Elon MuskAll right, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to Starbase. So it's been almost two years since our last update, and a lot has happened since then. But I'm getting like a strange audio feedback. I don't know, do I sound okay to you guys? Okay, great. So it's been two years since we had our first Mark 1 rocket, and a lot has happened since then. We're going to go through the progress, but I'm just incredibly proud of the SpaceX team and all the support that we received from Cameron County, from Brownsville, from South Padre. And I know some of you are in the audience, so thank you very much for your support.
Elon MuskBefore we jump into the details of what's happened over the past two years, I think it's worth just talking a bit about, like, why are we doing this? You know, this is pretty epic, but what's the sort of deep meaning behind this? Like, why the giant reusable rocket? Why make life multi-planetary? I think this is just an incredibly important thing for the future of life itself.
Elon MuskSo there's both a, I'd quote, the defensive reason or the life insurance reason. That's one part of it, which is that there's always some chance that something could go wrong on Earth. The dinosaurs are not around anymore. So there could be some calamity that we do ourselves in, or there's just a natural disaster. Now, I'm naturally an optimist, so I think the probability of that is low, but it is not zero. And eventually the sun will expand. It might take a few hundred million years, so don't hold your breath, but eventually the sun will expand and destroy all life. So for those who really care about not just the humans but all the life on Earth, it is very important, essential, that over the long term we become a multi-planet species and ultimately even go beyond the solar system and bring life with us.
Elon MuskAnd you know, we are life stewards, life's guardians. The creatures that we love cannot build spaceships, but we can, and we can bring them with us. And I think that's pretty important, you know, for those that care about the environment and care about all the creatures on Earth. So that's like the defensive or the life insurance reason for life collectively.
Elon MuskBut there's also an inspiring reason, which is that life can't just be about solving problems. There have to be things that inspire you, that move your heart, that make you glad when you wake up in the morning, you're excited about the future. And going out there and being a multi-planet species and being a space-bearing civilization and making science fiction not fiction forever, I think that's one of those things. That's what fires me up the most, is like, let's go out there and find out what this universe is all about.
Elon MuskYou know, are there other species out there? Maybe. Hopefully. I mean, we want to go find out what the heck's going on. What is going on? Where, you know, how do we get here? What's the meaning of life? 42, but what's the question? And if we go out there and we explore the galaxy, ultimately, then we can find out some of these questions, and it would just be very exciting to do that, and something we can all look forward to.
Elon MuskAnd even, you know, whether somebody chooses to go or not, I think vicariously we can all go there. Just like with Apollo, where only a handful of people went to the moon, but in a sense we all went there, humanity went there. So even if somebody doesn't choose to go themselves, I think vicariously through others they will go, they will understand, they will experience the universe. And I think that's incredibly fundamental to an exciting future. And that's why we're doing this.
Elon MuskNow, one of the rebuttals we'll sometimes hear is, like, sure, but what about all the problems on Earth? And I completely agree that the vast majority of resources should be dedicated to solving problems on Earth. Absolutely. I'd say like more than 99% of our resources should be oriented towards solving problems on Earth. But it's important to note that, like, NASA's annual budget is only 0.3%, 0.36% of the federal budget. And in fact, of the national GDP, it's less than a tenth of a percentage point. So it's like we're only spending 0.1% of our resources on space. I think that's okay.
Elon MuskJust to make sure people don't think, like, well, is he suggesting that we just spend everything on space? No, I'm suggesting like maybe half a percent or something like that, we would probably be okay. And I think, you know, given the establishing security for life itself and having an exciting future and inspiring kids about the future, I think it's worth it, basically.
Elon MuskSo, well, how do we do this? How do we make life multi-planetary? What's the first step? The essential technology, the holy grail breakthrough that's needed, is a rapid and completely reusable rocket system. So this has never been accomplished before, and a lot of people for the longest time thought this was not possible. Now, with Falcon 9, we've been able to show that you can have reuse of a boost stage and reuse of the fairing. So with Falcon 9 we've demonstrated a lot of reuse of the boost stage and of the fairing. We've had over a hundred reflights of the booster, and I'm not sure of the fairing number, but it's a lot. And that's a big step in the right direction. With Starship, we're aiming for full and rapid reusability.
Elon MuskSo we obviously need to accomplish that. That's not done yet, but success is one of the possible outcomes, which I always think, when embarking on an endeavor, success should be at least one of the possible outcomes. And for this design, that is the case. So we're aiming for rapid reusability, which is why the booster is going to take off and then fly back to the launch tower and, aspirationally, land on the arms. Which does sound insane, or, as Riley would say, audacious. But if it does come in too fast and shear off the arms, then I guess it will be a farewell to arms. Sorry, the dad jokes, I have to warn you, they're only going to get worse.
