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Elon Musk Interview - Starship Update · Elon Musk Podcast

0:00
Welcome, Elon. Let's talk rockets.
0:03
All right. Let's talk really big rockets,
0:07
Okay. Let me take you guys back in
0:08
time a little bit. 15 years ago, I think it was a week past,
0:14
SpaceX successfully, on its fourth attempt, launched the
0:17
Falcon One to space to orbit. And I think it carried, if I'm
0:20
correct, 165 kilogram payload today you're up.
0:25
Go ahead. It was just a test payload on
0:29
the 4th floor, so no actual satellite because the 1st 3
0:32
launches unfortunately have failed, though we didn't want to
0:34
risk that was launched with with natural satellite, but we're
0:39
very happy to have launched A Malaysian satellite on the 5th
0:42
launch of Falcon One. Yeah, fantastic.
0:46
So let me make the contrast today.
0:48
You're preparing for the second launch of Starship, which has
0:51
the ability to ability to launch up to up to 150 metric tons in a
0:57
reusable configuration. If I'm doing the math and you're
1:00
better than this and me 900 times the capability, roughly a
1:04
Falcon one and I get. A Falcon One looks like a
1:08
child's toy by comparison. It's a it's a staggering
1:12
achievement, what you've done in 15 years and all the team at
1:15
SpaceX, I think we're all just in awe of how fast that progress
1:19
has been made and to pioneer reusability for orbital launch
1:23
systems is, I think, something to be tremendously proud of,
1:26
both for you and the team. There it stands, this vehicle
1:30
now, I think something like almost 400 feet tall, roughly
1:33
over 120 meters. It's a massive Starship
1:36
spacecraft and super heavy rocket, itself collectively
1:40
known as Starship, and it produces more thrust than the
1:43
SLS system, the Saturn 5 and Rush's old N1 rocket.
1:47
Is that correct? Yes the the current version of
1:51
this of the Starship produces just over twice the thrust of
1:54
Saturn 5 and with the upgrades that have we have in the works
1:58
it'll do about three times the the thrust.
2:01
SO75 in in the sort of auditorial system would have
2:05
been seven and a half million pounds of thrust.
2:07
We're we're at about 16 right now and we with with future
2:13
engine upgrades we'll take that to about £20 million of thrust.
2:16
Amazing. Simply amazing.
2:19
So I know you guys have said you learned a lot from the April
2:22
17th from this first launch attempt.
2:25
There's been some upgrades to the vehicle.
2:27
I think it's it's a Booster 9 now that you're launching with
2:30
Ship 25, is that correct, geeking out the numbers?
2:33
Yeah, the kids that follow online.
2:36
These numbers are are maybe a little.
2:40
It's not quite the 21st, 1st booster, because what would
2:44
happen is we would redesign the we would make a new design.
2:48
And then we'd actually scrap units that were in progress.
2:53
So it's, it's 25. It sounds like we're both 25
2:57
years, but we haven't actually built 25 units.
2:59
We're both probably about 12. So a lot and yeah, so so but the
3:06
way you think we really is that this is, this is a flight 2 and
3:11
has a number of upgrades on both the ship side and the booster
3:13
side. We've done a lot more for with
3:17
with engine isolation. Which is incredibly important.
3:21
We've tried to draw as many lessons as possible from the
3:24
Soviet Anwan rockets, which was probably the closest in design
3:28
to Starship. I believe it had 29 N K33
3:33
engines are called correctly and there was a very quite high
3:38
thrust rockets and there unfortunately I think actually
3:43
the rocket on on all things considered was was a great
3:45
design. But I did not receive sufficient
3:48
ground testing, so I never never made it to always.
3:52
But that would have been the sort of the closest probably
3:54
parallel to to Starship. The the the really the biggest
4:00
difference, the most fundamental difference of Starship is that
4:02
it is designed to be fully reusable with both the booster
4:05
and the ship or the both the first and second stage be are
4:11
designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
4:14
So that so. Well, a truly profound
4:18
revolution in Master Olbridge. You have to have.
4:23
I call it the Four. The Four R's reusable, reliable
4:29
rockets. RRRRI.
4:33
Love it. You're pirated RR everybody give
4:36
me an RR all. Right, So what does what does
4:40
success look like for this flight?
4:42
Number 2, what does success look like for you?
4:44
What are you trying to achieve? Well I I do want to set
4:49
expectations well not too high so there's there's there's a
4:56
transmount new technology in this rocket we are we we have
5:00
actually changed the entire stage separation system from
5:06
something that was I don't know how to describe this but but
5:11
but. Kind of a a a just just a
5:15
rotation and flip we're we're trying we're trying to move to a
5:18
passive stage step system where you don't have pushers
5:22
essentially in in the to try to eliminate parts.
