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Elon Musk "Fix this or Starship is DONE" · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Spacex's recent decision to refly a Super Heavy booster
• 0:04
  could be the most important moment in the company's history.
• 0:08
  But what exactly makes this step so important now?
• 0:13
  On a quiet Thursday morning in South Texas, a thunderous roar
• 0:17
  cut through the air. A Super Heavy Booster 14 came
• 0:21
  back to life in 9:40 AM local time.
• 0:25
  Fire erupted from beneath the behemoth rocket as it stood
• 0:28
  anchored to the ground at Spacex's Starbase launch site.
• 0:35
  This was the first time the company had ever fired a flight
• 0:39
  proven Super Heavy. The eight second static fire
• 0:43
  test marked a key turning point not only for the booster itself,
• 0:48
  but for the entire SpaceX Starship program.
• 0:51
  Booster 14 had already flown once during a test flight in
• 0:55
  January. But instead of being retired or
• 0:57
  sent back to the Rocket Garden, the rocket was refurbished on
• 1:01
  site, outfitted with parts from previous missions, Frankenstein
• 1:05
  back together and prepared for return to action.
• 1:09
  Now, SpaceX confirmed that this very same booster will be part
• 1:13
  of the upcoming Starship launch. They said the 1st Super Heavy
• 1:17
  reuse will be a step towards our goal of 0 touch replay.
• 1:20
  That's what they posted on X Now.
• 1:23
  SpaceX said 29 of boosters 33 Raptor engines had already flown
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  before, which is not only a technical miracle but also a
• 1:32
  logistical achievement. Developing and operating 33
• 1:37
  methane fueled engines in tandem is already absolutely stunningly
• 1:41
  complex, and reusing most of them it's still managing to make
• 1:45
  the system perform is an engineering feat that's godly.
• 1:50
  Each of these engines contributes to the rocket's
• 1:53
  staggering 17,000,000 lbs of thrust, twice as much as NASA's
• 1:57
  Saturn 5, which took people to the Moon.
• 2:00
  Now, this accomplishment is essentially important.
• 2:03
  This accomplishment is especially important right now
• 2:06
  because the other half of the Starship rocket, the upper
• 2:09
  stage, has been struggling. The last two flights of
• 2:12
  Starship's upper stage ended in failure, explosions around 8
• 2:15
  minutes into the missions, now at roughly the same phase of the
• 2:19
  flight, leaving engineers with more questions and answers.
• 2:24
  And that's while booster development is accelerating.
• 2:27
  The ship itself remains an unsolved puzzle, even as parts
• 2:32
  of the Starship system move forward.
• 2:34
  The recent string of failures has slowed the overall program.
• 2:38
  In both the January and March test flights.
• 2:41
  The upgraded upper stage, which is Block 2 now, lost engine
• 2:45
  power and began to tumble out of control.
• 2:49
  And each time, it disintegrated midair before reaching its
• 2:53
  intended splashdown zone, scattering debris across the
• 2:57
  ocean near the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.
• 3:01
  These repeated failures didn't just end those specific flights.
• 3:04
  So they blocked SpaceX from testing one of the key
• 3:07
  innovations of Block 2 it's reinforced heat shield.
• 3:11
  Now, without a successful reentry attempt, engineers can't
• 3:15
  validate whether the redesigned tiles will survive the intense
• 3:19
  thermal forces of reentry now. This leaves a critical element
• 3:23
  of the system unproven and adds more uncertainty to future
• 3:27
  missions. But despite the upper stage
• 3:30
  setbacks, Spacex's progress with booster reusability is advancing
• 3:36
  faster than many have expected. Now, compared to Falcon 9, which
• 3:41
  required extensive refurbishment and logistics between flights
• 3:46
  early in its development, Super Heavy is being turned around
• 3:50
  much more efficiently. Falcon 9's first reuse booster
• 3:54
  had to be shipped back and forth across the whole country for
• 3:58
  months of testing. Super Heavy, by contrast, was
• 4:02
  readied for reflight in less than 90 days and never left its
• 4:07
  home sweet home at Starbase, Texas.
• 4:10
  That's partially because Falcon 9 was never designed for fast
• 4:12
  reusability from the start. Lesson learned from that earlier
• 4:16
  program have been built directly into the design of the Super
• 4:21
  Heavy rocket. This means that instead of
• 4:23
  transporting the rocket thousands of miles for repairs
• 4:27
  and inspections, SpaceX can conduct everything, Testing,
• 4:32
  refurbishing, reassembly, just within a few miles of the launch
• 4:36
  site. Just cart it down there.
• 4:39
  Another difference is how these boosters are recovered.
• 4:42
  Falcon 9 lands vertically on drone ships using landing legs.
• 4:47
  Super Heavy, however, skips the legs entirely.
• 4:50
  No legs on this thing, and instead it's caught by massive
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  mechanical arms called chopsticks that are mounted
• 4:56
  directly on the launch tower. This allows for a quicker turn
• 5:00
  around and eliminates the need for landing gear systems, which
• 5:03
  can be vulnerable to damage and also add a lot of weight.
• 5:08
  There's a much higher degree of difficulty with Super Heavy
• 5:11
  though. It's bigger, more powerful, and
• 5:13
  far more complex, and over 400 feet tall When stacked with the
• 5:17
  Starship upper stage, this rocket towers above every launch
• 5:21
  system in the history of humankind.