Elon MuskSo here I'd really just like to congratulate the SpaceX team, and also thank NASA, the FAA, the Space Force, and everyone, and all of our customers that have helped us get to this point. It's insanely hard to get a rocket to orbit. Insanely difficult. I have huge respect for anyone who's gotten a rocket to orbit, since it's so hard. And we've had 144 successful launches, 106 landings. Yeah, I mean, actually these days I have to look on the internet to say how many things have we had. I'll have to ask the internet. So 83 flight-proven launches.
Elon MuskAlthough I have to say, I still have like launch PTSD. Every time the rocket takes off, I'm like, ah, you know. I just see all the ways that it could fail. But, you know, this year we're actually aiming to have around 50 launches, so it's about a launch per week on average. And yeah, so it's a hell of a year we got ahead of us.
Elon MuskAnd in terms of mass to orbit, if you look at like tonnage to orbit, this bar chart that we'll show here really illustrates how profound a rapidly reusable rocket, especially a big one, is, what effect that has on total tonnage to orbit. So the total mass to orbit to date of Earth is around 15,000 tons, maybe 15, 16,000 tons. And the mass per Starship, after a year, just one year of launching, as if it launches three times a day, would be equal to all the mass to orbit of Earth to date. That's just one Starship launching three times a day for a year.
Elon MuskNow if you have, you know, 10 Starships-ish, and we'll have more than that — our goal is to be making at least one stack per month, and then ultimately potentially a ship every three days. There'll be more ships than there are boosters, because the booster, actually, even though it's gigantic, will come back in about six minutes. Excitement guaranteed.
Elon MuskSo it only takes about two minutes on ascent and then about four minutes to return, so you'll know soon. The ship has to complete at least one orbit around Earth, and sometimes maybe three orbits or more, and each orbit is 90 minutes. So the ship is probably reusable about every six to eight hours. That's why we say sort of three times a day for the ship. In theory, the booster is capable of being reused every hour. The propellant pumps are designed to fill the rocket in about half an hour. So this really is designed for rapid reusability.
Elon MuskIf you can do roughly a million tons to Earth orbit, that's comfortably over a hundred thousand tons to the surface of Mars, maybe 150,000 tons depending on how good the landing system is. Now, you can only go to Mars every two years. And I think maybe roughly you need about a million tons on Mars to have a self-sustaining city. But the critical threshold, I think, for Mars is to have a city that is self-sustaining. It's going to be incredibly difficult to make a self-sustaining city, because if it's missing any ingredient at all, however minor that ingredient is, then if the ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, the city will die out.
Elon MuskSo the critical threshold to pass, one of the most important great filters for any species, is to have the other planet no longer dependent on the original planet. So I don't know exactly what that tonnage is, but I suspect it is at least, if one tries to get the right order of magnitude, about a million tons. Hopefully it's not more than that. Starship is capable of doing that. It's capable of getting a million tons to the surface of Mars and creating a self-sustaining city. And I think we should try to do that as soon as we can.
Elon MuskThe window of opportunity may be open for a long time, and I hope it is. But it may also be open for a short time. And this is the first point in the four-and-a-half-billion-year history of Earth that it has been possible. I mean, let that sink in. Or if there's a sink, let it in. Still knocking at the door — I mean, it's a sentient sink. Let's face it, let me just come in.
Elon MuskSo, four and a half billion years, it's been a while. This is the first time it's been possible. We need to seize the opportunity and do it as quickly as possible. I'm going to be frank: civilization is feeling a little fragile these days. And like I said, I'm an optimist, but I think we've got to protect the downside here and try to build that city on Mars as soon as possible and secure the future of life. And it's going to be an incredibly exciting adventure.
Elon MuskNow, the sales pitch for going to Mars is that it's going to be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work, you might die. And that's the sales pitch. I hope you like it. So far from being some sort of escape hatch, it will be extremely difficult and dangerous and tough. Mars is a fixer-upper of a planet, and so it's going to take some work to make it easy to live there. But one day we could make Mars a planet like Earth. I think we should.
Elon MuskSo, just some facts about Starship — and these numbers will evolve over time. The height of the ship is about 50 meters, 164 feet. The 9-meter, 30-foot diameter, well, you can just see it, basically. It's got about 1,200 tons of propellant on the ship, and thrust is about 1,500 tons. Now, these numbers will — it will probably add more propellant over time, increase thrust. Diameter will stay the same; it's a huge pain to change diameter, so that'll tend to stay the same, but it'll probably get a little bit longer.
Elon MuskAnd we're expecting a payload capacity of 100 to 150 tons depending on which orbit. So to a Starlink orbit, roughly 100 tons. Over time, I think we can probably get the payload to an orbit for orbital refilling to about 200 tons, which is going to be very important for getting to Mars. So for getting to Mars you also need the orbital refilling. Just like you have aerial refueling, the rockets will need orbital refilling. It's actually mostly oxygen — there's three and a half tons of oxygen for every one ton of fuel. So that's why it's refilling, not refueling.
