speaker 1: that conversation. This was the idea where you used Martian
19:13
Speaker 1: regulars you send these self contained habitats, if not habitat.
19:19
Speaker 2: And grow like commuter across or something.
19:22
Speaker 1: But just to prove the concept, Yeah, just to get it.
19:25
Speaker 3: I mean, the real goal was to get the public excited.
19:29
Speaker 3: You get some engineering data about what does it take
19:31
Speaker 3: to maintain a little habitat on Mars type of thing,
19:34
Speaker 3: but the main thing would be to get the public
19:36
Speaker 3: excited and you know, get people to be you know,
19:40
Speaker 3: the public to be in the paper of a bigg
19:41
Speaker 3: ass a budget.
19:43
Speaker 2: It's the goal.
19:44
Speaker 1: And well, again, God bless you, that's a worthy goal.
19:46
Speaker 2: I hope you don't saw so.
19:50
Speaker 1: Commercial crew. So you've been selected as one of the
19:52
Speaker 1: providers for the commercial crew. Can you tell us a
19:55
Speaker 1: little bit about where that's headed for you as a company,
19:58
Speaker 1: and perhaps maybe how affected your company, if it has,
20:01
Speaker 1: if it's changed the thing, and how you approach space.
20:07
Speaker 3: I think things seem to be going fairly well on
20:10
Speaker 3: the commercial crew front.
20:14
Speaker 2: I mean the I mean overall.
20:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean that there are small disagreements here
20:19
Speaker 3: and there, but overall, I like, I think we very
20:21
Speaker 3: much agree with the way it's being done. And yeah,
20:27
Speaker 3: I think it's it's it's pretty pretty good. I mean,
20:29
Speaker 3: there are a few things where the like it seems
20:33
Speaker 3: like the amount of of sort of massive volume reserved
20:36
Speaker 3: for poop is too high. Sorry, but that's you know,
20:44
Speaker 3: there's like little things like that. We're like, well, are
20:46
Speaker 3: they really going to do that much group, But it's
20:51
Speaker 3: it's quite it's quite a large volume, but really it is,
20:55
Speaker 3: so but I could really they're pretty small disagreements. So
20:59
Speaker 3: I think that it seems to be pretty pretty sensible.
21:03
Speaker 2: And then we did the orange board.
21:07
Speaker 3: Test earlier this year, which at the Cave, which actually
21:10
Speaker 3: went pretty well, and yeah, so things are going along
21:16
Speaker 3: getting pretty exciting. And yeah, I think there's also some
21:22
Speaker 3: potential use for Dragon too as a science delivery platform,
21:28
Speaker 3: you know, going to sort of delivering payloads to Mars
21:32
Speaker 3: or other places.
21:34
Speaker 2: We're in discussion with.
21:35
Speaker 3: Other parts of NASA about some of those ideas because
21:38
Speaker 3: the propulsive landing, you know, it could really lower the
21:42
Speaker 3: cost of getting science instruments to various places in the
21:45
Speaker 3: Solar System.
21:47
Speaker 2: So that's kind of exciting.
21:48
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna come back to that in just a second.
21:50
Speaker 1: But commercial the crew vehicle versus the dragging cargo vehicle,
21:55
Speaker 1: clearly there are some significant differences fairly innovative approach. I
22:01
Speaker 1: think to aboart testing where traditionally you've seen the just
22:06
Speaker 1: and rocket on top. It's a pullar versus the pusher
22:10
Speaker 1: technique where you utilize fuel that you otherwise would use
22:13
Speaker 1: for the right on orbit, but of course you're not
22:15
Speaker 1: going there, So very innovative approach. Are there other areas
22:18
Speaker 1: where you feel like you're from an innovation standpoint, you're
22:24
Speaker 1: making some significant strides with the crew vehicle?
22:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the the the big items for well,
22:33
Speaker 3: the biggest item really for dragon Io is the ability
22:37
Speaker 3: to do a propulsive landing and it's basically having heavy
22:42
Speaker 3: thrusters on board. So those same heavy thrusters can then
22:47
Speaker 3: do the abort but retain the engines. So instead of
22:51
Speaker 3: in a normal sort of creud mission like take to
22:54
Speaker 3: take the Soyers for example, that have a tractor motor
22:59
Speaker 3: on the nose of the vehicle, that would have to
23:02
Speaker 3: be basically a rocketential on the nose that would have
23:04
Speaker 3: to be discarded on every flight, which is a potential
23:08
Speaker 3: reliability issue. And it and then you have obviously unable
23:12
Speaker 3: to reuse the the the the aborted system, and yeah,
23:17
Speaker 3: and it adds it adds a bunch of bunch of mass.
