SpaceX's Starship V3 represents a hardware-rich engineering approach where the company intentionally breaks and tests vehicles to learn from failures rather than relying solely on theoretical design. This approach, which contributed to Falcon 9's success, involves accepting that failures will occur during development but using each failure to gather valuable data that leads to improvements. The transition from early testing to operational status requires proving the vehicle can handle real mission requirements, including deploying payloads like Starlink satellites. As SpaceX approaches an IPO with a larger investor base, they must balance their aggressive development pace with investor expectations for returns, potentially requiring a shift from their current risk posture.
Starship v3 is almost here - 18.14Added:
[music] In just a few days, SpaceX is hopefully slated to launch their all-new version of Starship. Is this Starship's Falcon 9 Block 5 moment, or is the program too immature yet to actually succeed? Let's talk Starship. Project Tomorrow, Orbit 18, episode [music] 14 is now departing.
>> Good morning. How's everything up in the sky?
[music] [music] All right, we're we're going to start this thing off with uh Starship going for they just changed the flight date from no earlier than May 19th to no earlier than May 20th. Um, you know, there there have been a few a few tests.
We've seen them doing about 4.7 billion water deluge tests. Um, I don't know.
I'm not feeling I you know, it's an allnew rocket. It's an allnew launchpad.
I'm not sure the 20th is a real date either, but we'll see. You know, SpaceX never ceases to amaze. Assuming this goes super well, uh, what do we think the future of this actual program looks like? Um, Zach, you know, from the Launchpad Network, uh, welcome in, welcome back. Uh, why don't we, uh, start off with you. What do you, what do you think the future of, uh, the Starship program looks like?
>> I think more excitement is guaranteed, quoting SpaceX. I think we're going to see some great successes. I think we should be prepared to see more failures.
You know, version one and two kind of repeated themselves in their first flights. I hope we don't see that with version three, but it's all new. Uh and and we have to see how that progresses uh as they hopefully start to step out of this kind of early testing era into a a a junior operational status, I guess you could say.
>> Man, but okay, hang on. So, I hear you.
I hear you. And like it's a brand new rocket. It's a brand new launchpad. like success is not guaranteed, but h how much how much more failure do we need out of the Starship program? Like when are we going to start to actually see some real tangible success here?
Something where like we can get actual payloads into space. We're on flight 12 now and we're still sending dummy payloads up. Like there's got to be a moment when when this thing starts turning operational, right?
>> I would hope so. I think one of the I'm s I'm surprised that we haven't seen stuff deployed yet and I I think it's because SpaceX didn't want to risk a Starship being stuck in orbit. They've gone up that if they had fired their engines a few seconds longer, they could have been deploying stuff for quite a while even with version one. Um but they didn't want to do that until well one version one couldn't deploy anything anyways. They couldn't get the door open or closed. Um, but they, you know, they're getting to that point where they wanted to make sure the vehicle worked.
Where with Falcon 9, recovery was a secondary part. Once they got to orbit, they started deploying immediately.
Where with this, they focused on the recovery, the reusability prior to the actual operational missions.
>> I mean, >> so hopefully >> I Mike, what do you think?
>> I mean, [gasps] seeing uh I mean, the time for more progress was like what, three flights ago.
>> [laughter] >> I mean it feels I mean in all fairness not to be mean but like Yeah.
[sighs and gasps] >> Yeah. Yeah. And yes, this is a brand new version. Hopefully learning on all of the mistakes from version one and version two and manufacturing problems and just kind of bugs, ghosts in the machine, so to speak, um that have hopefully been uh figured out. And this entire flight is proving that out. It's the same type of flight that we've seen a couple of times now. They're not planning to catch both the booster and the ship are going to do a splash down in the ocean. And the only thing really different aside from the different structural changes and upgrades to uh manufacturing is that the [gasps] with this particular flight, we might actually kind of sort of have a payload.
