Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / SpaceX Starship News: November 17th Launch May be Delayed

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SpaceX Starship News: November 17th Launch May be Delayed · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.
• 0:02
  Today's episode is going to be focusing on some Starship news
• 0:05
  for possibly this Friday, November 17th.
• 0:08
  SpaceX announced the other day that they plan on doing a launch
• 0:12
  of Starship IFT 2 Friday the 17th pending final regulatory
• 0:19
  approval. They posted this on their
• 0:21
  website a few days ago. A live web cast of the flight
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  will begin 30 minutes before liftoff while you can watch it
• 0:27
  here or on x.com. So on space XS website or on X
• 0:33
  at SpaceX on X, that's that's kind of a weird thing as far as
• 0:37
  I'm concerned that they only posted on X when they had.
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  They have millions of followers on YouTube and one of their one
• 0:45
  of their key proponents of doing Space Flight is to excite people
• 0:51
  about Space Flight. So first thing, I don't know why
• 0:54
  they went over to XI. Get it because Elon owns it.
• 0:56
  But can you please leave a comment down below?
• 0:58
  Are you excited that they're moving over to X or are you
• 1:01
  bummed that they're moving over to X?
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  Because I'm kind of bummed, to be honest with you.
• 1:07
  Their video platform is not great and they're working on it,
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  which I understand, but right now I would prefer to watch it
• 1:13
  on YouTube anyway, that's a that's a whole thing.
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  That's a whole other thing. So basically they said we were
• 1:19
  going to try to fly this thing on Friday, November 15th.
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  All right. And they have this Friday,
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  November 5th, 17th, sorry, 17th. And they have this whole video
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  presentation. They did this whole thing on X
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  where they post this cool video. It's a promo video and it's rad
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  and it gets it got me excited. There's cool like music and
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  there's there's new shots of the of the IFT one and there's new
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  shots of, you know, there's new shots of the rocket and stuff,
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  very cool. So they did this IFT one rewind,
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  which is really neat. So the IFT one, they launch it,
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  then they're like, oh wait, it exploded.
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  Nope, we're bringing it back. So they land it, you know, like
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  they do, just basically a reverse of the of the rocket
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  landing and they show all the cool new stuff for IFT 2, the
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  new rocket, the new booster. They show the people which is
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  really cool, They shoe a cyber truck which is pulling a Raptor
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  engine down the road. No big deal.
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  It's just flying down the road Hwy. 4.
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  And then we have some we have some test shots here.
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  There's a re stack of the of the ship and the booster and then
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  they're like we're ready to go. And maybe they are you know all
• 2:33
  the ground system seem like they're OK.
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  Everything seems all right. Friday the 17th seems like a
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  good day to do it because let's take a look at the weather here,
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  the weather for South Padre Island, it's it's pretty close.
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  It's like a couple miles away today, really bad showers and
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  windy. So they de stacked the ship from
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  the booster which is smart and then tonight 50% chance of
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  showers and windy. So they de stacked and they're
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  going to have to re stack it and do a final fit check before they
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  actually launch the thing and they'll probably do that
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  tomorrow. So mostly cloudy and breezy
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  tomorrow 70 and I don't want to be a weather person here and get
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  into the weather, but Friday looks like a great day for
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  launch. Sunny 73 degrees, that's a high
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  of 73. That's a perfect launch day.
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  If you're gonna watch a launch at South Padre Island or at Boca
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  Chica area like you want it to be this day.
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  This looks beautiful. But the other day, let's just
• 3:30
  take a look at the highway foreclosures.
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  There's no closures yet for November 17th.
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  I haven't seen any yet. Maybe they post something in the
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  background. Let me do a little a hard
• 3:41
  refresh here. They didn't do anything.
• 3:43
  Possible closure on the 15th. So the 15th could be, you know,
• 3:47
  anything. You know, at this point, they
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  could be moving something from the Rocket Garden.
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  They could be doing anything. But it's not a launch, right?
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  So 12:00 AM to 2:00 PM on the 15th, it's not going to be a
• 4:00
  launch final regulatory approval for SpaceX November 17th,
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  pending final regulatory approval.
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  All right. So let's take a look at some one
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  more thing that SpaceX posted on X the other day.
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  And this is pretty important because they posted a live
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  stream that's coming up in the, you know, in the future, which
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  is on the 17th. And they posted a potential live
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  stream at like 7:30 in the morning, right.
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  And they had like the the placeholder and everything and
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  you could click through to it and you could see that there was
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  going to be a live stream on the 17th and now the broadcast has
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  ended. It is gone.
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  Starship second flight test is no longer on the 17th.