23:22
Speaker 3: But but then in addition, those same thrusters can be
23:25
Speaker 3: used for propulsive landing, so you can achieve a precise
23:28
Speaker 3: propulsive landing which on on land or water, which is
23:35
Speaker 3: I think a significant improvement.
23:39
Speaker 2: And I mean.
23:40
Speaker 3: It's sort of also it's sort of like really I
23:42
Speaker 3: think feels feels more like the future to to have
23:45
Speaker 3: that that capability. And then, as I mentioned it poor
23:48
Speaker 3: it can be extended to uh do paler delivery to
23:53
Speaker 3: the Moon or Mars or other places. Because of the
23:57
Speaker 3: generalized cape ability of propulsive landing to land land almost
24:02
Speaker 3: anywhere very good.
24:05
Speaker 1: So, uh, let's go back to dragon. At one point
24:08
Speaker 1: you had a conversation talked a little bit about something
24:10
Speaker 1: I think was virtuos Dragon Lab, where you go to
24:12
Speaker 1: lowerth orbit and do what I assumed was sort of
24:16
Speaker 1: kind of research and then and bring the vehicle back.
24:19
Speaker 1: Are you still pursuing that or something like that. Is
24:22
Speaker 1: this an area where you think that there is a potential.
24:26
Speaker 3: I think that that there is some potential for to
24:29
Speaker 3: essentially just take things to love with orbit and then
24:31
Speaker 3: bring them bring them back, you know, after a few
24:34
Speaker 3: weeks or something like that.
24:37
Speaker 2: It's it's not a huge area of attention. It's at
24:40
Speaker 2: space X, but I think we might do a few
24:42
Speaker 2: missions like that.
24:45
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean Dragon is is very much sort
24:49
Speaker 3: of its primary optimize optimization is as a transport vehicle
24:54
Speaker 3: to and from the space station and uh and so
24:58
Speaker 3: things like Dragon Lab and then science delivery platform I
25:01
Speaker 3: think are interesting extensions of that.
25:04
Speaker 2: And I think as as Dragon to.
25:07
Speaker 3: First flies and then gets into regular flights, I think
25:09
Speaker 3: there'll probably will be some more applications that that people
25:13
Speaker 3: could think of, particularly since with Dragon two the reusability
25:17
Speaker 3: of the vehicle should be quite high.
25:19
Speaker 2: So if we have reusability.
25:20
Speaker 3: Of the Dragon spacecraft and reusability of the booster, and
25:25
Speaker 3: somebody is willing to sort of do a bunch of
25:30
Speaker 3: flights with with the fully reused system, there's the potential
25:35
Speaker 3: for much lower cost access to space. There is a
25:40
Speaker 3: bit of a chicken and egg challenge because, like the
25:43
Speaker 3: there's a certain amount of fixed costs that have to
25:45
Speaker 3: be carried no matter what, so the the module costs
25:51
Speaker 3: of launch or the cost of each subsequent launch can
25:54
Speaker 3: drop quite significantly. So long as the launch rate per
25:57
Speaker 3: year is high, it stays up.
25:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, it adds other challenges to the system.
26:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, trying to fly. It's often as you that you
26:06
Speaker 2: need to make that yup.
26:08
Speaker 1: Well, let's see. I I don't wanna bore everybody with
26:10
Speaker 1: all my questions. And we had talked about if folks
26:14
Speaker 1: had any questions in the audience.
26:15
Speaker 2: Let's see this. Oh wow, they're not bashful. That's good.
26:18
Speaker 1: So I don't know if we're gonna need microphones, but
26:21
Speaker 1: but i'll I'll start here.
26:23
Speaker 4: So I would like to ask question.
26:33
Speaker 2: It's a little love my question.
26:38
Speaker 4: Because, uh, you are like a kind of mentor and
26:42
Speaker 4: a visionary, and you'll give hope to a lot of
26:45
Speaker 4: people around the globe because when they see you, they
26:49
Speaker 4: realize that they can realize they dreams. But my question
26:53
Speaker 4: is different. Uh, when you are a dreamer, when you
26:56
Speaker 4: are too uh, when you are dreamer, when you are
27:01
Speaker 4: a visionary, of course you have your vision, but there
27:05
Speaker 4: are moments that sometimes maybe you stop believing in this vision,
27:10
Speaker 4: especially in the moments of some problems or failure. So
27:16
Speaker 4: could you tell me, and could you tell also to
27:19
Speaker 4: thousands of people who maybe will be motivated by your answer?
27:23
Speaker 4: What keeps you fighting for your vision? What helps you
27:28
Speaker 4: to reach your gym.