I don't know if we want to talk about that now yet, but with the dummy Starlinks, there's going to be two that I think might have been some uh early prototypes before they uh solidified what they wanted for the version three Starlinks, which are much much wider than the regular Starlinks. Um, two of them are actually going to be launched on this flight and are going to have cameras and are kind of being referred to as like survey satellites to get exterior views of the ship and, you know, kind of do I don't know if they're actually planning on doing any sort of fly around or if it's just going to be deployed how how it's shot out from from the PEZ dispenser and get whatever views it gets for a little while, but it will be on the same trajectory as Starship and will burn up in the atmosphere And hopefully we're going to see some really cool views from that and collect a little bit more data and finalize whatever uh tests they need to finish with the heat shields and lock that in before moving on to orbit and actually deploying payloads and moving forward with the rest of the goals that they have for this program.
>> I mean, you just said lock that in. We we've often talked about Donna knows right where I'm gonna go with this. We've talked about hardware rich engineering versus paper engineering. Man, that's a lot of hardware [laughter] that they thrown up there. I There's got to be >> blown up so many of these.
>> They've blown up so many of these. They blown up so many of these. Uh >> and you know what investors don't like?
[laughter] >> I guess my question is >> hardware rich engineering.
>> Well, I'm not I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I guess my question uh to the group is was this maybe a bridge too far? Like we we can look at the success of SpaceX and I would argue that they are seeing success but Falcon 9 is arguably the most one of the if not the most successful rockets ever, right?
Just mass to orbit amount of launches just like there are different metrics you can measure that by but Falcon 9 and that is because of the hardware rich engineering that SpaceX did.
It's just really hard to look at Starship and go, "Yeah, this is successful." You know what I mean? And and maybe that's just me being pessimistic. This like I just feel like we got to get a success. You know, and I would argue any data you learn is a success success, right? Like as long as you're getting data and you're But I guess my question is, have they gone too far, right? Is there have they gone too deep into hardware rich engineering?
Should they be doing a little bit more on paper before they bend the metal?
>> So, I I I think one of the things that SpaceX has enjoyed is kind of the the notion that they have infinite money, so they have infinite runway. So, they can actually do this hardware rich engineering. And yes, eventually it did get Falcon 9 to a place where they didn't have to mess with it quite so much in order to be able to make it viable and perform all the all the launches that that they're enjoying the success of. But that was a long long long road. And when they were when they started down that path, everybody in the industry was like, "What are you doing?
Look at all these failures that these people have." And they weren't quite so transparent about it at first. And then they they they changed their posture and they just like leaned into it. And they're like, "We're going to break stuff so that we can figure out where that limit is and we're going to mature and develop this rocket." And at some point they stopped making new ones and everybody's like, "Hold up. Wait a minute. What? What? That that's a risky thing because you guys break everything."
Right. So I I [laughter] I I I think maybe the road for Starship is probably a little longer than people have desire for, but given their risk posture and the the maturity that they've gotten out of the Falcon 9, I don't think it's impossible for them to get there. I just don't know that they're quite there yet. But you complicate that with their upcoming IPO and what is the appetite appetite going to be for this hardware rich engineering from people that are investing expecting to get money back. Like it was one thing with Elon and all of his money and he can do whatever he wants or you know the board of directors and he can convince them to be able to keep going the way they they were doing. Now your board of investors is an infinitely larger number of people >> and yeah, you've got more investment, you've got more money, but like at some point they want to minimize the losses and maximize the gains. So I I think SpaceX's risk posture is going to have to change and mature and they're going to have to become a big boy rocket company and not break stuff.
>> You know, that that is an interesting point because V3 Starship, it's all new engines, right? It's all new tanks. It's new some new avionics. I believe it's basically a brand new rocket. It's a new vehicle. It's a brand new pad. It's brand new GSSE. Starship V3 is new, fundamentally new. And to your point about breaking stuff, you know, is was this the lessons learned of V1 and V2 all wrapped into V3?
And like what what did they need V3 for? I I guess it's all new, right? So what what did why did they feel the need to do this as opposed to learning on the lessons of V2 and just slightly tweaking V2? If we if you go back to Falcon 9, they didn't go from Falcon 9, V1 with the tic-tac-toe engines all the way to block five. There were small steps in between that got them to block five. And I I think block five is the real winner of the Falcon program, right? Like that's when everything was really locked in.
>> But it was small steps. It was teeny tiny steps. They didn't throw away. They did once actually, I guess, with Octeb, right? That massive what was that one called? Uh >> V1, V2. Anyone remember?
