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Can Elon and Trump Send Humans to Mars? · Elon Musk Podcast

0:01
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
0:04
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
0:07
the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
0:11
Boring Company and Neurolink. I'm your host Will Walden, a
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President Trump's inauguration Last night, Elon Musk and also
0:21
President Trump both highlighted that they want to send humans to
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the surface of Mars within the next 4 years.
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Now, Elon Musk has broad ambitions, grand ambitions to
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send people to the Red Planet and he has since starting
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SpaceX. The first thing that he wanted
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to do when he first started SpaceX was build a rocket, or
0:47
buy a rocket, I should say, from Russia, that would send just a
0:50
plant to inspire people to visit the planet of Mars.
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But that didn't go through. And then he started his own
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space company, SpaceX, and we all know the history of that.
1:02
Now they're building a Starship down a star base in Boca Chica
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Star Base, Texas. And The thing is massive, 400
1:10
feet tall. It is built specifically to go
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to Mars. It is built specifically to go
1:17
to the moon. It's a deep space rocket.
1:20
Now it's also a low Earth orbit rocket, which will see it
1:25
sending Starlink satellites to Earth orbit.
1:29
So SpaceX can make trillions of dollars from the broadband
1:36
satellites, but that will fund future Starship development.
1:41
Now, President Trump wants this to happen in his four year term.
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Elon Musk has stated numerous times, back in 2022 actually,
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Elon has said that he wants to put boots on the surface of Mars
1:57
by 2029. Is this a realistic goal for
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Elon? Is this a realistic goal for
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SpaceX? And also, is this a realistic
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goal for humanity? Now, the furthest that we've
2:08
been out in space is the moon. 12 people have stood on the
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moon, have done science on the moon, have dug holes in the
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moon, driven Rovers, played golf and jumped around, fallen over
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things that humans do on the moon.
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But we're going to be going back there for the Artemis missions.
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And NASA thinks the Artemis missions are an important factor
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for us as humanity to get to Mars.
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Now, if that's the case, you know, NASA wants to send people
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to the moon in 2028, probably 20-30 ish probably is the best
2:50
bet that we're going to be sending people back to the moon
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due to budget constraints, scheduling.
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I mean, so let's just let's break this down a little bit.
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They're making space suits, Axiom is making space suits for
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this. Other companies are making the
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the lunar outpost, which will be orbiting the lunar orbiter,
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which will be orbiting the moon. And they have to have a Lander,
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right? So they have to have people that
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land on the moon, but they also have to have a big rocket to
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launch those people to the moon's orbit where they will,
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that'll be on the SLS rocket. They'll be going to the moon's
3:31
orbit from the SLS and joining up with Spacex's Starship in the
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orbit. And then SpaceX will lower them
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down to the surface of the moon where they do science discovery,
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all the things that we did before on the moon.
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They'll be doing them again. And there's a buggy that's
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that's going to be built as well.
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And it's in the process of being built right now, which will be
3:58
pretty cool for people to move around on the moon.
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But what is that? How does that translate into
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Mars? One of the things was we have to
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get people to Mars and get them home, right?
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So one of the things that we're going to be doing on the moon is
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trying to make in situ fuel for a Lander.
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And in order to do that, you have to use ice, make it into
4:23
hydrogen, make some liquid oxygen, and therefore you make
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that out of the ice. You may have a a production
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facility up there where you make that into some rocket fuel and
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you get back into the moon's orbit and launch yourself back
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towards Earth. Is that realistic for people to
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do that within the time frame that Elon and Trump are in
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office? That's four years from now.
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Right now it's 20252029 is when Elon wants to send people to
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Mars, and if we don't have the ability to do in situ fuel on
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the moon, there's no way as of right now that Elon and his crew
5:11
have planned or at least published in any way how they
5:16
would get people back from the surface of Mars.
5:19
Now they're still testing Starship.
5:22
They just launched flight 7 with a block 2 Starship on top of a
5:28
booster. The booster made it back to star
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base totally fine, landed on the chopstick arms and can be
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refurbished. Not reflown yet.