27:34
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think I'm kind of constitutionally just
27:38
Speaker 3: thereed to just keep going.
27:40
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's a.
27:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it just I I don't know. I
27:49
Speaker 3: mean it Certainly there are times when things don't go
27:53
Speaker 3: well and then that's quite desperating for sure, and so
27:59
Speaker 3: then it's difficult to proceed with the same level of enthusiasm.
28:03
Speaker 3: But but I do think, like I do think the
28:07
Speaker 3: things that we're doing are you know, pretty important to
28:11
Speaker 3: the future. And if we don't succeed, then you know,
28:16
Speaker 3: there's well there's there's not it's not clear what other
28:20
Speaker 3: things would succeed. And if if we don't succeed, then
28:23
Speaker 3: we will be certainly pointed to as a reason why
28:26
Speaker 3: people shouldn't even try for these things. So I think
28:30
Speaker 3: it's important that we do whatever it's necessary to keep going.
28:34
Speaker 4: Okay, And last question, last question, So in two thousand
28:39
Speaker 4: and four, when you are going to burny Men with
28:42
Speaker 4: your cousin, you were thinking, there is a sun and
28:46
Speaker 4: let's make energy out of it.
28:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would like.
28:49
Speaker 4: To ask you why do you believe so in solar
28:53
Speaker 4: energy and in and clean tech energies and also in
28:57
Speaker 4: sustainable energy, and the last question I will not ask
29:01
Speaker 4: any more questions what will be the role of solar
29:03
Speaker 4: in the exploration of Mars.
29:07
Speaker 3: Sure, I think solar energy is probably fairly significant for Mars.
29:13
Speaker 3: And what's going to be quite important is having a
29:17
Speaker 3: very lightweight solar system that you know, both volumetrically and
29:24
Speaker 3: grabhometrically dance. So actually you were sort of playing with
29:29
Speaker 3: the different concepts like you know that like thing, that
29:33
Speaker 3: party thing where you've inflated and it rolls out.
29:36
Speaker 2: But the thing, like what one of.
29:39
Speaker 3: The solar concepts is is to have like a big
29:42
Speaker 3: role that you just basically inflate and it rolls out
29:46
Speaker 3: with with with like really thin solar panels on it.
29:53
Speaker 3: But but it's it's gonna be pretty important because really
29:55
Speaker 3: you either got to do that or nuclear and you
30:00
Speaker 3: know nuclear has has these challenges, but put for solar,
30:04
Speaker 3: it's pretty straightforward. So I think I think it so
30:07
Speaker 3: al is very important to the future exploration of Mars
30:10
Speaker 3: for sure.
30:11
Speaker 4: So thank you and I wish you that your next
30:13
Speaker 4: Thursday is very successfuls A last.
30:17
Speaker 2: Okay, let's go, let's go, okay, go ahead, bel team.
30:22
Speaker 5: My name is Valentina NOVAEF. I am from the United
30:25
Speaker 5: Rocket and Space Corporation, which shortly will become a part
30:30
Speaker 5: of State Corporation ross Cosmos. So I made this one
30:36
Speaker 5: quest to the West because I'd like to ask one
30:39
Speaker 5: question of you and Mask what is his secret to
30:42
Speaker 5: become a successful businessman in the space industry, and then
30:48
Speaker 5: coming back to Russia to tell Russian businessman there is
30:51
Speaker 5: a way to become a taikoun and space industry. So
30:58
Speaker 5: seriously speaking, I'd like to ask you when you started
31:03
Speaker 5: your business, was the government your partner? Was it useful
31:07
Speaker 5: in what areas? And so there are always two sides
31:11
Speaker 5: on is it going as there were times when you
31:17
Speaker 5: had to fight bureaucracy?
31:19
Speaker 2: Thank you? Sure? Well.
31:25
Speaker 3: Well, I should say with respect to starting a space business,
31:28
Speaker 3: it's definitely not the easiest environment to start a business.
31:33
Speaker 3: And I think if most people were to rank order
31:36
Speaker 3: what's the highest retinent investment, I mean, space would not
31:40
Speaker 3: be very good. I mean it's I'm very pro space,
31:45
Speaker 3: So it's like you know, but it's I mean, that's
31:48
Speaker 3: just true that like if you you know, start a
31:51
Speaker 3: hedge fund, or if you're in like many other industries,
31:55
Speaker 3: then it's much easier to make money than the space industry.
31:58
Speaker 3: This is not the easiest wanted to make money and
32:02
Speaker 3: it's yeah, car industry also quite difficult. So the in fact,
32:17
Speaker 3: I mean when starting SpaceX, the the joke I heard
32:21
Speaker 3: the jokes this, this joke so often it was ridiculous.