>> Yeah, that was just version one and and version 1.1. And I think it was everything after 1.1 that uh um uh ditched that uh that pattern. And if we include the the the Grasshopper program, we're talking about, you know, anywhere between seven to nine iterations of Falcon 9 before it got to the current version that has been so useful for them now. So yeah, I I kind of expect a similar development and in the future whenever we do have a a version four or a version five, unless they changed their naming scheme like they did with uh cuz remember there was full thrust and then there was fuller thrust for a little while before we settled on the the block system for uh >> was there like a mark as well? There was a mark in there at one point, right?
There was [laughter] >> V1 through everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
V1, Full Thrust, MarkV, Block Five. I was like, just pick one. [laughter] >> Yeah. Number one B. And uh third thirdly, >> yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um >> I was hoping they'd stick with that with Starship, but nope.
>> Final final.
>> But is [laughter] but like why why what do what are they going to learn here that they couldn't have learned on version two? Why do they need a whole new why a whole new vehicle?
See, I think that this is an unplanned version actually because of lessons learned on those actual flights of breaking stuff and that this is the improvements to figure out, okay, do we got those problems solved? Is everything going to be fine to start doing operations or not? Um, that's kind of my my sense with this, just my overall in general vibe for V3 is that this was an unplanned upgrade of things that they learned in real world experience of, oh crap, we got to do it this way.
>> I I mean, I I think I think it's possible to have more than one lesson from a a failure at a time, and SpaceX has never been shy about addressing all of their lessons at once. Um, and and they they certainly have the the mental capacity and all the engineers they employ to be able to tackle multiple problems simultaneously. I just hope that they're uh working close enough in coordination with each other that they're all not creating problems for other groups.
>> Uh, so I I don't have the comment in my list anymore, but basically Aravail said, you know, high flight rate uh fixes all woes sort of thing. and high flight rate for Falcon 9 really didn't happen until block five, right? If we're being honest, um block again, block, just to reiterate, Falcon 9, block five, that was the workhorse. That is to this day the workhorse. My favorite bit is uh Elon said something along the lines of like block five will be the last version of Falcon. And it technically is. It's block 5.1.23.4.
[clears throat] I don't know what they're up to. I think it's like Falcon 9 block 5.6 or something like that last version.
They'll never stop tweaking it. Having said that is >> nor should they.
>> Yeah. I mean to a point.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Everyone you know prior to SpaceX rockets were like we've locked down the configuration change nothing. And once you get reusable rockets that's not the case anymore, right? Like you you can tweak it. You can you can change things.
Each each rocket ends up with its own personality. Um, you know, in my world it was like certain rockets were like you just knew this camera is going to glitch out on on ascent. Like don't go to that camera, right? Every kind of like the space shuttles, right? They each had their own personality with Atlantis being the best one and uh uh Discovery being the worst. Uh so um I guess my I love that no one challenged me on that. Uh is >> because you're wrong. [laughter] >> Is Starship >> That's a whole tangent on itself. It is after dark is Starship version three its block five moment. Is this the thing that they finally work towards where it's like, okay, well, there'll be minor tweaks from here on out because they'll never end tweaking, but is this the thing that helps them to get to high launch rate and high cadence?
>> I just see Jared shaking his head now.
>> No, because they already have versions beyond this announced. So it like you have you're going to have to change things in the design in order to handle a bigger rocket, right? It's like it's like when they're like, "Oh, you know, Falcon 9, we'll if we want to go to Falcon Heavy, you just strap two additional Falcon 9 on, right?" Well, that was that was a lesson that they learned [laughter] about that.
>> Stop fueling. Stop fueling.
>> Yeah. Right. And and uh turns out rockets are hard. Uh so a lot of these things that they're finding with that with version two are now lessons that they're going to put into version three and now there's going to be lessons they're going to learn with version three which are going to go on to those bigger versions that they're working on.
So uh we'll have to see what those lessons are. A lot of those lessons you don't find out until it breaks. Um you know success success is great. It tells you a lot. Um but when things break, you learn the most and >> those those results don't lend things breaking don't particularly lend themselves well to a good public image.
Uh but at the same time uh if this is the style of engineering that you have chosen and lo and behold SpaceX move fast break things um you just kind of have to sit with it and work with it that way. I guess my question is when do they stop breaking things >> and everyone sits in silence.