5:27
There's no pushes, no interest stage like Falcon Nine has and
5:34
with, with with with Splite too. We're actually trying to do hot
5:37
stage, so. So, so hot staging would would
5:42
mean that we light the the ship or other stage engines while the
5:47
boost engines are still partially thrusting.
5:50
So we throttle down and shut down most of the booster
5:53
engines. Then we light the the ship
5:56
engines and there's there's a bent area which looks comically
6:00
small actually, which hopefully is not because you're you're
6:06
you're essentially blasting the top of the booster with the
6:09
ship. Now this is actually from a
6:14
physics standpoint the most efficient way to do stage
6:16
separation and the Soviets I believe the Russians made
6:22
extensive use of of hot staging and but but of course this is
6:29
the first time we're doing it So I would say that's that's the
6:32
riskiest part of the flight full flight 2 and if if, if the if
6:38
the engines likes and the ship. Doesn't blow itself up during
6:42
stage though then I think we've got a decent chance to reach the
6:46
orbit. Now technically it's it's a it's
6:52
a scooch below orbit because it's it's going to do almost a
6:55
complete Circuit of the Earth, but then bash down somewhere,
6:58
somewhere in the Pacific, just off the coast of Hawaii, because
7:04
the the ship is designed to reenter and has a has a heat
7:09
shield. So we we we want to make Now we
7:12
we don't know if this we think it will work, but we aren't sure
7:15
if it will work. So if it doesn't work, we want
7:17
it to not work over the Pacific, which is a very large body of
7:21
water with almost no people on it.
7:27
Excellent target, Excellent target.
7:29
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I always think it's
7:32
funny if you people call Earth Earth, because Earth is water.
7:37
Earth is 70% water. And if you take a, a, a, you
7:43
know the, the an actual round version of the Earth, not not a
7:48
mercantile projection, but at the globe and you center it on
7:53
the Pacific, it just looks like water.
7:56
It's it's it's like, where's the land?
7:58
So anyway, this this is quite helpful when you're doing
8:01
experimental rocket flights. So how many more test flights
8:05
are coming up, and when do you think you're going to try to
8:07
catch Starship on a tower? With the With that giant
8:11
Mercazilla. Listen, I saw Congress's
8:17
Gogzilla and dust got gave gave me the idea.
8:22
In fact if we gave out to our legs it could just tromp around
8:25
like like Mercazilla. But but we have we have a giant
8:30
custom designed tower with massive mechanical arms that
8:35
will literally try to catch the booster and catch the ship.
8:40
Which it sounds insane. I mean, I'm going to see a scifi
8:43
movie that does this, you know? But the theory actually work.
8:47
Is it work? Let's just say success is in a
8:49
set of possible outcomes. I'm not sure what the
8:53
probability is, but success is somewhere in that.
8:56
Is success possible? Yes, I think it's possible.
9:00
In terms of catching it, I think.
9:05
Well, well for the for the ship side we we also want to make
9:08
sure that it actually comes in at fully intact and and lands at
9:12
a precise location in the Pacific before we try to catch
9:16
it at at the lower side because we we we're taking every
9:20
proportion we can for that. We do not risk any any human
9:25
lives or or destruction of property.
9:27
So it'll be a few flights so so for the ship it'll be when we
9:32
see the ship landing at a precise position.
9:34
In the in the water, that's when we will try to catch the ship
9:38
with our Mecazilla on the tower. The booster obviously the
9:42
booster fights we've we've done many times on Falcon 9, so we're
9:46
much more familiar and have retired confidence with Rooster
9:49
recovery. We we've actually had the
9:52
booster boost back to land and and land at Cape Canaveral Air
9:56
Force Base many times, albeit with landing legs, not with the
10:02
Mecazilla arms. The booster I, I, I I think, I
10:08
think that there's a decent chance depending on when our
10:11
licenses are granted that we would catch the booster within
10:16
the next year or maybe less than a year and and then hopefully
10:22
get lucky. We might catch the ship towards
10:26
the end of next year. And where does the catch take
10:29
place? Is it Willie Mays in the middle
10:30
outfield over his shoulder, or is Florida somewhere?
10:35
No, the, the, the both the booster and the ship come back
10:37
to launch night. OK, fantastic.
10:40
Yeah, that's. What I mean by the, the, the,
10:42
this, this in fact. I mean the the thing that is
10:48
this says we need a giant tower with customized arms to lift the
10:53
the booster and the ship onto the launchpad.