32:25
Speaker 3: The joke was how do you make a small portion
32:27
Speaker 3: in the space industry? And the punch line, of course
32:30
Speaker 3: being started with a large one. Yeah, And I got
32:40
Speaker 3: to a point I'd heard the joke so many times
32:42
Speaker 3: that I would just get to the punchline and say like, well,
32:44
Speaker 3: I wanted to figure out how to turn a large fortune.
32:46
Speaker 2: Just more one. That was my goal, And they're like, wow,
32:48
Speaker 2: how did you know that?
32:52
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean I do think there's that there
32:56
Speaker 3: is opportunity in space, but but it is, it's it's
32:59
Speaker 3: it's it's tough going. I think if but I think if, if,
33:04
Speaker 3: if SpaceX and other companies can can lower the cost
33:07
Speaker 3: of transport to orbit and perhaps beyond, then there's a
33:12
Speaker 3: lot of potential for entrepreneurship at the destination. I mean,
33:16
Speaker 3: you can think of it like the like the Union
33:18
Speaker 3: Pacific railway. You know, before there was the univer Cific railway,
33:22
Speaker 3: it was real hard to have commerce between the West
33:25
Speaker 3: coast and the East coast. It'd go by wagon or
33:29
Speaker 3: a really long sailing journey. But once there was the transport,
33:33
Speaker 3: then there were huge opportunities. And now look at sort
33:36
Speaker 3: of you know, the California and Washington State and all
33:39
Speaker 3: the industries that have been created in Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
33:44
Speaker 3: But you've got to have that fundamental transport element otherwise
33:48
Speaker 3: there's just it's really tricky. So we're trying to establish
33:52
Speaker 3: that transport element, make it easier to get to lower orbit,
33:58
Speaker 3: and hopefully in the future, make it easier to get
34:00
Speaker 3: to the Moon or Mars. And I'm an idea of
34:03
Speaker 3: this long term vision of like if there was affordable
34:07
Speaker 3: transport to a place like Mars, I think the entrepreneurial
34:10
Speaker 3: opportunities would be phenomenal, you know, because there'd be people
34:13
Speaker 3: that would want to create everything from the first pizza
34:16
Speaker 3: joint to the first iron ore factory. To be like
34:20
Speaker 3: just an enormous amount of opportunity for people to create
34:23
Speaker 3: things on Mars. And that'd be different things on Mars.
34:26
Speaker 3: Some of the things on Mars would be different they
34:27
Speaker 3: wouldn't even imagine on Earth.
34:30
Speaker 2: It would be very exciting.
34:32
Speaker 3: So I think that's that's really key to making things
34:37
Speaker 3: happen in space is you've got to have someplace. You've
34:40
Speaker 3: gotta have some place to go in some place in
34:42
Speaker 3: some way to get there.
34:44
Speaker 1: So so along those lines, did you read Andy Ware's
34:49
Speaker 1: book The Marshal?
34:50
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it was good. What do you think I
34:53
Speaker 2: thought it was?
34:53
Speaker 3: It was pretty excellent, certainly one of the most realistic
34:55
Speaker 3: books on Mars that that I've read.
34:58
Speaker 2: I mean, like, there were a few things like the
35:00
Speaker 2: wind force.
35:01
Speaker 3: On Mars is not really that high. It's not going
35:06
Speaker 3: to knock you over or anything. It's high obviously high velocity,
35:10
Speaker 3: but low force. But overall I thought it was pretty cool.
35:14
Speaker 3: And apparently it's been made into a movie.
35:15
Speaker 1: And everything, so you don't you don't have a cameo
35:18
Speaker 1: on that one too.
35:19
Speaker 2: I don't have a cameo on that one.
35:21
Speaker 3: I'm a little worried that it might not make people
35:23
Speaker 3: too keen on going to Mars.
35:28
Speaker 2: This looks really hard.
35:33
Speaker 3: I think we need to show about how Mas is
35:34
Speaker 3: awesome and it's like the wild West, and you've got
35:36
Speaker 3: the gun slingers and like the cool cowboys and.
35:38
Speaker 2: That kind of thing.
35:41
Speaker 1: All right, maybe you got to write a book too.
35:42
Speaker 1: Let's see, there's a question over here.