Elon MuskHeat shield. So this is the world's largest heat shield. We actually make this at a little factory in Florida near Cape Canaveral — we call it the bakery — and we're actually using a lot of techniques that are used for roofing tiles. So we need to have a heat shield that is capable of resisting extreme heat but also is not crazy expensive. And our heat shield team has done amazing work in creating the world's largest heat shield, and one that is reusable but also robust and low-cost. So it's not a crazy-money heat shield. And yeah, we need good heat shield technology for entering from orbit.
Elon MuskOrbital refilling. We were going to do an animation of this, but it looked a bit wrong. It is a fluid transfer. Play a little Barry White, you know. Okay. So that's one of the technologies that is necessary for getting to Mars. So the ship would get to orbit with payload, and then in orbit we would refill the tanks so it would have enough propellant to get to Mars. Mars is far.
Elon MuskSo now this is essentially docking in orbit, and with Dragon docking with the space station, this is a technology that SpaceX has become quite good at. We've done, I think at this point, a couple dozen dockings with the space station. And it's actually way harder to dock with the space station than to dock with yourself. So this is a thing we need to just solve for Starship, but I'm confident that we can do this because we've done a lot of orbital docking already with Dragon. But this is going to be an important thing to demonstrate. It won't be necessary in the near term for Starlink launches, but it will be necessary for Mars and the moon.
Elon MuskSo let's see, the Super Heavy booster. So it was 70 meters, but then there was an extra half-barrel section that the team deleted, and totally accidentally, it's at 69 meters. It's also Booster 4 and Ship 20. I mean, this is a pure coincidence; those numbers won't leave me alone. I hope it's good luck.
Elon MuskSo yeah, the propellant capacity is like around 3,400 tons. It'll probably increase over time, probably get to 3,600, maybe 3,800 tons. Thrust is around 7,600 tons; that'll probably increase too over time. Just to put this into perspective, though, the Saturn V was seven and a half million pounds of thrust, and Starship is 17. So it's more than twice the thrust of a Saturn V, which was the largest rocket ever to get to orbit. It's worth noting Super Heavy is the largest flying object of any kind, or will be. Very, very big. You can see it right there.
Elon MuskThat booster has 29 engines. The next booster, we actually increased the engine count to 33. We've kind of bounced around on engine count, because I think at one point we had like 37 engines, and then we went to 29. We've finally settled on 33 engines, which is about the most number of engines you can actually fit under that booster without expanding the diameter.
Elon MuskAnd then this tower — this tower, from design to construction, was 13 months. So it's quite an epic structure. It's really worth emphasizing that the whole launch system, which is basically stage zero, is, I'd say, as complex and difficult as either the booster or the ship. So I really want to emphasize that this is a very difficult thing that requires a lot of hardcore engineering. The tower and the launch system, which I call stage zero, is just as important as stage one and stage two. And this is really some wild stuff here. In fact, hard to believe it's real, except, you know, it's right there.
Elon MuskAnd then Raptor development. Raptor 1 was 185 tons of thrust, Raptor 2 is 230 tons of thrust, and I think over time we can get that to probably 250 tons. So that's — and it's also significantly simplified. You can see the difference between V1 and V2. The V2 is — V1 looks kind of like a Christmas tree spaghetti pile, a lot of fiddly bits, and V2 is greatly simplified while also increasing thrust at the same time. So Raptor 2 costs about half as much as Raptor 1 despite having much more thrust, and I think just generally being a much easier engine to build and a more robust engine. So I'm very excited about Raptor version 2, and it's only going to get better from here.
Elon MuskSo yeah, Raptor 2 is pretty sick. And we've actually — the peak thrust that we've operated Raptor 2 at, at that point, is 247 tons. And so I'm confident that with some improvements we can get to a 250-ton operating point, and continue to simplify and sort of robustify the engine. So it's really a spectacular piece of engineering, extremely difficult to make and succeed. This engine has been mind-bogglingly difficult, but it is one of the essential keys to — I mean, it is essential, obviously, to making Starship work. It'll be the first full-flow staged combustion engine to get to orbit. Kind of neat, that ISP and thrust-to-weight.
Elon MuskSo, why Starbase? A lot of people say like, why Starbase? Why here? We kind of needed a confluence of factors. Getting to orbit, you want to launch eastward so that you have help from Earth's rotation. So the closer you are to the equator, the more of a boost from Earth's rotation you get, so you want to be as south as possible and launch eastward. And then, you know, it's always possible that something goes wrong, and so you want to have a good clear area. You want several miles around the launch site to be unpopulated, or at least clearable.