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We don't think of this one's going to refly but the ship
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itself. The Starship deteriorated.
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It blew up over the Indian Ocean.
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There is debris scattered for hundreds of miles.
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Now The thing is, Starship doesn't have an eject mechanism
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either. And this isn't even the people
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Starship yet. This is the cargo Starship,
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which is specifically designed to just launch Starlink
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satellites into orbit. So going for and I'm not a hater
6:11
here. I want this to be known that I'm
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not a hater of SpaceX. I've spent over a year or about
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a year down at star base as an on the ground reporter on the
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side of the road filming Starship.
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I'm a huge fan of space exploration.
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I'm a huge fan of SpaceX. So don't get me wrong here.
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So when they're building these Starships and they will build
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them relative. I mean, as far as rocket go,
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rockets go, they built them extremely fast.
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They could build, you know, tens, 1520 of them in a year.
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How many launches can they do a year?
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Well, that depends on how many accidents they have along the
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way. So because of this incident
6:56
report that needs to be done because this Starship blew up,
7:00
it's going to possibly set them back a few months.
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And every few months that they're set back, even though
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the Rockets are ready, you know, pretty soon the Rockets will be
7:08
ready to fly. Elon Musk said about four weeks
7:12
between the last flight, the flight 7 and flight A.
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He said about a, a month before the next hardware is ready.
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And I believe him. It'll be about a month before
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they get all the, the testing done and they're in, they're
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tested. Most of it, the boosters been
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tested, the ship's been tested already.
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So they're going to continue testing and move him down to the
7:33
launch tower as soon as possible.
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Now, the FAA and the incident report, this is for current
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events. So we have to really think about
7:40
what's happening right now and then think about what could
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happen for the next six months to a year before anything
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happens with Artemis or even getting star links into orbit.
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The Block 2 Starship, there was a leak of some sort and it
8:02
exploded. Elon thought, thinks they can
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fix it out. There's going to be a fire
8:06
suppression systems added, There's going to be venting
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added. So there's a possibility that
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they fix this for the next flight.
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But if they don't, that would push them back a few more months
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too. And also, this incident report
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is something that SpaceX does. So SpaceX figures out what
8:24
happened to the Starship, exactly what happened to the
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Starship. No guessing.
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They figure out everything in fine minute detail.
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They reported to the FAA, and if the FAA is OK with the result of
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that investigation, then the FAA will allow them to fly Starships
8:44
again. Could the FAA put a lot of
8:47
pressure on Starship and on Elon Musk and SpaceX?
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Yes, they could. With the Trump administration
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trying to, I wouldn't say dismantle these operations, but
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kind of tone it down a little bit so they can allow these
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launches to happen at a faster pace.
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The FAA might have to step back a little bit.
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And it depends on, you know, if there's executive orders issued
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or if Elon and company, because Elon is really close with the
9:19
president. Elon has doge, Elon has in his
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pocket right now the the most wealthy person in the world is
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right next to the president. So back door deals going on,
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they talk a lot. And I'm not, you know, it's not
9:37
conspiracy stuff here. This is just what happens to
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people. You know, it's a job.
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So when people talk to other people and Elon's like, hey, do
9:46
you want to be the person that sends people to Mars?
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Do you want to be the president while humans set foot on Mars?
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This will go down in history for the rest of humanity.
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How can we get this done? How can we get these people to
10:00
Mars on your term? Four years.
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They have four years to build a ship.
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They can send people to Mars and they can survive everything from
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the Earth all the way to Mars. Can you build that ship?
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I believe SpaceX could do it. Is it going to take a lot of
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time? Yes, absolutely.
10:21
Absolutely. It's going to take a lot of
10:23
time. Can they send an uncrewed cargo
10:26
mission within the next few years?