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  The chat was available, everything was available and now
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  there's no schedule for it. So we're just kind of here going
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  like, OK, what's going on SpaceX, you said that it might
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  be on the 17th, keep your broadcast up if you think it's
• 5:00
  going to be on the 17th. So maybe they heard something,
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  maybe the regulatory approval is going to take a while.
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  The Fish and Wildlife Service still has to check off those
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  boxes for SpaceX to get final regulatory approval and then
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  they send it over to the FAAFA looks at all, looks all over it.
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  And SpaceX, they all work together in a cohesive unit as a
• 5:21
  team. They say, OK cool, we're going
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  to do this together Now. The next thing that would
• 5:27
  happen, that is from the San Antonio Express News.
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  There's another piece of news that came out just earlier
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  today, I believe. But this is about, this is some
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  some political stuff. So it's kind of funny because
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  people really want this launch to happen, and some people want
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  it to launch more than other people want it to launch. the US
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  representative Tony Gonzalez. And said Gonzalez sent the
• 5:54
  letter Friday to agency director Martha Williams calling for
• 5:58
  timely environmental review of the company's launch operations.
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  OK, so they have some good points here.
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  And I want to talk about the good points, but I also want to
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  kind of giggle at the silly stuff that they say because we
• 6:11
  have to tell the truth here. the United States is currently in a
• 6:14
  space race with the rest of the world.
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  We kind of are. We want to get back to the moon.
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  China wants, is China's going back to the moon.
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  China has a space station Now, you know, Russia's in the mix
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  there. And like the whole rest of the
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  world is kind of coming on board with this whole, with a new
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  space race thing, right. And the federal government
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  should not hinder public companies as they develop and
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  push United States to remain a leader in the space exploration
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  realm. OK?
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  It is of the utmost importance that Fish and Wildlife Service
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  makes their environmental review decision sooner rather than
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  later. OK, so I understand that.
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  And that's totally cool. Make your decision soon.
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  Please. Just go through the system, make
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  sure you check off all the boxes, everything is cool, and
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  then you can launch the Starship.
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  It's the last regulatory hurdle SpaceX has to clear before the
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  Federal Aviation Administration can issue a new launch license.
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  And then they go on to say and this is the funny part, which
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  it's it's true ish, you know, And it's one of those things
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  where you're like you look at this and you go, hey, you don't
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  have the right idea, dude. SpaceX is one of the largest
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  employers in the Rio Grande Valley, which of course is true
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  1700 people ever employed there. Not only in this is, this is a
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  whole other thing, but not only do these people work there, like
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  717 hundred people work there, but every one of them buys
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  things in the Rio Grande Valley. Everything everybody has like
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  services done in the Rio Grande Valley, like they get gas in
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  their cars, whatever, whatever it is they take flights out of
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  BRO. But it is a major economic
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  driver in the area. We, yeah, totally, 100%
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  understand a further delay in the environmental review will
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  continue to harm the small businesses and tourism industry
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  of South Texas. The fear.
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  The fear. OK, everyone calm down.
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  I love, I love politicians. How they make this seem like a
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  horrible thing. No, it's not a horrible thing.
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  Yes, people will go to this launch.
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  Yes, it'll be a great thing to watch, but no one's losing their
• 8:27
  jobs because of this. A further delay just means that
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  more people are going to work on other things at SpaceX while
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  they're just waiting around, right?
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  So they're going to work on other boosters, they're going to
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  work on other ships and everything's the economy doesn't
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  stop there. So it's funny how they do this
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  and like, I find the humor in in some politics because some of
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  these people are just insane. So it it makes no sense.
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  They're trying to pressure the Fish and Wildlife Service to get
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  this done faster because of their agenda and it it, you
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  know, because they want to look good or whatever.
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  And I have no problem with these people.
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  McAllen, Democrat, Gonzalez, San San Antonio Republican.
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  Other The other Gonzalez greatly impacts Spacex's operations in
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  South Texas and potentially hurts the region's economy here.
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  And which I understand, right? They're building a rocket now
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  and if they have to wait another, you know, till March to
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  launch this thing or February or March to launch this thing, it
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  does take a little while. And they they will be hindering
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  some potential progress from SpaceX, right?
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  And nobody wants SpaceX to fail, and they won't fail if they have
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  to wait a couple months. They've waited 15 years for
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  Starship to be built. A couple months is no big deal.
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  People are impatient and myself included, I'm a little bit
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  impatient. I want this thing to launch
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  yesterday, but you have to look at it from all angles.
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  You can't just look at it from. I'm a fan of SpaceX, so this has
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  to happen. Now you have to think of it
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  from, hey, there's there's federal regulatory bodies that
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  like help out. If these federal regulations
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  weren't in place, things and people, animals, environment,
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  infrastructures could be damaged and they have to go through
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  their whole system and it could probably be better.