>> I feel like I feel like they have to get to a certain level of operational status. Like even what I'm hoping for this V3 knowing that they already have more upgrades planned is that they'll be able to get some usefulness out of this.
I don't think it's going to be their block five moment, but it could be a block four moment where they reuse the booster for the first time on an actual orbital mission. Like my hope is that everything goes well with this flight 12 and flight 13 is the first orbital mission and they can quickly start doing um deployments of their upgraded V3 Starlink satellites which is going to be important for their business and can move on towards the other things that everyone's wanted to see the larger payload doors for the different uh type of of customers that have are are already looking at really unique ways of utilizing Starship. ship, plus all of the other more important things like getting it ready for the moon program, doing their propellant transfer demo, and all of that stuff that needs to be done in very quick order. We don't have time. Uh, you know, peace love Taz in the in the chat room says, I mean, weren't there somewhere in the range of 19 Saturn variant flights before they launched the five? Um, were there that many? There weren't. I mean, >> there were on paper, but not quite a a launching of of that many. I feel like there was what, like five or six different versions that were actually launched, >> but there was a ton that were actually designed for Saturn 5. Yeah. E easily over 20 different designs for the Saturn, rather the Saturn family, cuz there was a whole bunch of different versions with Saturn 1 and upgrading to the Saturn 5. So yeah, there were three overall versions of the Saturn series.
Saturn 1, uh, which was used very early on in testing. Saturn 1B, which was used, uh, to actually lift scientific payloads. A lot of people forget about the fact that Saturn 1B actually did fly scientific payloads into low Earth orbit. Also an Apollo capsule with Apollo 7 into low Earth orbit and the Skyab missions as well into low Earth orbit. And then the big beefy daddy of them all, Saturn 5, uh, you know, launch, you know, big heavy thrower, uh, as it was. So >> that that's that's kind of a misnomer because there's parts of the Saturn stack that came from other rocket families, too.
>> Oh, absolutely.
>> So you got engines from over here, tanks from over Yeah, it's And they had the Saturn 1B. And >> yeah, >> that turned out turned out not to be the the way to go, but it suited the purpose. And then you got Saturn 5. And then even after Apollo, they kept on developing and they did other Saturn variants to launch Skyab and things like that.
>> Yes. Uh >> I love the upper stage for Saturn one.
The I I I I like to think of it as the Super Centaur. You got six Centaur engines on that bad boy. Man, I wish we still made that thing.
Uh so this was there was a little bit of back and forth in the chat room and this is a response to a comment and I'm I'm going to not bring up the main comment but uh Raj asks Aravail do you think they'll be ready for moon landings which I think is a great question. Do we think that, you know, with because effectively it's going to be Starship V3 that does the HLS program, right? The human landing systems uh or services, whatever that is. Uh do we think that SpaceX will be ready by November 2027.
>> Everyone I know >> hopefully [laughter] I think we all hope so, but I don't know. I don't know.
>> I'm not I'm not holding my breath. I think there's a lot that they need to test with V3 to get there. Obviously, the propellant transfer is a big part.
Um, I think there's a lot of concepts on what will Starship HLS actually look like. Uh, we know SpaceX has a ton of stuff behind closed doors. Uh, we've actually seen more from Blue than we have from SpaceX, which is kind of wild.
Um, but I I think we'll be surprised at what maybe comes out from it. Um, if if there's some sort of different plan. I I think SpaceX has maybe now seen that that fire lit uh that you know Jared and NASA have kind of said whoever's ready gets the moon landing. Um and I think that really has seen them change to the focus of this moon program and we'll maybe see them test faster but also maybe test a little less risky because that's their focus right now. Um one of the things I'm kind of surprised if they do have a shift to focusing on the moon, HLS doesn't have to come back. So, are we going to see a shift that they could just start testing? They can get up. We know they can get to space. Let's start testing all the other milestones to the moon because the crew comes home on Orion in the current program. They don't need to bring Starship home for HLS to work.
>> I mean, that brings up a good comment from Arovale, which is they can just send an HLS shaped object up there in 2027, no problem. But if they want to do more than station keeping with it, but I mean, uh, in 2027, it's more than just station keeping, right? just like docking, which means you're going to have to have some pressure because you're going to want to open that door, >> right? I assume we're opening the door, right? Which means you you can't just have no pressure.