10:58
We're gonna absolutely need it. We can technically do it with
11:00
with. With humongous cranes on a low
11:02
wind day, but that's it's quite unwieldy The the the the tower
11:10
with the arms is capable of lifting the booster and the ship
11:12
even on on on a on a very windy day.
11:16
Oh moderately windy day. So then it just seems to me
11:21
that, well if we can lift the the ship and the Brewster the
11:23
the ship onto the onto the lower stand or the the booster onto
11:26
the lower stand and the ship onto the booster.
11:29
With those same arms we should be able to catch the the booster
11:32
ship with those same arms we've done pretty good with with with
11:40
the thruster based land deal and in fact we can make this we can
11:45
make the the rocket harbor in midair.
11:48
In fact, we were able to do that many years ago.
11:50
If you look at the old Falcon 9 test videos which we've called
11:54
Grasshopper, where where we'd actually take Falcon 9 booster.
11:58
And we'd have it just go up and and hover at 100 meters and then
12:01
translate over another 100 meters, then translate back and
12:04
then come back and land. So we're able to do that really
12:08
over a decade ago. It's it's not obviously very
12:12
efficient. We're propellant to have a
12:14
rocket hover, but it can't be done.
12:17
So that was I was like OK, let's just have the rocket come back
12:20
and you know hover briefly and have the like then the arms come
12:25
together and catch it. So that's the best of German
12:27
ideas. Going back to what I'm saying,
12:30
which it's not, it's not just reusability, it's rapid
12:33
reusability and and it doesn't get more rapid then bring it
12:37
back to the Lord site. And so in principle the the, the
12:42
booster, it must come back very fast.
12:45
By the way, where we know that booster is coming back to land
12:47
or it's going to land fast because with the high thrust to
12:51
weight that we're aiming for, which is sort of on the order of
12:54
1.3 to 1 quad core. The, the and and a staging ratio
13:01
which is currently about 3:00 to 1:00 in favor of the booster.
13:06
So propellant to the propellant on booster to propellant.
13:09
Our ship has got three to one on on the current version but it's
13:13
trending closer to 2 to one on with future versions.
13:18
That means that we're we're shifting more and more of the
13:22
Delta V burden to the ship side that that means the.
13:27
The booster actually uses up its repellent quite quickly and will
13:33
will trend towards about a only about 100 seconds or so of a
13:39
booster flight and the booster will immediately flip around,
13:43
boost back to more site and land.
13:45
And so it it it really we're talking about Booster being back
13:49
at the lower site in about four or five minutes, which is
13:52
pretty, pretty wild I think like 5 if you know. 5 minute booster
13:57
basically it's back it's it's it's it's landed somehow.
14:01
Whether it's either crashed or it's landed on the it's from
14:03
court by the islands one or two and within 5 minutes and so so
14:10
so then you then lands back on more sand and you can then
14:14
refill propellant the the the booster, there's a sharp side.
14:18
Obviously it's going to take a minimum of an hour to map to get
14:21
around the planet. Still going pretty fast but.
14:25
You got a circle of globe and and obviously that depends on
14:30
what inclination and So what what your launch as with what
14:34
your inclination of the Brewster as to whether it has a flight
14:38
coming back over the launch site or not.
14:41
If it's it's technically possible to just say a little
14:46
bit depending upon your launch inclination, very good.
14:53
So, Chris? Come back in an hour and a half.
14:55
A ship? Ship.
14:55
Sorry, ship could come back in about an hour and a half.
14:58
Any prediction on when you're gonna start deploying satellites
15:02
with Starship? Yeah, I think we will start
15:06
deploying. I think there's a good chance we
15:12
start deploying stalling V3 satellites next year in roughly
15:15
roughly a year from now because we.
15:21
We before we are confident that the ship like I said the the the
15:25
the the hardest part about this or the part that will take the
15:28
longest is the is is solving for ship safe ship reentry and
15:36
landing and but but before we sold that we can launch the
15:40
satellites because in any case with Belkin mine it's the the
15:45
the upper stage is expandable so more.
15:50
You know it's it's actually fine to start watching satellites
15:52
even before we saw for for ship reusability that that that is
15:56
the hardest part of the equation.
15:57
So but with Falcon 9 we've we've gotten pretty far with
16:01
reusability the the the booster I think it's now highly unusual
16:07
for the booster to not come back and land it's it's it's gotten
16:10
quite normal for the booster to come back and land.
16:13
We now have a couple of boosters that are have done 17, I think
16:16
18 flights at this point. And and and and then the fairing
16:23
is also recovered. So the fairing reusability is
16:25
also solid. But, but the Falcon 9 design
16:28
does not allow for a reusability of the upper stage.
16:33
So and and the Falcon 9 does it while reasonably rapid.