35:46
Speaker 6: Hi there, my name is Anita Goel. I'm here at
35:49
Speaker 6: out of Harvard and MIT. You run a company called
35:51
Speaker 6: NATO biosim So, in your vision and dream to achieve
35:56
Speaker 6: low cost space travel, how do you allocate your estments
36:00
Speaker 6: between engineering and essentially driving down the cost of existing
36:06
Speaker 6: technology versus investing in new breakthrough physics things like breakthrough
36:11
Speaker 6: propulsion physics anti gravity. What's your vision in the bifurcation
36:15
Speaker 6: of those two kinds of portfolios.
36:19
Speaker 3: Well, we don't spend a ton of time on new physics.
36:22
Speaker 3: I mean the I think with current physics this huge potential,
36:30
Speaker 3: so rather than rely on a breakthrough, which we you know,
36:34
Speaker 3: really it's difficult to envision what that breakthrough would exactly be.
36:39
Speaker 2: Or even and exactly be.
36:43
Speaker 3: The I'm quite confident that with what we know of
36:47
Speaker 3: current physics, sort of just going with the kind of
36:50
Speaker 3: you know, where the standard model of physics is today,
36:53
Speaker 3: that there are dramatic improvements possible in spacelight. And I
36:58
Speaker 3: think with the you know, certainly with with falcon iine,
37:02
Speaker 3: I think we can make improvements and then with our
37:04
Speaker 3: next generation rocket system, which is still you know, many
37:07
Speaker 3: years away, that'll be a deep cryo METHYLOCKX system. I
37:14
Speaker 3: think I think we can achieve full reusability and that
37:19
Speaker 3: that's really that's a that's a huge potential for you know,
37:24
Speaker 3: like maybe a two order of magnitude reduction in the
37:27
Speaker 3: class of spaceline. So as far as R and D
37:33
Speaker 3: is concerned.
37:33
Speaker 2: Like we we we we.
37:36
Speaker 3: We we hire great engineers as fast as we can
37:39
Speaker 3: find them. So it's like the it's not that easy
37:43
Speaker 3: to find, but I should say great ish is with
37:45
Speaker 3: the sort of like the right mindset and everything, we
37:50
Speaker 3: we hire at the at the at the maximum rate
37:52
Speaker 3: that we can find people that we think would would
37:54
Speaker 3: really be an asset to the team, so there's no
37:57
Speaker 3: limitation on that.
38:00
Speaker 2: Okay, we're here. Hi.
38:01
Speaker 7: My name is Zachary Malton, a student from babs In College.
38:04
Speaker 7: I just want to say it's an order to be here.
38:06
Speaker 7: I read Ashley Vancy's biography about you. One thing that
38:09
Speaker 7: really was intriguing to me was the super Draco engine
38:11
Speaker 7: for the Dragon V two that was used to printed
38:14
Speaker 7: out of three day technology vision using that technology more
38:17
Speaker 7: in the future and when you first splace exploration and
38:20
Speaker 7: do you think they'll how about affect the costs in
38:23
Speaker 7: terms of getting to Mars anything like that.
38:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:27
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So, as you lud to, we we actually print
38:31
Speaker 3: the super Draco engines, so they're printed out of titanum
38:35
Speaker 3: in a canal, and that actually allows us to.
38:42
Speaker 2: Reduce the cost.
38:43
Speaker 3: Of those engines quite a bit, in particular because we
38:47
Speaker 3: can print integral cooling channels. So when you've got an
38:51
Speaker 3: hour glass chamber and you've got cooling channels in the
38:55
Speaker 3: wall of the chamber, where the whole wall consists of
38:57
Speaker 3: cooling channels, it's onally quite difficult to create that thrust
39:03
Speaker 3: chamber and nozzle because you've got to create an inner
39:06
Speaker 3: jacket outer jacket kind of machine the inner jacket it's
39:10
Speaker 3: and then braise the whole thing together. It's real pain
39:13
Speaker 3: and you've got a bunch of joints in there to
39:15
Speaker 3: make it all work. So with printing, you can print
39:18
Speaker 3: something that you can't make by any other means, so
39:21
Speaker 3: it actually ends up being lighter and cheaper than if
39:24
Speaker 3: we're built it by traditional methods. For our next generation engine,
39:29
Speaker 3: which we call the Rafter, which as mentioned is sort
39:32
Speaker 3: of a it's a it's a deep crime of methologue.