>> I believe Jared tweeted something this week that was saying they're not sure if there will be life support and things on these when they dock. That's one of the reasons they would be testing out the space suits as well, >> that there's a chance that they might dock to a I mean, I guess you'd still have some sort of control, but you're not going to have a full like life support system. Well, no, >> you can still do a docking without having to open the doors and and uh test out life support systems inside of the landers. And I feel like that NASA might be willing to make to wave that requirement if both pro providers aren't ready to test their ELAS, their life support systems, in which case at the very least they want to test the docking. That's kind of half the point of this. You know, test out the docking and rendevous procedures with the different landers. and the other big half of it test out the space suits.
>> So, and >> what if you do what if you do have a provider that ends up having an ELAS system ready to go?
>> Even better. I feel like in in Jared Isacson's mind, that's who gets the landing for Artemis 4.
>> I mean, so dumb question. Uh, do you fully need Eklas, which is uh environmental control and life support systems, if I remember right, or something along those lines. So, it's basically the ability to sustain life.
If you just in in the Orion capsule, if you just put everyone in space suits, right, pressurized space suits, as long as you've got some pressure on the other capsule, because you don't want to have no pressure because you're just going to vent and everyone's going to get right.
That's going to be a bad day. But as long as you Yeah. [clears throat] Well, I see Jared making faces. Like, [snorts] as long as you've got pressure, >> you know what this conversation is reminding me of? This whole like, what if we just like threw this together and did this? If you ever watch the miniseries from the earth to the moon, in the very first episode they're talking about the the plans to send people to the moon and there's two guys that meet with one of the like project leads and they're like, "We're just going to get a guy and we're going to land him on the moon.
>> We'll figure out how to get him back.
>> Worry about bringing him back. We're just going to send supplies and we'll just keep them supplied. They have food, water, air. We'll just keep them there.
And while the while while the astronauts there, we'll figure we'll design the system to bring them back. And then eventually we'll bring them back. So that's that's what this is starting to sound like to me. And I'm I'm not >> I'm just asking the question. I'm just asking the [laughter] question. Do you need do you need full E-class to open the hatch? I guess is my question. You couldn't keep it open for a very long time, but do you actually need full EKS or you just open the hatch, go, "Yep, that worked." Close it again, and reressurize your your spacecraft.
>> I I honestly have to figure >> I don't want to have to figure out how to build landing gear after I've taken off in a plane.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, isn't that our Mars program?
We'll send them there and then we'll figure out how to get them home later.
>> We don't have a Mars program at this problem.
>> Yeah, Zach. There's no Mars program.
Must be clear there's no All right.
>> Yeah, we we don't even have a robot.
>> We can't even get our samples home.
We're just leaving them in the desert.
>> Moving moving right along.
>> Well, go.
>> Oh my god. Thought I stepped in robot robot poop. I'm not mad about I'm not I'm not bitter about that at all.
>> Would that be an alkaline battery?
[laughter] >> Yeah, >> man. You know what? You know what it is?
So, we knew we were in a mood and it's because I brought the trogd door to the show. It's all right. [laughter] >> Uh, you know, SpaceX is looking Go ahead. Go ahead, Mike.
>> Real quick. Real quick. What I don't know is does Orion have the capability to depressurize like that in a safe manner? We know that Dragon does with the the the EVA flight, the Polaris flight. Um, and another question is with like the vast space stations, the early first demo isn't going to have a life support system that's going to be provided by the Visiting Dragon spacecraft. Does Orion have that capability that it could provide the life support and pressurize the other module if the other module doesn't actually have any life support systems?
Um, I don't I don't know. I I'd have to look that up, but I wonder if Orion has that capability at all.
>> There's a couple factors to that. You have to, in order to be able to pressurize and depressurize, you need a supply of gas of some sort, be it oxygen or nitrogen or oxygen mix, whatever. Um, you need a a sufficient volume to be able to >> helium. [laughter] They open the door. You need a sufficient [laughter] volume in order to be able to fill the fill out the spacecraft.
>> I think we may have a leak in here somewhere. I'm not sure exactly.
[laughter] >> This test is suboptimal.