16:38
If you especially you've got a a return to launch site landing
16:44
still takes at least a few days to refurbish before you can
16:47
fight again. And so with.
16:49
With with Starship, actually more profound than the size is
16:57
the fact that it is fully it is designed to be fully and rapidly
17:00
reusable. The the reason for the absurd
17:04
size is that we're trying to build something that is capable
17:07
of of creating a permanent face on the moon and a city on Mars.
17:13
That's that's why it is so large.
17:15
Otherwise we could make it much smaller.
17:18
So I think the the diameter of Starship in inside the envelope
17:22
is something like 9 meters and inside the the top envelope is
17:25
about 1717 1/2 meters of usable volume.
17:28
This is incredible amount of of space, right?
17:31
Unheard of volume. What is that?
17:33
What does that open up the possibilities?
17:35
What, what kind of things can we we fit in that space and what
17:38
does it mean for the industry as we look at, you know, maybe you
17:42
can give me a how many whales or how many starlings can you stuff
17:45
in there? I don't I don't know what the
17:46
right metric is, but give us a sense of size.
17:50
Well, I mean like when you when you step into the the, the
17:56
Starship bearing, payload volume, it looks like a
18:00
cathedral. It looks absurd, frankly, it's
18:03
like why this is ridiculously gigantic.
18:05
That's what that was my first impression when I when I first
18:07
went up there in a man lift and and and and climbed through the
18:11
little hole. For the Starship initial rough
18:14
prototype, I was like this. Like what?
18:17
What have we done? This thing is too thing is
18:20
ridiculously big. Listen, so now this actually can
18:26
be great for science though. So one of the exciting projects
18:33
that we're working with is with the sole full motor at Berkeley
18:38
on A. A telescope or Space Telescope
18:43
that is able to use the that that what you it's it's got an
18:49
enormous lens I think it's perhaps A7 or 8 meter diameter
18:54
lens and it it was actually a satellite that was meant for the
18:58
OR a a the lens is meant for for a ground based satellite.
19:03
But if you then take that same satellite and put it in in in
19:07
orbit. Its capabilities are greatly
19:09
enhanced because you don't have the obfuscation of the of the
19:12
atmosphere. So that that's why for example
19:16
the the the Hubble which is actually a fairly small
19:19
telescope can do better than I think any ground in any maybe
19:25
any historical ground satellite especially in the visual
19:27
spectrum. So.
19:30
So we're very excited about the what we can do for space
19:33
science. Because really at this point
19:36
especially for for any photons that where there's interference
19:39
with the atmosphere so any any sort of short wavelength photons
19:44
you really want your satellite to be in vacuum or your your
19:48
telescope to be back. So that's really the future.
19:52
So I think there's a lot of exciting potential there for
19:54
planetary for for space science and but but like I said the the,
20:00
the really fundamentally the reason that's so, so gigantic
20:02
is. Is that if if you're on a, you
20:06
know, long Jay de Mars, I think being cooped up in a something
20:10
the size of a minivan would would be unappealing to most
20:13
people. Just so comparison for the
20:16
audience here, I think the Hubble telescope was something
20:19
like 2.4 meter diameter, and so you're talking about I think
20:22
three times the size somewhere along that order for the mirror.
20:26
That's incredible. We've seen some changes down
20:30
there in Texas at Starbase. I don't know if that's where
20:32
you're you're you're streaming from here today, but there's a
20:36
new factory that you're working on to enable a faster
20:39
manufacturing rate. Can you talk to us a little bit
20:41
about that? What are you trying to what are
20:43
your goals? What are you what are you trying
20:44
to achieve with the with the new factory Yeah so we are building
20:49
a giant factory for a giant rocket and I mean honestly it's
20:57
I I recommend people visit Star base as it turns out it's it's
21:01
on a state highway. So for the I think it's one of
21:04
the rare situations where and I actually don't mind.
21:08
I think it's kind of cool that the that the public can actually
21:11
drive within a literal stones throw away from the battery and
21:16
the launch site and actually see the rocket first hand.
21:20
And in fact if you go on the Internet right now including on
21:22
the X platform, there are people who are live streaming at 24/7
21:26
the entire construction launchpad everything.
21:30
And so. So it's it's the people say like
21:33
well can I go see it. It's so easy to go see.
21:35
You can just literally fly to Brownsville and drive down drive
21:38
to the beach and you can see it literally a stone's throw away
21:41
the factory and the launch side. So anyone here wants to do that
21:46
I recommend it. It's very, very easy.