39:36
Speaker 3: So what I mean by that is the methane and
39:39
Speaker 3: oxygen are cool too close to their freezing points, so
39:43
Speaker 3: not not far from the freezing point as opposed to
39:45
Speaker 3: close to their walling point, which is more which is
39:49
Speaker 3: normally the case. The you know, with that engine, we're
39:56
Speaker 3: trying to print as much as possible. It's it's a
39:58
Speaker 3: big The biggest limitation on three printing right now is
40:02
Speaker 3: the size ovelope, So there's limit on how big we
40:05
Speaker 3: can print something. But we're able to print the turbopump
40:10
Speaker 3: components and much of the injected not the whole thing,
40:13
Speaker 3: but many of the critical parts we can print, So
40:17
Speaker 3: that actually helps us in speeding up the development. So
40:20
Speaker 3: instead of waiting for castings to be developed, which can
40:24
Speaker 3: take several months, and then if the casting is wrong,
40:27
Speaker 3: you've got to iterate in the casting, and each iteration
40:30
Speaker 3: we can take several months. With printing we can have
40:34
Speaker 3: those iterations can be reduced to a matter of weeks
40:36
Speaker 3: or months, so that that actually helps with the speed
40:40
Speaker 3: of developments as well.
40:43
Speaker 2: See are we here? Hi? I'm Ros Spungehock with a
40:50
Speaker 2: company called High Orbit.
40:51
Speaker 7: I wondered if you could give us a little bit
40:53
Speaker 7: of an update on what's going on with the hyper
40:55
Speaker 7: loop and.
40:56
Speaker 1: Is there any overlap between the worker doom of SpaceX
40:59
Speaker 1: and hyperop technology.
41:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, SpaceX is not.
41:05
Speaker 3: Neither I nor SpaceX are doing anything to try to
41:07
Speaker 3: commercialize the hypher loop. There are I think at least two,
41:11
Speaker 3: maybe more than two companies that have formed that are
41:14
Speaker 3: completely independent of me or SpaceX that are working towards
41:18
Speaker 3: commercializing the hypher loop technology or high blop idea or design.
41:24
Speaker 3: What what SpaceX is doing is We're going to just
41:28
Speaker 3: create a little student competition for higher loop ideas, so
41:33
Speaker 3: kind of like around the way that Formula SAE works,
41:37
Speaker 3: where students can come up with a design and compete
41:41
Speaker 3: against each other to design the best pod. So what
41:44
Speaker 3: what SpaceX will do is just construct about a mile
41:46
Speaker 3: long low pressure tube near nearly vacuum two basically in
41:55
Speaker 3: which students can kind of raise their pods. So it's
42:01
Speaker 3: just basically to support get get students excited about engineering.
42:07
Speaker 3: That's the only involvement of SpaceX myself with the hyperlib
42:11
Speaker 3: at this point.
42:14
Speaker 8: Okay, over here, well, I'm Paul Kastagno mus sociologist, and
42:19
Speaker 8: I'm writing a book about the International Space Station. How
42:23
Speaker 8: would you describe the scientific value of the International Space
42:26
Speaker 8: Station and where would you draw the line between luxury
42:30
Speaker 8: and need when it comes to space exploration.
42:35
Speaker 3: Well, I mean for space I mean I really spend
42:39
Speaker 3: all of my time thinking about just how to get
42:41
Speaker 3: to the space station. To be honest, I I I
42:47
Speaker 3: actually hadn't even really seen a proper movie of the
42:50
Speaker 3: inside of the space station until I went to see
42:52
Speaker 3: the preview of the new Imax thing that's coming out.
42:55
Speaker 3: And it's amazing, Like when that Space Station Imax movie
43:00
Speaker 3: exact people are gonna have blown away.
43:01
Speaker 2: It's awesome.
43:04
Speaker 3: I actually bought my whole team at at space X
43:07
Speaker 3: to go go see the preview of the of the
43:10
Speaker 3: IMAX movie. And I mean it, it's like it is
43:16
Speaker 3: a very unique laboratory because this is the only thing
43:21
Speaker 3: that's in sort of micro gravity, that's above the Earth's atmosphere,
43:28
Speaker 3: and you can learn a lot about basically human physiology,
43:31
Speaker 3: uh and two experiments that you can't really do any
43:34
Speaker 3: any other lab. And you know, and you can have
43:40
Speaker 3: to bring scientists up and they can actually work in
43:43
Speaker 3: this incredibly unique lab. So I think that there's a
43:45
Speaker 3: lot to be game there and and I think it
43:51
Speaker 3: just you can't sort of, you know, ignore the coolness
43:55
Speaker 3: factor of it. Like that's like people think it's pretty cool.
43:59
Speaker 2: So I think it's pretty cool.
44:03
Speaker 3: And you know, the the the public wanna have something
44:07
Speaker 3: going on in space, uh that that involves people, and yeah,
44:14
Speaker 3: and it's it's just I don't know, it's the coolest
44:17
Speaker 3: thing going on in space. So there's a lot of
44:20
Speaker 3: value that.