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Possibly. There's a window for them to
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open up travel in 2026. But if they missed that deadline
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in 2026 to send anything to Mars and Elon wants to send cargo in
10:41
a, you know, to the to orbit Mars or possibly a few Starships
10:45
to land on Mars, the next launch window is in late 2028 into
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early 2029. And if they miss that window,
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it's another 26 months. So if they don't do this, this
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is a rapid iteration of Starship, 4 years of building
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this thing. It's been about 10:00-ish years.
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I'm gonna this broad spectrum here. 10:00-ish years of them
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from the very beginning of like the planning stages of Starship
11:14
until now. Now we see physical starships
11:18
launching, We see physical starships blowing up.
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We also see the booster not landing properly.
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We, you know, and this is early, early development right now too.
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So I'm not throwing any shade at these guys.
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And the, the fact that we're still in early development means
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if they have 100 launches in a year, which good shot, well
11:39
said, They have to do in order to be safe.
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You know, they want to do thousands of launches to be safe
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in order for people to be inside of a Starship.
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They haven't even launched a human Starship yet.
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They don't. They can't even get the cargo
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Starship right. Which isn't a bad thing because
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we all know it's iterative design and we just have to take
12:00
that into consideration. Do I want them to do it?
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Absolutely. I want them to launch uncrewed
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ships in 2026. I want them anything they could
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send anything. It doesn't have to come back.
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You know, it doesn't have to come back to Earth because if
12:16
they don't figure that part out, the coming back to Earth.
12:19
But if they figure out how to launch and land something on
12:22
Mars, it took NASA decades to figure out how to launch and
12:26
land something on Mars successfully in the way they did
12:31
it. If you remember, they did it in
12:33
numerous ways. If it was a small Lander, they
12:36
surrounded it with basically Lander bubble wrap.
12:39
You know, the, there was a Rover and it had balloons around it.
12:43
And as it fell into, onto the surface of Mars, it bounced and
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the, the balloons deflated basically when they came to a
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stop. And also the seven minutes of
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terror, which is one of the Rovers that had a sky crane.
13:02
So it was a hovering sky crane that dropped the Rover from
13:07
chains basically and lowered it down to the surface of Mars.
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Now can you get a 40 story building?
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Actually it's a 25 story building.
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This is about 200 plus feet tall to land vertically on the
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surface of Mars with no landing gear.
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Because right now Starship doesn't have landing gear.
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What they want to do is make an in situ landing pad for Starship
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to land. There's no landing gear right
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now. We haven't seen any landing gear
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other than the Moon variant, the lunar variant of Starship, and
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we haven't seen any indication that the Mars Starship would
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have any landing gear. So how are they going to do this
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by 2029? Because they're not going to
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build another. They're not going to build a
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tower on Mars, of course. Could they build a land?
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Could they send things in this first cargo mission or the 1st
14:05
cargo missions to make an Institute landing area for
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Starship on Mars? Could they just land on the
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rocky surface of Mars? And there's the possibility, but
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how do they do that without damaging the rocket itself or
14:21
the engines? Because imagine those Raptor
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engines floating down to the surface of Mars, and as it's
14:26
floating down, it's kicking up rocks and dust and debris, and
14:32
those could kick up and destroy one of the engines.
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Those astronauts are stranded there forever.
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They would likely die on Mars. There's no coming back.
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There's no rescue missions. When you go to Mars, you have to
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wait for the next launch window. And if you can't make it for the
14:49
26 months, watch the movie The Martian.
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That's very similar to what would happen.
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You'd have to use whatever tools you have available to you, or
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you have to use whatever food is available to you to grow more
15:03
food. But if you can do uncrewed
15:06
starships beforehand, you could make that a possibility now.
15:12
There's so many logistics to do. Could they send people around
15:16
Mars in the time that Trump is in office?
15:20
4 years for people to fly around Mars.
15:25
Remember, the first flights around the moon weren't
15:29
spectacular. There were just people in pods
15:33
flying around the moon. The pods themselves flew around
15:35
the moon just to see if it would work.
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Their test pilots. These people, their test pilots,
15:43
the first people to fly around the moon.