21:48
No permission required. So yeah we're building this
21:52
giant rocket factory we the engines are still manufactured
21:56
in California at SpaceX headquarters in in in Los
22:01
Angeles which is also that's it's also just an odd location
22:05
that's where we built the the the Falcon 9 rockets and the
22:08
Dragon spacecraft really about 5 minutes from LAX at the at sort
22:13
of what used to be a Northrop headquarters I believe it's
22:20
that's so you know that's but yeah we're willing the strand
22:23
factory. So The thing is so in order to
22:28
if you look at the in the grand scheme of things say OK what is
22:31
required to have a self-sustaining base on Mars or
22:34
city on Mars. You have to really think of it
22:37
in terms of very large tonnage the and and if we can even get
22:43
the tonnage estimate to correct within an order of magnitude I
22:45
think we're doing well. So the you know, I think I think
22:50
we we should probably aim for something like 1,000,000 tons of
22:54
useful load delivered to the surface of Mars which requires
22:59
roughly 5 million tons to Earth orbit.
23:02
So you know if you get about 20 for whatever mass you get to
23:05
Earth or would you get about 20% of that mass landed to the
23:07
surface of Mars, you know you will take maybe you can get 25%
23:11
optimistically. So that's why this thing is so
23:15
gigantic is we've got to get 5 million tons to the to to orbit,
23:20
which hopefully gets about 1,000,000 tons to the surfs to
23:24
Mars and hopefully 1,000,000 tons is enough to create a
23:27
self-sustaining city on Mars. I'm incredible.
23:31
So talking about Mars, any new predictions on when you I know
23:34
this is your ultimate goal, your destination?
23:37
Any predictions on when Starship might land on Mars without crew?
23:41
Maybe a crude flight? Any any prediction there?
23:47
Well, I think three or four years.
23:54
Four years. That would be something like,
23:57
right? I have to check with the Earth,
23:59
Mars, you know Earth, Mars. But you know get have overall
24:06
synchronization about every 26 months so you can't just go you
24:12
fly to Mars when it's on the other side of the sun from Earth
24:16
that's the I will be so that roughly every 26 months the
24:20
orbits are in the the right relative position and then you
24:26
then you have the Mars transport window.
24:30
So I I think, but I think it's sort of feasible within the next
24:33
four years to do an uncrewed test test landing that.
24:39
Didn't have enough on your plate?
24:40
You're doing a lunar Lander version, yes.
24:44
Yeah. Well really Starship should be a
24:49
generalized transport system to anywhere in the solar system.
24:54
That's that's the intent with when you when you have
24:56
propulsive landing you you you can land anywhere whether
25:00
there's an atmosphere, no atmosphere.
25:04
You know it's not really dependent on water.
25:07
You know see you know full crude capsules on on on Earth we've
25:13
generally gone with parachutes and water or you know and it
25:17
rushes on land but then they need retro rockets right at the
25:21
end to sort of slow things down. So a propulsive system should
25:27
generalize to be able to land anywhere on a solid surface
25:30
anywhere on the the the in the solar system.
25:34
So the the the moon while it's sort of dusty that that that the
25:40
moon is actually harder that it's it's not just a big dust
25:42
pile. So it's it's parter than you
25:44
think the the lunar regolith. So I'm I'm sort of optimistic
25:50
that we can take a Starship that's fairly you know
25:55
unmodified from what would land on earth or Mars obviously need
25:59
legs but apart from that I suspect you could land the
26:04
Starship with minor modifications on on the moon and
26:08
and the same would go for once you have a propellant plant on
26:12
Mars you could then go to the asteroid belt and and the moons
26:17
of Jupiter. If you could establish A
26:20
propellant plant there then then you could go to the winds of
26:27
Saturn and and ultimately all the way out into the caper belt
26:31
and the OR cloud. So what you're talking about
26:35
requires propellant transfer, obviously in orbit.
26:38
Can you explain to everyone watching why that's necessary
26:42
and how it works and and how you work to progress to to make that
26:45
propellant transfer happen? Yes, so really propellant
26:51
transfer is is a similar problem to just docking.
26:55
Now we've gotten pretty good at docking with the Dragon.
26:59
Going to the space station and docking with the space station
27:03
is really quite difficult because we didn't design the
27:06
space station and the space station has a lot of
27:09
complexities and has crew on board.
27:12
So what we have to be extremely careful and that the talk with
27:18
the space station take is is like I would say it's far more
27:22
difficult to talk with the space station that it would be stuck
27:24
with our own spaceship and and so propellant transfer just
27:30
really means that we we send a but a a Starship up there with
27:36
with no payload and and it just transfers its propellant to a
27:41
ship that is already there. So you have to dock dock with
27:45
the ship that is going to Mars or the moon and transfer the
27:49
propellant from a version of the ship that has no cargo.