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  You know, people could put systems in place where these
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  regulatory bodies get through these processes faster and with
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  the same amount of accuracy and cadence that they do now, but
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  not the cadence, But they could have a faster cadence than they
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  do now. All right.
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  So hopefully, hopefully they get this done as soon as possible.
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  And this pressure, it's funny the the pressure from this area
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  here, like, it just makes me laugh.
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  These people are a little bit out there, ready or not.
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  The agency didn't immediately respond Saturday to questions
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  about the congressional letter, but Buzek said Wednesday the
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  agency was still working on its review.
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  So they posted it on Friday and they're hoping to get a
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  response. But of course, like, these
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  people don't work on the weekends, so you're not going to
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  get a response. I mean, come on, it's a it's an
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  office job, so you're not going to work on the weekends and it's
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  a government office job. So unless you have, unless you
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  have some sort of contract where you do work on weekends, but
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  most people in the government are off on the weekends.
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  So in there they go on to say billions of government
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  contracts. They working with NASA, It's
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  Artemis program, of course, like Artemis 3 is coming up, so we
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  need Starship. They need hundreds of starships
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  to launch before they launch people into space.
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  That's what the SpaceX CEO has said in the past.
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  And Gwen Shotwell has said, hey, we need to launch a bunch of
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  these things before we put people on them.
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  It's not safe until we do that. And Bill Nelson says it is
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  essential to us, the SpaceX be able to test the rocket.
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  That's cool too. You just, that's all you need to
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  say. You don't have to say, well,
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  this is going to hurt the economy I am given, he
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  continued. I'm given to believe that they
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  are going to get the approval of Fish and Wildlife and therefore
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  the FAA. We're all we know this.
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  I don't know the timing, but of course a major delay would be a
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  very considerable concern to NASA.
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  So a major delay for something like this would be six months,
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  two months, not that big of a deal because they're still
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  working on other rockets and if they get so this is, this is the
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  long term thing, right? If they get this Fish and
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  Wildlife approval and they get the FAA approval, the next one
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  will be faster because this is about the new FAA approval is
• 12:57
  mainly about the new sprinkler system under the rocket and the
• 13:02
  new sound, the water suppression system underneath the rocket.
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  So once they figure that out, and that goes through the system
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  and they can move forward with other other launches faster than
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  what this one was. So it's only been a little bit
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  since the last launch since IFT 1.
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  So we all just have to be patient.
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  We all have to hang out. We'll have to just wait.
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  On Friday's Starship watchers shared photos of SpaceX
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  employees apparently installing explosives on the Starship
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  Redesigned flight termination system.
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  That happened. They did the flight termination
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  system too. That's pretty cool.
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  So that shows that SpaceX is just ready to go and they're
• 13:39
  just waiting for this federal, federal regulatory approval to
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  happen. So that's about it for for this
• 13:47
  right now. But it looks like SpaceX may
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  know something that we don't know because this broadcast has
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  ended. Let me let me let me do
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  something real quick, see if, yeah, I had to refresh and make
• 14:00
  sure that all my plug insurance were off just to make sure that
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  this works properly. But it looks like SpaceX doesn't
• 14:07
  have anything planned for the for the foreseeable future.
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  Maybe not Friday, maybe they're not.
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  They do keep posting these hype videos, which is great, but
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  maybe they don't have a plan for Friday anymore because that
• 14:21
  video's been taken down. I I really wish they did, but I
• 14:26
  don't see it happening. I don't see it happening unless
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  they get approval like in the next two days.
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  And if they get the approval in the next two days, today they
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  have de stacked ship and they'll have to re boost it back up on
• 14:41
  top of the booster. And once they do that and
• 14:44
  they'll do a fit check for about a, you know, test the systems
• 14:47
  for a little bit, make sure everything's working, that'll
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  take about a day and then they'll get prepped with the
• 14:52
  ground systems and things like that.
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  That'll take a couple days and then they could launch Friday,
• 14:57
  Saturday, Sunday. So if that happens within the
• 14:59
  next few days, let's go. They still need a they still
• 15:03
  need a launch license, though. Remember that.
• 15:05
  So if the Fish and Wildlife Service come through and the FAA
• 15:08
  finds it, good, then they launch licenses next.
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  So hoping, hoping for Friday, hoping for Friday.
• 15:16
  But maybe it'll be next week, maybe it'll be the week after
• 15:19
  that. So we just have to sit tight.
• 15:21
  That's just basically what it spaceflight is just hold on and
• 15:25
  wait, you know, like, let's go forward, but let's also wait.
• 15:29
  So that's it for today, everybody.
• 15:33
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• 15:36
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• 15:38
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• 16:22
  That's it everybody. I'm out of here.
• 16:24
  Bye, bye.