Elon MuskAnd that doesn't actually leave a lot of options. It's basically here and Cape Canaveral, Kennedy, are the other two possibilities. And then, because we have had a lot of launches going out of the Cape, we didn't want to disrupt the Cape activity, the operational launches, with sort of the advanced R&D of Starship. So it was important to decouple the operational launches from the R&D launches, and that's why we're at this location. And once again, I'd just like to thank Cameron County, and Brownsville, South Padre, and the remaining residents of Boca Chica Village — where I live, by the way. My primary residence is that little village over there. And it's been great being here, and yeah, super appreciate the support of the community. Yeah, anyway, thank you.
Elon MuskSo I think we've got a video to show what we hope will happen with launch. You play it now. Oh wait, sorry. We have some upcoming Starship missions. Orbital flight is really just the beginning, so we're going to have a number of Starlink missions that will launch Starlink satellite version 2.
Elon MuskBut even more exciting than that is the NASA human spaceflight mission. We're incredibly honored that NASA has selected Starship to take astronauts back to the moon for the first time in half a century, which is kind of mind-blowing. I'd just like to say SpaceX is just deeply honored and appreciative that NASA would choose us for this incredibly important mission. And we'll get it done.
Elon MuskAnd then there's also the dearMoon mission, which is going to take artists around the moon. That's Yusaku Maezawa, and he's going to select, I think, a dozen artists, and do a loop around the moon, which will be very exciting. And there's going to be some future announcements that I think people will be pretty fired up about.
Elon MuskAnyway, super exciting future ahead with this. There'll probably be a few bumps in the road, you know, but we want to iron those out with satellite missions and test missions, and get to a high flight rate, and then have something that's extremely reliable for human spaceflight. So, yeah.
Elon MuskAll right. Let's make this real. Any questions? Let's make this real. Far away. Anyone? I can't see you, so you probably just have to yell it out or something.
Elon MuskYes, there's six Raptors on Starship currently — three with the vacuum nozzle, three sea level. Sorry. And I think, probably, I would say we'll probably end up adding another three vacuum engines. They kind of fill in the gaps, and stretch the ship. I think it's going to make a lot of sense.
Elon MuskYou'll have to yell, unfortunately. We are building a launch site, a Starship launch tower, at 39A at Cape Kennedy, and we're also building a Starship production facility at the Cape. So we'll have a production facility and launch site here, and a production facility on site at the Cape as well. It's important to have redundancy.
Irene Klotz (Aviation Week)It's Irene Klotz with Aviation Week, over here. You should — I believe you're expecting to hear in a couple weeks about the possible finding of no significant impact from the FAA. Have you gotten any indications if that's going to come through, and what is your time frame for the orbital flight test? Thanks.
Elon MuskWell, we don't have a ton of insight into where things stand with the FAA. We have gotten sort of a rough indication that there may be an approval in March, but that's all we know.
Marcus HerveyHi Elon, Marcus Hervey. Can you talk about the point-to-point capability? Is there a possibility between here and Cape Canaveral?
Elon MuskOh, well, yeah, I guess technically yes. So, I mean, depending on how good things get with Starship, there are some scenarios where it might actually be the lowest-cost means of transporting cargo long distances. So the interesting thing is that the capital efficiency of a rocket is much better than the capital efficiency of a plane for long-distance flights. Now this would really be more for, you know, if you're going like a quarter or third or halfway around the world.
Elon MuskWhere, you know, if you went from, I don't know, say here to Singapore or something like that, that's a long flight. I don't know how long that is — I'm not sure you can even go there non-stop, but it's probably like 20 hours plus. But in a rocket it would be less than an hour, so like 45 minutes or thereabouts. So that means you'll be able to use the rocket 20 times more often than an aircraft, so it's 20 times the capital efficiency, provided the propellant cost is competitive with aircraft. And bear in mind, like I was saying, there's three and a half tons of liquid oxygen for every one ton of fuel, and liquid oxygen is basically just the cost of electricity, because it's in the air, basically.
Elon MuskSo there is a scenario where it's economically compelling to do long-distance cargo and people transport with Starship. That'd be very cool, and I think that'd be great for getting a high flight rate and a business case for supporting a lot of Starships operating. Basically, nothing's faster than an ICBM.
ModeratorWe got a question right here, Elon, right in the middle, right here. Hands up. Hands up in the —
Elon MuskI mean, it's — I literally have lights in my eyes and it's pitch dark in front of me. It's fine.
Michael Sheetz (CNBC)Hi Elon, Michael Sheetz with CNBC. You opened this presentation by addressing a little bit of the criticism that's been aimed at space travel being seen as maybe a pet project, or not really valuable to folks who have problems here on Earth. I was wondering if you could get a little more into the specifics on comparison — not just the US government spending that's happening on space travel versus other things, but maybe in terms of SpaceX itself, how you and private investment on a dollar value compares to the taxpayer-funded projects or contracts that SpaceX has won over the years.