27:53
Now there's there's there's there'll be a future sort of
27:57
tanker optimized version of of Starship where where we, you
28:03
know have we stretch the tanks and have little to no cargo
28:12
space because that's the optimal thing for a tanker.
28:15
But you don't have to do that. That will increase the
28:19
propellant load of the tanker or you have the propellant
28:22
transferability of the of the of the tanker.
28:24
But it's not. It's not absolutely necessary.
28:26
You just you could in theory use an unmodified Starship and
28:29
transfer propellant that way. So.
28:33
I would imagine that you're doing this and you may have
28:35
multiple launches in either rapid succession or maybe
28:38
multiple pads launching multiple versions of the vehicle.
28:42
Is that all taking place from Texas?
28:43
Then how quickly did those launches have to take place to
28:47
make this work? Yeah we'll we'll have a launch
28:52
site in in Texas as well as in Florida though we're actually
28:56
partially built a Starship launch pad at we had 39 A which
29:02
is where we launched Falcon Heavy and our crude the crude
29:07
Dragon. So we're partially built and
29:11
we'll we'll we'll fully build that out over time and and
29:14
probably have at some point a a Greenfield location for Starship
29:19
at at the Cape. Now in the in the sort of you
29:24
say like four or five year time frame where paths we're
29:28
launching several times a day then we may need to go to an
29:35
ocean based like platform just if if you're launching I don't
29:41
know 10 times a day that might be a bit much for even for even
29:45
for the Cape I don't know. But so we may end up doing
29:52
platform based launches from specially designed sort of ocean
29:57
going platform but we we we will need to do a lot of launches.
30:02
We're talking about thousands of launches per year, so at at and
30:08
and so you do get up to the sort of what I was talking about
30:12
million tons or 5 million tons to orbit that if you've got you
30:16
know 1000 launches a year each of which do over 100 tons,
30:22
that's 100,000 tons of like a Congo, you know per year to
30:27
orbit there's still not quite enough.
30:30
I think we'd want to get to roughly a million times over per
30:35
per year to Earth or per year which would mean that you get to
30:39
1,000,000 tons to Mars in five years.
30:45
These are very big numbers. Obviously they've just put
30:49
things into perspective. All of Earth launch capability
30:56
right now it apart from Falcon is about 400 tons to orbit per
31:01
year. Falcon nine this year we'll do I
31:06
think around 50 or 1600 tons. So Falcon 9, you know this
31:10
already doing about 80% of Earth mass to orbit and next year we
31:16
expect to increase that by about 40 or 50% on the Falcon side.
31:20
So, you know, maybe 2500 tons to over for Falcon next year, but
31:27
these are still small numbers compared to what's required for
31:31
essentially making life multiplanetary.
31:33
Well, making life multiplanetary, you've got to be
31:35
in this sort of hundreds of thousands to millions of tons of
31:39
goes over per year. Unbelievable numbers, really.
31:42
Somebody worked in the launch business for several years.
31:44
It's it's incredible for me to even try to think about that
31:47
much mass to orbit in one year. It's that's crazy.
31:51
Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. Ludicrous mode, I think.
31:53
Yeah, for launch very much. So yeah, it's either we do that
31:59
or we're a single plant species forever.
32:01
So we either achieved those kind of numbers or we will we will
32:08
never have a self-sustaining city on Mars.
32:12
Into building this amazing launch system.
32:15
You're also working on a Polaris mission for that's going to
32:18
allow, I think, Dragon to open and have people actually
32:23
floating in space doing an Eva. And you're building a space suit
32:26
for that. So you can talk a little bit
32:28
about that space suit. And then can you use that same
32:30
suit on the moon and Mars and for other missions, Yeah, so
32:35
SpaceX spacesuit, we, we do expect to evolve that to be
32:40
something that can be an Ava suit on the ground on the moon
32:45
and Mars. And it's sort of initially as as
32:50
really just a precious suit just in case there's an emergency
32:53
emergency depressurization of the spacecraft.
32:57
So it's it's was basically like a self-contained life support
33:00
system in in suit form and obviously we'll retain that
33:06
capability but but but now for an upcoming flight we we want to
33:14
do an Eva or extra. Yeah basically go float around
33:17
in space still on a tether. So it's not, it's not going to
33:21
be an independent little little space, little spacesuits that's
33:27
just flying around. We could do that, but and maybe
33:30
that'll happen on a future flight.
33:32
But it will be a tethered EBA, just you're just out there,
33:37
floating in the void, connected by a thin cord to the spaceship.
33:44
You put a Tesla in space. This was like an amazing thing
33:49
to see a Tesla actually flying into space.
33:52
So you've already put one of the vehicles in space.