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It's going to be a whole different situation then what
15:59
happens in Mars. At Mars 20.
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It takes months to get to Mars, 6 to 9 months to get to Mars,
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and therefore 6 to 9 months to get to Mars.
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And you also will do a fly by. You probably have a crew member
16:15
of five crew members with you, four or five crew members with
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you. It's going to be a, it's going
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to be a long trip. And could you imagine, just
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think about this, you go on a road trip with your family and
16:28
you're gone for, you know, maybe it takes you a day or two, a day
16:32
or two. And you know, you get to your
16:34
destination and by that time you're exhausted, right?
16:37
And like you get to the destination after two or three
16:39
days of driving in a car, you're bored, you're exhausted and you
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just want to chill for a little bit.
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You know, you're excited though, right?
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But imagine doing that for nine months.
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That's like staying in your room, your bedroom, because it's
16:51
not going to be a big space. But think about that.
16:56
Like, could you do it yourself? Astronauts do it on the
16:59
International Space Station all the time.
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They spent about a year up there.
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So could they spend nine months to get there and then nine
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months to get home? That's, you know, over two
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years. You know, it's around 2 years.
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So yeah, it's going to be A, it's going to be a tough one,
17:19
like a year and a half in flight to go to Mars.
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And then you'd probably park in an orbit, either A, around the
17:28
moon or B, around Earth when you come back.
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So you'd have to park in orbit. And then because they're not
17:35
going to have landing gear, they're not going to have any
17:37
way for these people to land Starship unless they figure out
17:41
a way for it to flip to the flip maneuver and land on the surface
17:46
on the chopsticks, which they're working on.
17:49
Elon says he wants to do it in the next few flights.
17:52
So if they can figure that out and they can use a very dumped
17:56
down version of a Starship to go to Mars with just a few
17:59
portholes, you know, because what we see from the renders are
18:04
huge windows on the nose cone. But that's not going to happen
18:08
for the first flight. There's no way they have.
18:10
They don't know how to do the technology for that yet.
18:13
They're still working on that. They're working on all of this
18:15
behind the scenes, but it hasn't been tested and it won't be
18:19
tested. At least if they're going to be
18:20
flying in within four years. They have to test this for the
18:24
2026 flight. So in about a year, they have to
18:29
be able to fly a full Starship with Windows.
18:33
You know the full, the full thing where people will fly in
18:37
it to Mars in order to test it just to send cargo there.
18:43
And then by 2029 20 late 20/28/2020 9:00 they have to
18:48
have a full rocket ready to go. Now, mind you, they can send
18:52
things like the window is a window where it's the fastest to
18:56
get there, right? They can send things before and
18:58
after take a little bit longer to get there, but they could do
19:03
it. They could possibly do it.
19:05
So it takes nine months to get there at the fastest, 6-9 months
19:08
the fastest time. And if it's not the fastest time
19:11
or in the fastest window, that could be, you know, a year to
19:14
get there. And that's, you know, that's
19:16
still something that they should test for.
19:18
And if they can launch, you know, they have two launch
19:22
towers at Starbase, pretty soon they're going to be the second
19:26
tower will be a fully operational.
19:28
And when that's fully operational, they will be able
19:30
to launch two rockets, I'm assuming not simultaneously, but
19:36
within a specific launch window of each other, probably within
19:39
24 hours of each other. So they'll be able to crank
19:42
these things out at a phenomenal rate, have two or three launches
19:48
per week at the best. I mean, that would be, that
19:54
would be remarkable if they got to that point.
19:58
Making the Raptor engines, that's their choke point.
20:01
If they can reuse the engines, you know they're going to be
20:03
able to reuse the boosters once they get that nailed, and they
20:06
can reuse every single booster. Then it'll be just making ships
20:12
and engines. So the boosters will be fine for
20:14
10 flights and making more ships is the you know is the would be
20:19
the choke point at that at that time.
20:21
Because having the the engines being reusable and the booster
20:25
be reusable and eventually the Starship being reusable.