Elon MuskWell, I think, you know, objectively, the cost efficiency of SpaceX is the best in history, I think, for any rocket development. And we are talking about a rocket that's more than twice the mass and thrust of a Saturn V, and also designed to be fully reusable — which is obviously also much better from an environmental standpoint, to have a fully reusable rocket — for a development cost that is, I don't know, between five and ten percent of Saturn V. So that's pretty good. Because we need to make it work — so it's not work yet, but it will work. Might be a few bumps along the road, but it'll work.
Elon MuskI feel at this point highly confident that we'll get to orbit this year. We're making a lot of rockets, making a lot of engines. We're close to achieving Raptor 2 everyday production rate, so seven a week, which is tough for a complex engine. And I think by the end of this year we'll be able to produce a ship and a booster per month. So this is at least an order of magnitude, maybe two orders of magnitude, more efficient than anything in the past.
Reporter (Supercluster)Hey Elon, this is — we're with Supercluster. Just wondering, what does SpaceX's plan and timeline look like if the FAA ultimately decides to do a deeper environmental review of Starbase? And then one other thing: you might be able to give us an updated figure on what it costs to launch Starship, and what it would cost a customer to buy a flight on one. Thanks.
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I am optimistic that we will get approval. I think, objectively, this is not something that will be harmful to the environment. We've obviously flown the ship several times and done multiple landings, and we've fired the engines a lot. So I think the reality is that it would not have a significant impact. Now, of course, that doesn't mean things don't get delayed from a regulatory standpoint. We are in a litigious society, and so there's always sort of lawsuits from someone — it's lawsuit city.
Elon MuskNow, we do have the alternative of the Cape. We actually applied for environmental approval for launch from the Cape a few years ago and received it, so we actually are approved from an environmental standpoint to launch from 39A. So I guess our worst-case scenario is that we would be delayed for six to eight months to build up the Cape launch tower and launch from there.
Elon MuskFrom a cost standpoint, the costs will improve significantly over time, because it'll take us a moment to achieve full reusability and full and rapid reusability. We'll probably lose a few vehicles along the way. You know, with Falcon 9, I think it took us 14 or 15 attempts to successfully land the first booster. I don't think it'll take us that many with Starship, because we have that experience, but it's certainly not a sure thing that it'll work the first time.
Elon MuskFrom a cost standpoint, I mean, it's a 100-ton capability to orbit. On a marginal cost-to-launch basis — you know, that doesn't count fixed costs, which obviously have to be covered — it may be as little as a few million dollars per flight, maybe even as low as a million dollars per flight. So these are crazy low numbers by space standards, crazy low. Now we do have to cover fixed costs, so depending on what our launch rate is, we have to divide the fixed cost by the number of launches. So the more launches that happen, the lower the total fully-considered cost per flight would be.
Elon MuskBut I'm highly confident it would be less than 10 million dollars all in. If you say, like, fast forward two or three years from now, I think it's highly likely to be, everything included, less than 10 million dollars a flight for 100-ton-to-orbit capability — and 100 tons to a useful orbit, not to a low orbit, to a low orbit over 150 tons. So this is ridiculously good compared to everything else. And it should be, because, you know, if you think of, like, if aircraft were not reusable, how much would an air ticket cost?
Elon MuskI mean, you know, for, I don't know what a 787 or triple-seven goes for these days, I don't know, a few hundred million dollars. If you have to spend, you know, 200 million dollars every flight, it would be very expensive to fly somewhere, and you need two of them — another one for the return trip. So it would obviously be absurd. So if you imagine if we were in a world where aircraft were expendable, and then someone came along with a reusable aircraft, it'd be an absolutely profound game-changer. That's what needs to happen for life to become multi-planetary, and that's what this design, I'm confident, is capable of. It's just a question of how long it will take to refine that and have it really dialed.
Andrea Leinfelder (Houston Chronicle)Hi, sorry. This is Andrea Leinfelder of the Houston Chronicle. I wanted to know, when and how do you plan to test Starship refueling in space? And also, aside from NASA, dearMoon, and Starlink, can you elaborate on the potential customer base for Starship? Thank you.
Elon MuskI apologize, actually — I zoned out for a second, I was thinking about something. Could you say that question again?
Andrea Leinfelder (Houston Chronicle)Sorry. When and — we have some mic issues — okay, when and how do you plan to test Starship refueling in space? And aside from NASA, dearMoon, and Starlink, can you elaborate on potential customers for Starship? Thank you.