33:54
Are you thinking about making a Tesla Rover?
33:57
Maybe Moon or Mars? Any any ideas for a cyber truck
34:01
on the moon? It would look cool, that's true.
34:08
And I think the nice thing about electric cars is that obviously
34:10
do not require oxygen to, they're not combustion cars, so
34:13
they don't require, they don't have to ingest oxygen from the
34:16
ambient atmosphere. So yeah, I think Tesla could
34:22
easily make a car that, you know, like a cyber truck, lunar
34:27
variant, we could just get the get the ruin off your package.
34:32
So yeah I mean the the reason that we launched the car the
34:37
reason we launched the car was heavy I should say is it's
34:42
settled but we want to have something was that exciting as a
34:48
initial payload but but where the last of the wood would not
34:52
be catastrophic. So you will wonder what why if
34:58
my what's my car orbiting Earth and Mars because it's it's in an
35:03
elliptical orbit and and actually it almost touches it
35:08
touches like the the asteroid belt and and goes past the orbit
35:11
of Mars. It's just that we we were we
35:15
weren't sure if the first flight of heavy would fail or not and
35:20
reward to just have a pic that was more exciting than.
35:26
I thought it was brilliant, really a masterstroke in terms
35:29
of getting attention of the world, really, to put that in
35:32
orbit, Thanks. Can Starship be used as a space
35:37
station? How long could it stay in orbit
35:39
and what would be the purpose of that?
35:41
How could that work? So how long could Starship be in
35:47
orbit? Yeah.
35:47
Could it be its own space station?
35:49
If you wanted to put a Starship with the capability of
35:51
laboratory, how long could that could it stay in orbit and still
35:55
come down? Oh, there's no real limits.
35:59
You could stay in orbit for a very long time.
36:02
The, the, the, the volume of the Sasha faring is roughly
36:08
comparable to the volume of the of the International Space
36:11
Station. So there's about about 1000
36:15
cubic meters of of volume in the in the ferry, I think.
36:22
I think space station's A comparable amount.
36:25
And would have the power to run a lot of laboratory experiments.
36:29
Sorry. Yeah.
36:31
Given that is given that is some of volume to the space station,
36:35
you you could do what what you're doing in the space
36:39
station on a saw ship if you want.
36:43
There's there's no limit to how long to stay up there.
36:45
It's really just you you you need.
36:48
Yeah, solar panels, battery, and some thrusters to maintain
36:54
orbit. How about point to point
36:58
transportation? I know when you were in
37:00
Guadalajara at the IC you got you kind of hinted at a little
37:04
bit of the point point to point. Capability of transportation.
37:08
I I can't remember the exact amount of time to get from one
37:10
side of the world to the next, but can you talk about that?
37:12
How do you see the the future point to point using using
37:16
Starship? Yeah so the the fastest way with
37:26
with known physics to get from one place to another on Earth is
37:29
with a incontinental ballistic missile.
37:35
This is This is why Icbs with nukes are kind of like the
37:37
ultimate weapon. Now in this case it's sort of
37:41
lead the new AD landing, but it's it's it's certainly very
37:46
feasible obviously if we can take off from trans and land on
37:51
Mars or the moon we can take over land on Earth too.
37:56
So, so it really comes down to a question of of is it
37:58
economically viable compared to long distance aircraft.
38:04
And I think our our back the outlet numbers suggest that it
38:08
actually has a shot at being economically viable for long
38:13
distance transport on Earth for for a few reasons.
38:18
The the propellant cost is actually quite low being liquid
38:23
methane, liquid oxygen. The cost of liquid oxygen is
38:27
primarily liquid productions, about 7778% liquid oxygen by by
38:35
mass and roughly 22 or 23% liquid methane.
38:40
So the propellant cost is it's the lowest cost propellant you
38:42
could possibly get on Earth and and then the the because the
38:50
Rockets moving so fast you you can use it about in theory about
38:54
10 times more than you've used aircraft.
38:56
So there's so, so Falcon 90, sorry, Starship can go from
39:04
let's say Los Angeles to Sydney or something like that in 20
39:12
minutes basically maybe half an hour at most.
39:15
So it whereas I think I think an airliner takes about 14 or 15
39:21
hours. So you've got something which is
39:25
really much faster than an aircraft.
39:28
And so for an airliner that you can do basically in order of
39:33
magnitude more trips with Starship than you can with an
39:36
airliner, which means that the and this and the no, no pilots
39:39
are needed. In fact, you can't.
39:42
This is not only a computer can pilot this because human
39:45
reaction time is not, that's not so then you don't have the pilot
39:49
costs, you don't have the food costs, you don't have the you,
39:54
you know, you don't really even need bathrooms if you can get
39:56
there in half an hour. So it actually would work out
40:01
that. It's it's actually we think
40:04
lower cost than long distance aircraft.
