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Is SpaceX moving too slow? · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast this.
• 0:05
  Is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads, the shape,
• 0:08
  SpaceX, Tesla X, the boring. Company and Neuralink and I'm
• 0:14
  your host Will Walden. If you want uninterrupted
• 0:17
  episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please go to Club Elon
• 0:21
  dot. Supercast.
• 0:22
  Dot com to find out how, there's a link in the show notes.
• 0:26
  SpaceX has two options for the upcoming catch of the Starship
• 0:31
  booster at Starbase Texas Now. One of them is the current
• 0:36
  launch tower that they're using for IFT 1, IFT 2 and IFT 3.
• 0:41
  Now after this IFT 4, IFT 5, probably IFT 6, they're going to
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  continue to build Tower Two at the launch site in the
• 0:51
  foreseeable future. So what does that mean?
• 0:54
  That means that one the launch area that they're using
• 0:57
  currently will be the launch and the catch tower, or #2.
• 1:04
  They're building the second tower as primarily a catch
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  tower, as sort of a Pathfinder as a test, a beta and alpha if
• 1:12
  you will. So they can learn how to catch
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  before they destroy any sort of systems if they do it on the
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  current tower. So they have a lot to lose if
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  they do it on the current tower. If something goes wrong,
• 1:27
  shrapnel goes everywhere. The systems, the ground systems
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  could get damaged and it could take them months to fix them,
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  which would push them way behind schedule for the IFT 4 IFT 5
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  launch and then push them back even further for the Artemis 3,
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  even though that's been pushed back already.
• 1:43
  So what I believe is going to happen is they're going to
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  continue building Tower Two at, I was going to say Boca Chica.
• 1:50
  It's not really Boca Chica anymore.
• 1:51
  They switched it to just Starbase.
• 1:52
  Now to Starbase, they're going to keep building Tower Two at
• 1:56
  Starbase. We're going to see something
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  very similar to what they have now.
• 2:01
  But I think what's going to happen is that Tower Two is
• 2:03
  going to be a catch tower and they're going to integrate some
• 2:08
  systems there so they can catch the booster, but then also lower
• 2:12
  it and then maybe use a crane to put it on a transport and then,
• 2:17
  you know, move it to where they have to refurbish it, fix it up,
• 2:19
  clean it up and get it ready for the next flight.
• 2:22
  Now there's option two, though. So everything that they've
• 2:25
  learned from the first tower, they're putting into the tower
• 2:29
  at Kennedy Space Center as well, because they're building one
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  over at Kennedy Space Center at NASA.
• 2:33
  And whatever they learned from the first tower, they're making
• 2:37
  it better. They're making improvements to
• 2:38
  the Kennedy Space Center tower. And anything they learn at
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  Kennedy Space Center, they're probably going to build the
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  better tower at the STAR Base facility, the launch facility.
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  So if that were the case and they divert all the plumbing
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  from what they have now, Tower One to Tower Two and then they
• 2:56
  use Tower One to catch the booster from now on, that's not
• 3:00
  out of the realm of possibility, but it's going to be a long time
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  before they get Tower Two Bill. It might actually be about a
• 3:06
  year or so. It's taking them a while to get
• 3:08
  Kennedy Space Center Tower even sort of functional.
• 3:12
  So it could be about a year for Tower Two at Starbase.
• 3:16
  So expect maybe 2025 for the first catch attempt at Starbase,
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  maybe first quarter, second quarter, May early second
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  quarter 2025. But it's going to take them a
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  lot of work to get that done. And their primary goal right now
• 3:34
  isn't to get a new tower up, like they're not going to get a
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  ton of people down there at Starbase to build the second
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  tower. What they're doing is they're
• 3:41
  working on I FT3, IFT 4, IFT 5. They have to hit these
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  benchmarks in order to get to the Artemis program.
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  Artemis 3, they don't even have to land the booster for Artemis
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  3, you know, that's that part of the contract.
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  All they have to do is get a ship up into orbit and then
• 3:58
  refuel the ship and then get that ship to the moon.
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  So if they can do that and they can expend some boosters along
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  the way, they might just wait for a while to try to catch
• 4:09
  boosters, because I guess that's option three at this point.
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  Because if they if they don't catch any boosters, that's OK
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  too. They're not wasting a lot of
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  money. They know that in the future
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  they're gonna make all this money back that they use on
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  expendable boosters, sort of like what they did with Falcon
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  One and Falcon Nine in the beginning.
• 4:27
  They didn't land a Falcon 9 for a while, so it took them, took
• 4:30
  the many flights for Falcon 9 before they actually landed 1
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  precisely. And even then they had mishaps
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  here and there where the booster would land, the Falcon 9 booster
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  would land and then tip over or would land and bounce.
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  And you know, we've all seen the videos like how not to land a a
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  rocket booster or whatever it was, and they explode.
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  So that could also happen at Starbase.
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  And that's not good because the Super heavy is built with
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  stainless steel. Stainless steel explodes.
• 5:02
  It becomes shrapnel, Shrapnel like throwing knives everywhere.
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  I mean, they'll be ridiculous. The ground systems would get
• 5:11
  exploded everywhere. I So I think they're going to
• 5:14
  play it safe. They're going to land a bunch of
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  these in the Gulf of Mexico. They get very precise with this,
• 5:19
  very, very precise. Make sure it works absolutely
• 5:23
  perfect every time. Make sure they can guide it
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  perfectly. I think what they're going to do
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  is they're going to do three or four precision landings in the
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  Gulf of Mexico and then after that maybe think about landing
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  them on a tower. They have to make sure this
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  works perfectly though. They might even do a hover test.
• 5:40
  I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
• 5:42
  It seems ridiculous if they would do a hover test.
• 5:45
  I don't think they would though. I don't think they would do a
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  hover test. I think they're going to do full
• 5:49
  testing and then they're going to bring it back like they're
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  going to do a kick back, they're going to do the flip and then
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  they're going to bring it back. So I think that's what's going
• 5:56
  to happen 2025, early 2025, maybe quarter 2/20/25.
• 6:00
  We're going to see the steps put in place where maybe we're going
• 6:04
  to see a catch of a booster. And another option could be that
• 6:08
  SpaceX builds a whole new infrastructure for test catch
• 6:15
  tower, whatever it is, #2 could they do all the infrastructure
• 6:19
  and they root it through one or two, or do they do it to both?
• 6:24
  I think they might do it for both.
• 6:25
  I think it looks like the systems are in place for both.
• 6:28
  But could they do a substantial amount for the tower two and
• 6:32
  just use what they have now for tower one that's up in the air
• 6:36
  2? Because they always change down
• 6:38
  there and everything always changes at Starbase.
• 6:41
  So like, we don't really know what's going on down there until
• 6:43
  SpaceX does something. It's all kind of speculation
• 6:46
  until SpaceX starts moving the pieces and the parts around, and
• 6:49
  then we see what's actually happening at Starbase.
• 6:55
  Hey, thank. You so much for listening today.
• 6:56
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• 6:59
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• 7:25
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