• 5:24
  It's also equipped with more engines than any other rocket
• 5:27
  ever built. That means there are more
• 5:29
  systems that need to work perfectly together.
• 5:32
  And despite those challenges, though, Super Heavy's
• 5:35
  performance has been stable. SpaceX has launched 8 integrated
• 5:40
  Starship test flights so far, and since the failure on the
• 5:44
  debut flight, all 7 subsequent Super Heavy boosters have
• 5:48
  successfully lifted off. Of the last four attempts the
• 5:53
  recover the booster 3 succeeded. This consistently contrasts
• 5:57
  sharply with the upper stages recent track record, which has
• 6:01
  now failed on two consecutive launches.
• 6:05
  But why does this all matter? First, there's a simple fact
• 6:08
  that making Starship reusable is the foundation of Elon Musk's
• 6:12
  long term goal to send humans to Mars.
• 6:15
  And without a reusable system, launching regular missions to
• 6:19
  deep space becomes cost prohibitive.
• 6:21
  Every successful reused test cuts down the potential cost of
• 6:26
  future launches and moves the technology closer to practical,
• 6:30
  affordable deep space. Then there's the role of
• 6:33
  Starship in US space policy. NASA is relying on SpaceX to
• 6:36
  deliver a crude lunar landing using Starship under its Artemis
• 6:40
  program. But that's not a single rocket
• 6:43
  launch. It's a massive orchestration
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  involving U to 10 inorbit refueling launches to to off
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  Starship before it heads to the moon.
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  And if SpaceX can't reliably reuse the Super Heavy booster
• 6:59
  and the upper stage, it won't be able to fly often enough to meet
• 7:03
  this demand. Another important piece
• 7:05
  Starlink. SpaceX plans to use Starship to
• 7:09
  launch heavier next generation Starlink satellites, improving
• 7:12
  its global Internet service. Now these satellites are too
• 7:16
  large to fit inside Falcon 9's payload fairing.
• 7:19
  So until Starship becomes a reliable launch system, these
• 7:23
  upgrades remain on hold. And the FAA recently signed off
• 7:28
  on Spacex's internal investigation into the January
• 7:32
  failure, and the company concluded the vibrations during
• 7:36
  flight were stronger than anticipated, leading to stress
• 7:39
  that damaged engine components and caused a fire.
• 7:43
  That fire disabled key systems and LED to the loss of control,
• 7:47
  and SpaceX implemented 11 specific changes to prevent the
• 7:51
  same problem from repeating. However, the cause of March's
• 7:56
  failure remains similar. The investigation is still a
• 7:59
  little bit open, and although early signs suggest a very
• 8:03
  similar failure point and without a known fix to the upper
• 8:07
  stages issues, it's unclear when SpaceX can move forward with
• 8:12
  full end to end testing. The company had initially aimed
• 8:16
  for up to 25 Starship launches in 2025.
• 8:19
  Now, that goal looks increasingly unlikely.
• 8:22
  Now, Starship continues to struggle and may only fly a
• 8:26
  handful of times in the next 12 months.
• 8:28
  The delays don't just affect SpaceX.
• 8:30
  NASA has billions of dollars tied up in contracts that depend
• 8:34
  on Starship performing. If refuelling tests are pushed
• 8:37
  to 2026, as Musk has suggested, the timeline for landing
• 8:41
  astronauts on the moon also slips.
• 8:45
  And that domino effect could delay future Artemis missions,
• 8:48
  forcing NASA to rethink how it plans its deep space exploration
• 8:53
  goals. At present, SpaceX has not
• 8:55
  released a target date for Starship's ninth flight.
• 8:58
  The upper stage assigned to that mission remains inside the Star
• 9:01
  Base facility right now. Its next milestone will be a
• 9:04
  static fire test of its engines, followed by inspections and
• 9:08
  final preparations. Only then will SpaceX move the
• 9:12
  ship to the pad and mounted a top booster 14 for a full stack
• 9:16
  test. The sequence is clear, though,
• 9:19
  but the outcome isn't. If the next flight fails again,
• 9:23
  SpaceX may have to pause launches altogether until it can
• 9:26
  identify and fix the root cause. If it succeeds, it will allow
• 9:31
  engineers to finally test the heat shield and perhaps move
• 9:34
  closer to orbital recovery. Until then, SpaceX continues its
• 9:39
  high wire act, pushing the most complex rocket ever bill closer
• 9:44
  to reusability while also still wrestling with the challenges of
• 9:48
  its upper stage failures. Hey, thanks for watching today.
• 9:51
  I want to take a second and I want to make a deal with you.
• 9:54
  If you'd like Starship content and you want to continue getting
• 9:58
  Starship content in your feed, I want you to do something for
• 10:01
  free. Just hit the subscribe button
• 10:03
  like button and leave an emoji down below.
• 10:06
  And this is my promise to you about this.
• 10:08
  Let's make this deal, you and me.
• 10:10
  I'm going to continue making content for the next 10 years.
• 10:13
  Never behind a paywall. That's all I ask from you, a
• 10:16
  subscribe. I've been doing this for five
• 10:18
  years. I just want to sub.
• 10:20
  That's it takes a second and you're going to get more content
• 10:23
  about Starship in your feed, not just from me, but from other
• 10:25
  Starship creators out there. So thank you for that.
• 10:29
  Also, please take care of yourselves and each other and I
• 10:32
  will see you in the next one.