40:08
OK. You got a little chuckle here in
40:10
the crowd about the no bathroom line.
40:11
So I think people are looking forward to it.
40:13
Yeah, less than half an hour. You know, you say like go just
40:17
go before you hop on, you know, and it'll be there fast.
40:24
I mean you you could technically, you know, have, I
40:30
don't know, breakfast in LA, lunch in London and you know,
40:35
dinner in Singapore and then be back back in LA for bedtime.
40:41
So you're. Connecting now I think something
40:43
like 2 million people with * lake right with your with your
40:46
satellite communication system and growing rapidly, you're
40:50
mastering communications from space to earth from low earth
40:53
orbit. You're now doing inter satellite
40:55
links with this system. What do you see for Starlink
40:59
being used as a relay, let's say around the moon or for calm
41:03
relay all the way to Mars and back?
41:06
Well, for for Mars Mars you'd want basically like a laser
41:13
relay system. Essentially.
41:15
It sort of depends on what you what what, what bandwidth are
41:17
you looking for. Obviously in order to have
41:20
continuous coverage with Mars, you'd have to have some relay
41:26
system because you can't transmit through the Sun.
41:29
So in Mars you know when the Sun is between you and the and Mars
41:32
you have to do a bank chart through a relay satellite so
41:39
that your photons don't have to go through the Sun.
41:43
So and then then it's just I will ultimately want you know,
41:49
Terra bit, maybe petabit level data transfer between Earth and
41:52
Mars. So then you're going to you
41:55
don't want probably some some relay satellites along the way
41:58
to be able to do that. It says it's really, it's a
42:04
bandwidth thing. You'd want to use lasers and
42:08
then the the the laser beam is going to widen with distance so
42:13
that then you need to be able to receive the laser beam before it
42:15
gets too wide. This means that you need a
42:18
series of satellites in order to with Mars at its first distance,
42:24
especially with very high bandwidth.
42:27
Well you can obviously do low bandwidth with longer wavelength
42:31
photons but but but if if there's a you know here in city
42:35
on Mars you'd want to have very high bandwidth so therefore
42:38
bunch of lasers and and satellites stalling already used
42:43
this inter laser sport intrasatellite.
42:48
So if I if I made just a couple more questions.
42:51
Throughout this week here at the IC, we've been inspired.
42:54
There's thousands of young people here.
42:56
I think 41% of our delegates are under the age of 35, which is
42:59
incredible by by any space conference metric.
43:02
We get a lot of young people here.
43:05
There's delegates from the Space Generation Advisory Council,
43:07
from the Future Space Leaders Foundation, from the YP program.
43:10
Here at the I A F you have a message for these young people,
43:13
the young engineers and scientists that are here.
43:15
Many of them have been inspired by you.
43:17
Anything you can say to them about?
43:19
Pursuing a career in space or what motivated you to do all the
43:23
things that you're doing? Yeah, I mean I'm interested in
43:29
that which both the civilization and I think we want to expand
43:33
the scope and scale of consciousness so as to better
43:36
understand the nature of the universe and even to ask
43:40
understand which questions to ask.
43:42
Like, you know, one of the most disfiring books I've ever read
43:46
was the Hitchhikes guys of the Galaxy.
43:48
What we're in the they're they're trying to understand
43:51
meaning of life in the, you know, Hitchhiker's Guide and
43:57
the, I mean the larger message of the Hitchhiker's Guide of the
44:00
Galaxy is that you you actually need to know what questions to
44:03
ask about the answer that is the universe.
44:06
And we we don't yet know what questions to ask.
44:09
So I'm just curious really, I'm just curious as to the nature of
44:12
reality. Where does where, where does it
44:16
all go to? Where does it go?
44:17
Where does it come from? Where are the aliens, for
44:19
example? Are there aliens?
44:21
Is it? Are we alone?
44:23
People often ask me if I'm seeing any evidence of of
44:27
aliens, and I unfortunately have seen no evidence of aliens yet.
44:32
We are the aliens, so I can tell, and I think if anyone
44:37
would know, it'll probably be me.
44:39
And I've not seen any evidence of aliens.
44:41
So what? What that perhaps suggests is
44:47
that this tiny candle of consciousness that is humanity
44:53
is all that exists in a vast darkness, and we should do
44:58
everything we can to ensure that the candle does not go out.
45:01
Well, Ilan, I'd like to thank you for joining us today.
45:04
Good luck with your next launch. Thank you.
45:07
Thanks. It was honor to be.
45:09
Thank you everyone.