>> You also you also need [laughter] >> Yeah. Houston, do you see the tank pressures? They appear to be dropping in the helium. We don't know where the helium's going either. [laughter] >> You also need a means to be able to control control the the the air gas volume in that in that chamber. And if you're relying on the the visiting visiting vehicle to be able to refill that, you need volume in that vehicle as well, as well as uh enough flow throughput to be able to keep up with any leaks that you may find.
>> And I don't know that there's bottle volume on on board Dragon or whoever else is going to be supplying that in order to be able to take on that task.
That's a big volume.
>> Yeah. And it probably I assume it'd be nitrox. Although I guess it could be a pure oxygen environment, but you know that doesn't >> No, they don't do that.
>> That doesn't work. Well, yeah, we tend to do that.
>> We don't like those. We don't They do.
Well, hang on. They do in space suits, don't they? Or are they still Is it still nitrox in space suits?
>> So, in space suits, they still use a pure oxygen environment. But also, that's because you're usually running at about onethird atmospheric pressure in it. So you can you can get away with with dropping the pressure because with your space suit if you have too high pressure inside it becomes rigid. Um if you if you're ever wondering about that you can ask Alexa Leonov uh how that went for him uh during his first spacew walk or you could ask Jean Cernin how it went on Gemini 9 when they were having issues uh with the pressure inside of his suit as well and the flexibility.
So, >> uh, >> it's, yeah, but it's it's the the low volume that allows them to do that inside of a space suit. Space suit.
You're just talking about the the volume between your skin and the and the the suit. And that that tiny volume as pure oxygen is acceptable, whereas, you know, a whole vessel. You really don't want that.
>> I mean, you also don't want a >> electrical fire inside your space suit either. That >> Well, I mean, there's there's very little electronics inside of the bladder.
That's fair. That's fair. Uh, well that All right. Uh, Arl has >> Leave your phone before you get into the space suit.
>> Put it on airplane.
>> You leave your phone at home.
>> Uh, Ravel wants to know, "Do Orion and Dragon have the same docking adapter? If Starship human landing services isn't system service, whatever the S stands for, isn't ready for Artemis 3? Could SpaceX do a low Earth orbit Dragon HLSGS test flight afterwards?" So basically also and I know this isn't part of the question so I want to like tack this in there. So basically can SpaceX kind of self test using Dragon like because they can get Dragon up there with Falcon. Uh they can get Starship can get up there themselves like do they have to coordinate with NASA or can they just like figure it out on their own?
>> Silence. Everyone's like because you would need to have the same docking adapter on Dragon as you do on Orion. And does that actually fully prove it out?
I mean, it mostly proves it out on paper, but like you don't know what you don't know.
>> As far as just the docking is concerned, yes, it does satisfy that. Um, if they're unable to do any other goals like testing the life support system and actually opening the hatch. Um, but just for the docking, I'm I'm like 95% sure that it is the same docking adapter because originally uh Orion was designed to dock to the International Space Station and that even though that plan changed, the plan for the docking adapters never did change. So, I'm pretty sure that they're compatible with each other and they could dock with each other right now without any type of adapter. But whether or not that would be good enough for NASA is another story. You're like, "Yeah, sure. That's fine for the docking, but we really wanted to test out more with your human landing system than just the docking adapter that you threw that you already install standard on your Dragon spacecraft. So, >> just replace Orion with Dragon.
[laughter] >> Calm down, Zach. Calm down. get >> Orion Orion Crew Dragon and the human landing system all use the same overarching docking standard, the NASA docking system.
>> Mhm.
>> Um, also from our chat room, Jack Barnett asks, "The environmental and life control systems uh are also temperature, humidity, and uh CO2 uh carbon dioxide removal plus more." Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course. But like if you're only to the earlier point if you're just sending up the giant Starship module and you dock with Orion and Starship is pressurized and you just go, "Okay, cool. Can we open the door?
Neat." And then if it's just nitrox pressurized, you open the door. There's going to be a little bit of variance there, right? So there's going to get a something. And then you go, "That worked." And immediately close the door again. Do you really need temperature, humidity, and CO2 removal? You just go, "Yep, that worked. Close that thing back off. Get back." Right? Like I mean, what all do they need to test there? Are they doing full I mean personally >> what would be the point of that though?