20:28
The top part that will be clutch in doing the testing that they
20:33
need in order to fly people to Mars.
20:36
Now, are they going to get to that in the next year so they
20:38
can ship a cargo ship to the surface of Mars or around Mars
20:43
orbit? That's a wait and see kind of
20:47
thing. They've caught 2 boosters.
20:49
The first one they caught and they were, they said that they
20:53
were telemetry was off and their systems were off.
20:56
Like some of the systems were like a little bit acting a
20:59
little bit wonky. So when they landed the first
21:03
one, it wasn't 100% precise. They landed it, but they didn't
21:09
land it super precise. The second one after that, the
21:12
one after that, they had a ditch it into the Gulf of Mexico,
21:15
which Trump is going to call the Gulf of America, apparently.
21:18
And then the third one, they landed it on the on the booster
21:22
catch arms. And then that's the one that the
21:24
Starship blew up over the over the Indian Ocean.
21:28
So there was definitely precedent that the Starship
21:32
booster, his land, the Super Heavy booster has landed twice
21:36
and that is huge as far as reusability goes.
21:42
Now, if they can nail that within the next, you know, if
21:45
they nail every single one for the next 10 flights and they
21:49
start reusing boosters after the fourth attempt of landing, a
21:54
successful attempt at landing, I believe they can start reusing
21:58
these things after 10 flights. You know, I, I don't see a
22:02
reason why not. As long as the engines are
22:04
intact, they can refurbish the booster.
22:06
They could reuse it, they could re fly it.
22:09
And then once they start catching Starships too, there's
22:14
a possibility that they can just reuse the same Starship.
22:18
They wouldn't reuse the same Starship in order to go to Mars,
22:22
of course, because they need kind of like, I mean, a flight
22:24
tested Starship is a, a, a tested Starship.
22:29
It's like it's a test drive for a car.
22:32
You don't get a car off the lot without testing it and testing
22:36
it. You have to drive it a little
22:37
bit unless it's, you know, a higher end car.
22:40
But you get they do have to do tests before you fly a rocket to
22:46
Mars. So a flight tested rocket and a
22:48
flight tested booster might be better than a brand new one
22:51
that's never been tested before. And that's what they found out
22:54
with Falcon 9. Is that the flight proven
22:57
boosters work just as good as a brand new one?
23:02
And they're kind of hesitant. They're like, I don't know, like
23:05
an untested booster. We don't know if it's going to
23:07
work. So the Starship, the tested
23:10
Starship is probably going to be their first flight to Mars.
23:15
But I want to, I want to say thanks to everybody who's
23:17
listening to this. And we have a super cast that
23:24
you can check out, and it's going to be in the link and the
23:28
description below. There's a Discord you can join
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up to continue this conversation.
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And I think that's it for today. Everybody just want to get my
23:56
thoughts out there about the Starship and Elon Musk because
23:59
there's some huge, huge news with the Trump administration
24:02
coming into play that there's a possibility they could like they
24:05
could just throw all everything at Starship.
24:10
Like not government funding, but they could push, you know,
24:15
government agencies to just let Elon and SpaceX do what they got
24:18
to do, you know, relax some government stuff.
24:23
So Elon can launch 100 rockets in a year from Starbase.
24:29
And also they're going to start building, they are building the
24:34
infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center to launch more rockets.
24:37
So if they could launch two starships from Starbase and then
24:41
two starships from Kennedy Space Center even, I mean, even one
24:43
Starship from Kennedy Space Center.
24:45
So only have one tower there to begin with.
24:48
Three rockets in a day. The FAA is going to be really
24:52
busy. That's all I got to say.
24:54
The government agencies have got to step it up.
24:57
So Elon is ready to take the next step.
24:59
Is humanity ready to take the next step?
25:02
I don't know. That's a question we all have to
25:04
ask ourselves. All right, thanks for listening.
25:07
Everybody. Take care of yourselves and each
25:08
other and I'll see you in the next one.
25:15
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