Elon MuskI think orbital refilling — and I will emphasize it is refilling, not refueling, because it's three and a half times as much oxygen as fuel, so we're mostly carrying oxygen up there. I optimistically, towards the end of next year, I think — I'd be surprised if it's longer than two years — for doing the refilling. And there are a lot of additional customers that will want to use Starship. I don't want to steal their thunder; they're going to make their announcements. But I think this will get a lot of use, a lot of attention.
Elon MuskIt's, like I said, once we make this work, it's an utterly profound breakthrough in access to orbit. And when you have an utterly profound breakthrough, the use cases will be hard to imagine. I mean, when aircraft first came along, they were viewed as toys, like a novelty, not a means of transport. They were like, oh look, we can fly like a bird, briefly and dangerously, for a few minutes. Nobody at the time — at least, I think very few people at the time — thought that there would be a global aircraft industry with airports throughout the world carrying people to every part of Earth in ridiculously short periods of time.
Elon MuskYou know, when the Wright brothers first took off, I mean, most people were just riding horses. So you're like, you know, riding a horse, see this crazy device, looks like witchcraft. And they would not have imagined that there would be aircraft flying — you know, tens of thousands of aircraft flying — to every corner of the world. So I think this really could be an extremely profound situation, and we really can't even imagine all the use cases at this point.
Steve Clark (Brownsville Herald)Hi Elon, this is Steve Clark with the Brownsville Herald. Thank you for the presentation.
Elon MuskWelcome.
Steve Clark (Brownsville Herald)So if the FAA does come back and say we need an EIS, does Starbase bounce back from that at some point?
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, it would obviously set us back for quite some time, because an EIS takes a lot longer than an EA. So we would have to shift our priorities to Cape Kennedy.
Steve Clark (Brownsville Herald)Okay, and long term, what do you envision for Starbase? Like a spaceport with flights coming and going and Starship manufacturing, or what is the future role of Starbase?
Elon MuskUh, the future, I think it's well suited to be kind of like our advanced R&D location. So it's like where we would try out new designs and new versions of the rocket. And then I think probably Cape Kennedy would be our sort of main operational launch site. And then, I don't know, over time I think we'll have floating spaceports, like ocean spaceports. We've got these two converted oil rigs that are going to be turned into orbital launch sites, and they can be moved around the world. I think there could be quite a few of those.
Elon MuskYou know, I think about, like, what would really work for long-distance travel — because the rocket is quite loud, you want to be, you know, I don't know, 20 miles away from a major city or 30 miles away from a major city, just so you're not disturbing people too much. So I think probably most of the launch sites long-term will be kind of ocean or sea spaceports, like maybe located 20 miles, 30 miles offshore.
Elon MuskAnd this would allow a Starship to connect any cities that are on the ocean or on the sea, and have a high flight rate but without disturbing people too much. You know, I think people are willing to have something that's loud occasionally, but if you want to have it frequently, then it probably needs to be offshore.
Cam Gerlach (SpaceX Reddit community)Hello, I'm Cam Gerlach with the SpaceX Reddit community. So you've talked a lot about how Raptor 2 is crucially important for Starship development and for the future of Starship. So I'm curious, what general improvements have you made with Raptor 2 to ensure it's not only more efficient, more powerful, but also much easier to produce and less expensive as well, and faster? And how do you plan to continue to iterate further on the design in the future?
Elon MuskSo Raptor 2 is an almost complete redesign relative to Raptor 1. So basically everything, from the turbomachinery to the chamber, nozzle, the electronics, basically everything has been redesigned. You can see the difference over there, the Raptor 1 versus Raptor 2. A lot of the changes were deleting things — we deleted a lot, consolidated a lot. The rotating machinery, especially the inducers of the turbopumps, are a lot more robust. We converted a bunch of flanges to welds, and over time we'll convert even more flanges to welds. I hate flanges.
Elon MuskYou know, especially if you've got a high-pressure and a cryogenic fluid or super-hot gas, flanges and seals are a nightmare. And so, you know, we've got parts of that engine that are sort of seven, eight hundred bar, you know, eleven, twelve thousand psi, which is nutty. And so just going to welded joints instead of flanges was pretty helpful. The pre-burner controllers have been consolidated into a sort of unified box, as opposed to being kind of all over the engine.
Elon MuskAnd we're getting close to the point where, I think, Raptor will not need shrouds. So a shroud's a huge pain in the ass — like basically putting a whole shield around the engine, especially for the gimbaling engines, where it's got to kind of have like an eyeball seal, like it's rotating in a circle with a hot gas seal. So with a bit more deletion and integration, I think the engine will be sort of flameproof, more or less, and then we can get rid of the shrouds, which would be a big mass savings.