44:22
Speaker 1: You know, we we we try to to uh sells
44:29
Speaker 1: the wrong word. It's the word we use, but sells
44:31
Speaker 1: really the wrong word. We're trying to get people to
44:33
Speaker 1: recognize that there's a platform in Lowers orbit and that, uh,
44:37
Speaker 1: this is important. What's done in Lower's orbit has benefit
44:40
Speaker 1: to to uh those of us on Earth that will
44:44
Speaker 1: never actually go to space. But in doing that, you
44:48
Speaker 1: trying to get their interest level. And part of their
44:50
Speaker 1: interest level is the cool factor that you talked about.
44:53
Speaker 1: And and I've always kind of struggled with that being
44:57
Speaker 1: sort of a black and white. I I understand and
45:00
Speaker 1: the purpose in my head, that's why I joined NASA, right,
45:02
Speaker 1: But over the years, this is one of the things
45:05
Speaker 1: that I've started to recognize is important. So my question
45:09
Speaker 1: to you is did we I've heard a rumor that
45:12
Speaker 1: for the suits for commercial crew that you wanted to
45:14
Speaker 1: play and role in that and so is that true?
45:18
Speaker 1: And is there some reason behind the design of the
45:21
Speaker 1: suit that you want to personally be involved in other
45:24
Speaker 1: than cruise safety.
45:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
45:26
Speaker 3: I think we've actually spent a lot of effort on
45:31
Speaker 3: the spacesuit design, on both the functionality and the aesthetics.
45:37
Speaker 2: But I think just getting.
45:40
Speaker 3: It's actually really hard because if you just sort of
45:42
Speaker 3: optimize functionality, it's one thing. If you optimize for aesthetics,
45:46
Speaker 3: it doesn't work. Like you know, there's things that see movies,
45:51
Speaker 3: they don't work. So the so it's like, okay, how
45:58
Speaker 3: do we make something that looks cool, antworks and with
46:03
Speaker 3: with with a key uh goal here of being being
46:07
Speaker 3: that you know, when people see that spaceally, they want
46:12
Speaker 3: them to think, yeah, I want to wear that thing
46:14
Speaker 3: one day.
46:14
Speaker 2: Yeah that looks awesome. So that's that's that's the reason
46:20
Speaker 2: for it. Very good.
46:21
Speaker 1: Let's see, we'll do a couple more questions and then
46:24
Speaker 1: let's let's can we get back in the back here
46:27
Speaker 1: or do we have somebody else here already with the microphone.
46:30
Speaker 1: All right, go ahead, thank you.
46:33
Speaker 9: I'm Alex Pearlman. I'm with Boston Magazine and I'm writing
46:37
Speaker 9: for Advice today. I was hoping that you could give
46:40
Speaker 9: us a little bit of an update on the most
46:42
Speaker 9: recent news with the idea of putting satellites to provide
46:47
Speaker 9: internet to developing countries and unconnected people.
46:52
Speaker 2: Sure.
46:53
Speaker 3: So we're still at the early stages of it's sort
46:57
Speaker 3: of a big leo constellation munication idea, and we're hopeful,
47:03
Speaker 3: hopefully going to launch get a test satellite next year.
47:09
Speaker 3: And but but I think the long term potential of
47:12
Speaker 3: it is is pretty pretty great. But I don't want
47:14
Speaker 3: to overplay or overstate, you know, things quite you know
47:19
Speaker 3: that this you know, or any stage of the game, really,
47:22
Speaker 3: but the long term goal is to create a comprehensive
47:27
Speaker 3: global communication system that's that provides high bandwidth, low latency
47:33
Speaker 3: connectivity anywhere in the world and provides cross links through
47:38
Speaker 3: the satellites so that you can have improved long distance Internet.
47:45
Speaker 3: It's one of the things that sort of your lize
47:47
Speaker 3: when you look at this is that you can actually
47:52
Speaker 3: have a more direct path through space and you can
47:57
Speaker 3: and photons move faster upon what fiber optic material.
48:01
Speaker 2: They're running through.
48:03
Speaker 3: Photons actually move about forty to fifty percent faster in
48:08
Speaker 3: vacuum than they.
48:09
Speaker 2: Do in fiber optic cables.
48:13
Speaker 3: And if you look at the way that the fiber
48:15
Speaker 3: optic cables go, they trace the outlines of the continents
48:19
Speaker 3: and they go through many repeaters and routers and everything.
