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Elon Musk's Starship Update - Can't wait for this one. · 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 that shape
• 0:08
  SpaceX Tesla X. The Boring Company and
• 0:12
  Neuralink. And I'm.
• 0:14
  Your host Will Walden. Everybody, welcome back to the
• 0:16
  Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
• 0:20
  the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The
• 0:24
  Boring Company, and Neuralink. I'm your host, Will Walden, and
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  on today's episode we're going to talk about Spacex's Starship
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  IFT 4 flight that will be happening sometime in the next
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  month. Ish, according to Elon Musk and
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  SpaceX COO Gwen Shotwell, now IFT 3.
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  Let's go back a little bit to IFT 3.
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  This happened about a month ago. Their Starship vehicle, which
• 0:54
  launched from Starbase, Texas as a very successful launch by the
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  way, very successful flight that happened about a month ago and
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  it did everything almost that they wanted it to.
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  There were a few things that it didn't accomplish, which was a
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  soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico and also a soft landing
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  in the Indian Ocean for the ship.
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  The booster was in the Gulf of Mexico, the ship was in the
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  Indian Ocean. Other than that though,
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  everything was great and the launch was perfect.
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  So what does this mean for the next launch of Starship though?
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  We have to think about this, What's going to happen for IFT
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  4? They're going to be doing the
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  same thing. Let's let's go back to IFT 3
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  again. There was there were a few
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  things that they wanted to do. One of them was the payload door
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  opening and shutting and the payload.
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  Right now the payload door is just for Starlink satellites, so
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  they wanted to get that done. I FT3 they did.
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  They opened the door and then they shut the door.
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  The door as it shut little bit, get little bit slow, little bit
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  slow, but it was successful. They're going to clean that up.
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  They may do another Starlink door mission in the future.
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  Not sure if it's going to be for this one or the next one or the
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  next one. IF T6, maybe, but for right now,
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  IFT 4, there's one thing that Elon Musk was talking about
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  Elon's big hope for IFT 4. And if I'm going to get to that
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  in a second because we have to go through what's happening for
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  IFT 4 before we get to the big thing.
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  So Elon wants IFT 4 to have a successful launch.
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  Of course they want the booster. They had to blow up the booster
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  in the ship of the 1st IFT 3, by the way.
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  So the booster flies to the Gulf of Mexico.
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  Stage separation will happen for IFT 4 and what happened with IFT
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  3 is that when the stage separated, the booster came back
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  down towards the Gulf of Mexico and they had to blow it up
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  because there were some systems that weren't working properly.
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  So they had to do a a termination of the booster,
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  which is totally fine. SpaceX does a thing called rapid
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  iteration, so they learn from their mistakes.
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  IFT one there was mistakes with a launchpad.
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  It basically obliterated the launchpad under the launchpad
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  for IFT 1 IFT 2 they installed a water deluge system which is
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  fantastic. It cools down where the flames,
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  where a normal flame trench would be.
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  For a ship like this. It but it shoots thousands of
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  gallons of water into a concentrated area right under
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  the ship. And it absorbs the shock, it
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  absorbs the sound and it works totally perfect.
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  So IFT 2 fixed that problem. IFT 3, same thing and the water
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  dilute system works great. IFT 2 the ship and the booster
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  didn't detach for IFT one or IFT.
• 4:08
  Yeah, for IFT 1 and so IFT 3 hot staging works perfectly and not
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  for IFT 4. They're going to refine those
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  systems so hot staging is going to be refined.
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  Things will work better this time.
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  The plumbing within the Starship and the booster will be refined.
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  So these things work a little bit better every single time.
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  The electronics, maybe there's a software update, there's
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  hardware updates. It's just like an iPhone.
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  Every version of an iPhone from iPhone 1 to where we are now,
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  it's iterative design. Things that didn't work in IF or
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  in the IFT One work in IFT 4. Things that didn't work in the
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  first iPhone or things that were pin points for people work
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  totally fine in the iPhone 4. So it's very similar, yeah.
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  So. Now for FT four stage
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  separation. Like I was saying, they're going
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  to do a boost back burn with the booster.
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  Do the flip maneuver and let's talk about his plan, Elon Musk's
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  plan. SpaceX posted a tweet the other
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  day of the static fire of a single Raptor engine for the
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  Starship test for test flight IFT 4 and it was successful.
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  Full duration. Elon Musk tweeted after that
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  getting ready for flight 4 of Starship exclamation point.
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  Goal of this mission is for Starship to get through Max re
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  entry heating with all systems functional.
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  We saw during the static fire the single Raptor static fire of
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  this ship that some of the heat tiles fell off.
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  I don't know how many yet because there's 1000 of those
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  things on there, so we don't know how many fell off, how many
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  are remaining. They have to replace some and we
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  saw some of these fall off during the last flight.
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  IFT 3 and Elon wants Max reentry heating for this one.
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  If some of these tiles fall off during launch, they're not going
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  to be there for reentry, so any heat that they would have
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  absorbed and protected the ship that's out the window that
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  doesn't work doesn't work anymore.
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  It's got to heat up the stainless steel that the
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  Starship is composed of, So stainless steel, hot, very hot,
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  thousands of degrees hot, and then baking the inside of this
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  thing from the reentry heat. Luckily it's a few minutes of
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  reentry, so it's not going to take 20-30 minutes to do this.
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  But there's the possibility that it could get so hot that it
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  could burn the systems inside, could stop some of the systems
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  inside. That's the only thing I'm
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  worried about. What if it destroys some
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  electronics or ruins something along the way?
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  And I'm not being pessimistic here, It's just the way that
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  engineering works. It's physics.
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  If heat in contact or something, it's going to burn it or it's
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  going to melt it. And the the avionics, possibly
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  the electronics. Like I was saying, if it burns
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  through a wire harness with 15 or 20 wires on it, some of those
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  wires could be communication wires and some of those could be
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  something for avionics and then it goes spinning out of control.
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  Things can happen. We don't know, we don't know
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  what could happen within that system, what are the pipes for
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  fuel. Anything could happen and we
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  could get a rapid UN scheduled disassembly or Rudd if you will,
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  mid flight at the very end of the flight if some of these heat
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  tiles fell off and the heat gets into the ship itself.
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  So stainless steel steel gets really hot really fast.
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  I I don't know if you have a stainless steel pan that you've
• 8:00
  ever used, but they conduct heat very well.
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  I know SpaceX is using a very a very proprietary stainless steel
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  for this, so they may be able to ablate some of that heat by.
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  Itself but. As of right now, we see that the
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  heat tiles falling off is a possibility, but that heat could
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  actually stop this light, and they're going to have to find a
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  way to attach these heat tiles in a more proficient way and
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  efficient way in the future. So that's all I'm really worried
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  about. But Elon's tweet goal of this
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  mission is for Starship to get through Max re entry heating
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  with all systems functioning. That's what he's really worried
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  about. I don't think there's going to
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  be any other tests that they're really, really worried about in
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  this. They do have a payload door on
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  this. It looks like maybe they're
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  going to do a fuel transfer that they were supposed to do an IFT
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  3. We're going to do that again.
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  We're going to see in the coming weeks they're going to start
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  tweeting some stuff. Elon and SpaceX are going to see
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  tweeting some stuff in the coming weeks about this mission.
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  So stay tuned here and I'll give you as much information as I can
• 9:09
  when I get it. Hey.
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  Thank you so much for listening today.
• 9:11
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• 9:13
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