Elon MuskA lot more could go on. We're also operating at a higher chamber pressure. I think over time we can operate it at 330 bar sustained in the main chamber, without having the pre-burner pressures be too high, by essentially losing less pressure. There's like a whole pressure ladder going from the turbopumps and pre-burners to the main chamber, and by getting rid of a bunch of the choke points, we can have less pressure loss. And so the pumps can effectively produce more pressure in the main chamber due to less loss in the secondary systems. Do you have any specific questions, or —
Chris Gebhardt (NASASpaceflight)Sorry, Chris Gebhardt with NASASpaceflight. Can you talk a little bit about the abort modes that are available for ship if there were ever to be a problem during the climb to orbit? What would be available to the crew in that regard? And also, on that same level, the life support systems for ship — where do those stand, and what are the challenges that you're finding with just the sheer volume in Starship for that? Thank you.
Elon MuskSo Starship will not have an independent abort system, but I think something that would make sense is to have the thrust-to-weight of the ship be enough that it could take off from the booster even if the booster has a failure at the pad level. So if you can get the thrust-to-weight of the ship at sea level above one, then even if something goes wrong with the booster, the ship can essentially fly away from the booster. So that's something that I think would be important for carrying people, and also for high-value cargo, to have the ship have a thrust-to-weight greater than one even at sea level.
Elon MuskAnd then, like I said, that would be the nine-engine version, and then even if you lost one engine, I think you should still be able to do an abort. So I think for crewed missions we would essentially maybe de-tank the ship to some degree so that you'd have kind of a launch abort capability with the ship even if you lost an engine. That would be my recommendation.
Elon MuskFrom a life support standpoint, we would have a sort of renewable — for, you know, we could scale up the life support system in Dragon, that would certainly be an option. And that would work for missions that are, say, a week or two weeks. That would be fine. For missions to Mars, you'd want a life support system that is renewable, so it's essentially recycling everything, in a closed-loop system with close to zero loss mass.
Elon MuskSo that would be a more advanced system, because you'd have to convert the CO2 back into O2, and kind of recycle, you know, poop and urine and stuff. Yeah. So that's a harder problem, but it's not an immediate problem. We can certainly scale up Dragon for any kind of missions that are, you know, a few weeks long.
Eric Berger (Ars Technica)Hi Elon, Eric Berger with Ars Technica, thanks for taking some questions. I'm wondering, if you do get that approval from the FAA in March — I know that there's really no way of knowing — but could you talk a little bit about the hardware readiness, sort of where you are technically? You know, the launch tower is pretty incredible, but sort of the rocket, the ground system, software. Like, if you were to get some kind of approval from the FAA in March, you know, how quickly could the hardware be ready to go?
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I think we're close to having the hardware ready to go. So right now I think we're tracking to have the regulatory approval and hardware readiness around the same time. Yeah, so around — to say, you know, basically a couple months for both.
Seth Kurkowski (SpaceXport.com)Hi, Seth Kurkowski with Spacexport.com. You mentioned launching from the Cape. Could you give us an update on the current status of using Phobos and Deimos for Starship operations?
Elon MuskYeah, so Phobos and Deimos thus far have been a relatively low priority. We needed to make the launch site here work; this has been quite a difficult endeavor. So we de-prioritized the Phobos and Deimos. And just last month we started to — we're going to take one of them and build at least a catch tower on it. And ultimately — ultimately meaning, like, I don't know, later this year — build a full launch capability on one of the platforms. So I think hopefully by the end of this year we will have a launch capability at Cape Kennedy at 39A, and on one of the ocean platforms as well.
Adam Cardona (CBS4 / NBC23)Hi Elon, this is Adam Cardona with CBS4 and NBC23 here in the Rio Grande Valley. This is more of a community-based question. This past week, several BISD students, community leaders, and community members got together to ask you a question and to show their gratitude. Not sure if you got that message yet, but they were saying thank you, Elon, and they wanted to know if you would be able to attend their Charro Days festivities here in Brownsville. So on behalf of them, will you be attending Charro Days?
Elon MuskUh, it sounds like fun. So, like, when is it?
Adam Cardona (CBS4 / NBC23)I believe it starts on the 19th through the 25th, so you have several days to attend Sombrero Festival, Charro Days, parades, enjoy some great food.
Elon MuskI will see you there. I will be there, all right.
Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut)That's gonna be hard to follow up. Hey Elon, Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut here. Okay, so a little bit more Raptor 2 talk again. Where are you at as far as production? How many do you have? You know, how are they handling testing — are they more cantankerous, less cantankerous? You know, just give us a little more rundown of where we're actually at. Is that a bottleneck for the next booster as well? Like, we assume the next booster is going to require Raptor 2. So kind of where you at with the production and the testing so far?