48:22
Speaker 3: So if you want to say, communicate from a server
48:25
Speaker 3: in California to one in South Africa, it's a very
48:29
Speaker 3: very long route and sort of very roundabout path, and
48:33
Speaker 3: it's a high latency, low photonic speed, and you can
48:38
Speaker 3: actually have that communication be quite a bit faster if
48:41
Speaker 3: it's in space. So I think there's there's the potential
48:46
Speaker 3: for doing a fabet of long distance internet activity as
48:49
Speaker 3: well as providing.
48:52
Speaker 2: Bandwidth broadly.
48:54
Speaker 3: But it's also worth saying that a lot of companies
48:57
Speaker 3: have tried this and kind of broking their pick on it,
49:02
Speaker 3: and I think we we want to be really careful
49:05
Speaker 3: about how we delivered, about trying to make this thing
49:10
Speaker 3: work and not not overextend ourselves. So we're being s
49:14
Speaker 3: we're being, you know, fairly careful about it. But I
49:17
Speaker 3: I do think this is something that should be built
49:20
Speaker 3: and would be quite good to have.
49:27
Speaker 2: Well.
49:28
Speaker 3: In our case, the the communications technology would be substantially
49:32
Speaker 3: more advanced. In the past, we'll say attempts like tealdeesic
49:38
Speaker 3: h the the the electronics of the day were very
49:44
Speaker 3: low bandwidth, I mean really analog or barely digital, and
49:48
Speaker 3: they weren't very high bandwidth. So she said it really
49:52
Speaker 3: didn't compete with stage with terrestrial phones. In the case
49:56
Speaker 3: utilities they were looking to compete with or or to
49:59
Speaker 3: address cell needs. That the system we're talking about would
50:03
Speaker 3: not attempt to compete with celluar needs. So for example,
50:06
Speaker 3: it wouldn't compete directly with say Iridium, which is which
50:09
Speaker 3: which can talk directly to a handset. Our system would
50:12
Speaker 3: seem to would seek to talk to a small user
50:17
Speaker 3: terminal that's about the size of a pizza box, or
50:21
Speaker 3: much like you know current dishes that are the satellite dishes.
50:27
Speaker 3: But but it will be flat because we have faced
50:29
Speaker 3: ray antenna that's tracking the satellites. But you could mount
50:33
Speaker 3: it in a window or just anywhere outside as long.
50:36
Speaker 2: As you can see the sky. It would work.
50:40
Speaker 1: See back here, we'll take our last question back here.
50:42
Speaker 10: Hey Elon, thanks for coming out. I would like to
50:45
Speaker 10: show you. We brought a virtual reality camera here. It's
50:48
Speaker 10: record for the first time. We have a small start
50:53
Speaker 10: up in San Francisco called space VR, and we believe
50:56
Speaker 10: that virtual reality is the future of space exploration because
51:01
Speaker 10: you can put people on the very cutting the very
51:03
Speaker 10: front of every every expiration mission. Is that something that
51:08
Speaker 10: you've given much thought or have any opinions on?
51:11
Speaker 3: Well, I've gone I've perceived the vicial reality demos at
51:17
Speaker 3: Oculus and at Valve, and it's pretty impressive. You can
51:22
Speaker 3: sort of imagine if that's extrap late into the future,
51:25
Speaker 3: it's really gonna super feel like you're there. And I
51:28
Speaker 3: wonder if some people are never gonna want to take
51:30
Speaker 3: that all. Honestly, it's like it's pretty I mean, it's
51:38
Speaker 3: pretty entrancing. But I do think it'd be quite exciting
51:43
Speaker 3: to do that for a space as well. Yeah, do
51:46
Speaker 3: you have a set up here?
51:48
Speaker 2: Okay? It's right there? Wow, Okay, cool? Okay, w where
52:04
Speaker 2: are you based in? W Where? But where are you based? Okay?
52:10
Speaker 3: I think maybe today is gonna be tricky, but uh
52:15
Speaker 3: but but maybe uh if since you're based in California, uh,
52:18
Speaker 3: I could we could range something in I you know,
52:21
Speaker 3: in the coming weeks.
52:22
Speaker 1: Tell you alright, let's see, Elan, we'll uh we'll call
52:27
Speaker 1: it a a conference.
52:29
Speaker 3: Uh.
52:30
Speaker 1: I wanted to first, uh, thank you very much. You've
52:32
Speaker 1: been very genius with your time and we uh you know,
52:36
Speaker 1: from the moment I called you, you were all in
52:39
Speaker 1: and UH it's really this open conversation and your your
52:43
Speaker 1: thoughts on uh on the on what's in front of
52:46
Speaker 1: us that uh really excites us all in this room.
52:49
Speaker 1: So thank you very much for your time. We really
52:51
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
52:51
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. Thanks tiring me alright, alright, thank