Elon MuskWell, I mean, right now, of any technical problem, I'm spending the most time personally on Raptor 2. Like, really, the two things that occupy the most number of mental cycles are Raptor 2 and Tesla Full Self-Driving. So the only remaining issue that we're aware of is melting the chamber. So that thing really wants to melt — you know, it's got like on the order of a gigawatt of heat, so it's pretty hot. Like a gigawatt is like what a nuclear power plant produces. So it really is desperately trying to melt at any point in time.
Elon MuskSo we've got — you know, we're flowing an immense amount of cryogenic fuel to cool the chamber in the channels, we have head-end film cooling, we've got throat film cooling, and we're just trying to get the exact sort of balance between head-end film cooling and throat film cooling to not melt the chamber. I think we're pretty close. We have a couple engines in the stand that have, I think, seven or eight hundred seconds of operation and several start cycles. So it's looking positive, but that's the remaining issue, is melting the chamber.
Elon MuskBut in the meantime, we're scaling up production to get to one a day or better. So apart from melted chambers, we're doing well. We've got a lot of pumps, a lot of electronics, a lot of pre-burner controllers. So just not melting the chamber, which is very difficult, is kind of the last remaining challenge. But I think we're very close to solving that. And then the production system has a lot of momentum, like I said. You know, next week we'll probably make at least five or six Raptor 2s, for example. And I think we'll be at seven a week or better by next month. These are crazy numbers for rocket engines, by the way.
Robert Pearlman (Space.com / collectSPACE)Hi Elon, Robert Pearlman with Space.com and collectSPACE. You mentioned the NASA contract for the human landing system. At what point do you envision splintering off development of Starship for HLS? Or how are you going to balance the timelines of rapid reusability versus NASA's own schedule when they're ready to go to the moon?
Elon MuskI don't think there's really a conflict there. We're going to be making a lot of ships, a lot of boosters, obviously a lot of engines. Yeah, it's kind of interesting, like, with the booster with 33 engines and the ship with nine engines, it's 42. Here we go again. And that's also a total coincidence. So, you know, adding legs to land on the moon, we do not think is — that can be done pretty quickly. So I don't really see any conflict between achieving rapid reusability and getting to the moon. A high production rate solves many ills. So we're aiming for a high production rate.
Loren Grush (The Verge)Hi, Loren Grush with The Verge. I'm wondering if you can clarify the number of launches that you plan to conduct in order to do these refillings. I know a lot of numbers have been thrown around, so I'm wondering if you have landed on a final number, and how quickly do you plan to launch those missions back to back to refuel the vehicle to get to the moon? Thanks.
Elon MuskYeah, so the missions would happen pretty fast for refilling the vehicle, to minimize boil-off of the cryogenic propellant. Now, for the vehicle going to the moon, we have some insulation to minimize boil-off, but we'd probably be launching, I don't know, probably every few hours, aspirationally. So, yeah.
Kevin Heymeyer (Space Eccentric)Hi Elon, Kevin Heymeyer from Space Eccentric on YouTube and Rumble. Thank you. My viewers are really hungry to know anything about the interior design for crewed Starship. You have HLS, you have dearMoon, and last we heard, maybe a year or two ago, you were looking to hire Tesla employees to design the interior for Starship. How's that going?
Elon MuskUm, well, we aren't focusing a lot on the interior quite yet. I mean, that will be important down the road, but our focus right now is just getting to orbit and proving out a return of the booster and return of the ship. It's fundamentally very difficult to build a fully reusable rocket, given the strength of Earth's gravity and the density of our atmosphere. Like, you can't have a lot of mass margin. So our focus is solving that rapid reusability.
Elon MuskLike I said, we'll have a high production rate, so we're not dependent on rapid — we're not dependent on full reusability — but really that's the breakthrough that's fundamentally important to change the course of human civilization to become a multi-planet species. A high production rate solves many ills.
ModeratorElon, this will be the last question for you.
Bob Duncan (local resident)My name is Bob Duncan, I'm a local resident here in the area. And first off, thank you for a very cool evening. So this has been a lot of fun for us as the local residents. It's been exciting to watch the amazing progress that SpaceX has made here in Boca Chica. And I was just curious — we're standing on the southern tip of the state of Texas, we're a few hundred yards from your residence — could you just speak to what, if anything, has been appealing or advantageous about operating in the state of Texas versus other parts of the country? Thank you.
Elon MuskWell, I think we've, you know — well, I mean, we've had a lot of support from the community. And, you know, something that just happens over time with societies is that kind of rules and regulations build up. And they build up, you know, more in some places than others. And I think Texas has the right amount of rules and regulations.
Elon MuskSo, well, thank you all for coming. I hope you've enjoyed the evening. And I think we might be able to get you closer to the rocket if you'd like, so we'll get you as close as possible while still being safe. And feel free to, you know, take pictures, have a good time. And yeah, let's go like hell to have an exciting future. Thank you.