>> Just proving that they can do on orbit.
Um dumb question. Uh what was it? Apollo 9. They docked with uh with the lunar module, right? That was right. That was the first time they did that.
>> Did they fully I mean they did that in low Earth orbit. They didn't go to the moon. Y >> um >> did and that was full ELIS and everything on that or was it just okay so they docked they opened the hatch they went cool >> all right all right >> I mean with Artemis one to two we put humans on Artemis 2 and we didn't have life support fully on one >> and we put four people on it for a 10 11 day mission >> if they didn't have a full system in the the lunar lander they would have figured out the square peg round hole problem and Apollo 13 wouldn't have been so thrilling.
[laughter] >> Thanks for putting it that way, Da.
>> All right. Uh, moving along. Uh, SpaceX is looking to IPO. You may have heard. I don't know if it's reached your news cycle yet.
>> It's It's a bit of a Yeah, it's a bit of a secret. Uh, SpaceX is looking to IPO soon. However, Elon did once say that he would IPO only when humans are on their way to Mars. Obviously, human humanity is not on their way to Mars right now.
So, do you think in Elon's eyes, uh, he's looking at Starship version three as like, "Yep, we're far enough along in the program that we can send humanity to Mars." Like, do you think he's got enough confidence in the program that even with Starship in its current state, it's going to be able to get humanity to Mars with all of the baggage that an IPO comes with? Because, you know, Donna, you were talking about that earlier, right? like you now you've got all these investors who all have voices now that can become a problem.
>> Uh I I haven't seen a claim that Elon has failed to meet prior to then succeeding.
>> Are you saying don't bet against Elon?
Is that a a convoluted way of saying that?
>> No, no, no.
>> Are you saying bet against Elon?
I'm I'm saying he has big words and fails at them and then eventually succeeds.
>> Okay.
>> So, okay. I wouldn't I wouldn't take that at face value. Yes, that's the target.
>> Okay, fine. They'll eventually get there. Okay, fine. Are they going to get there on his timeline? We all know the answer to that.
>> Jared, what do you think?
>> No.
um with the IPO now I think there I think because of the pivot to to lunar operations and also wanting to do the whole data center thing now um there's there's definitely I I don't want to necessarily say that there is a financial need uh for that because again infinite money um but also yeah you do need money to do big projects um and then uh you know I'll just outright say it. Uh there's also something about becoming the first trillionaire ever. So, >> you know, there's a there's definitely a bit of a a grab on that title for something like that. And I it's an interesting perspective, but I I don't really see anything in there that doesn't indicate that that's also not a part of it. Um but I mean, the data data center thing is very big. If you're going to build orbital data centers, you're going to need a lot of money because there's a lot of things you need to figure out with that. Um, you know, you know, dumping the thermal load is a huge problem that you're going to need to figure out. So, um, and that's going to take a lot. So, that's that's physics. So, that requires actual work to to figure out.
>> When you say dumping thermal load, you mean uh stage two re-entry?
No, I'm talking so with data centers data centers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Copy.
Copy.
>> Yeah.
>> So, and you got to you got to put that heat somewhere. And space is really really great at not letting you do that.
>> Just open the door. It's fine. Space is cold. It's fine.
>> Oh, yeah. It's, you know, piece of cake.
So, that's, you know, we we never ever have to worry about overheating a spacecraft. Yeah.
>> Even even in the outer solar system with something like Juno or Cassini, we don't have to. We we didn't have to worry about overheating them at all.
>> Just airate just airate the uh airate the spacecraft. It's fine.
>> Yeah. It's just, you know, it's like your car. Roll the windows down. You're good.
>> Yep. Yep. Exactly.
>> Yeah.
>> I can't I can't wait to see the attrition rate on data the the contents the the the devices that are used in data centers that aren't rad hardened.
>> Oh my gosh, it's going to be horrendous.
>> Uh maybe maybe like uh again they've got Starlink up there, right? And Starlink aren't just dumb. Starlink is expendable. It's designed to be expendable.
>> Yeah. So are data centers. Modern data centers are expendable, right? Like this is something people forget. Google has done this for a long time. They've got modules. Uh the doodle the doodle the Google, you know, I'll just use whatever words I want. Uh there are Google modules that they'll slide in that are basically like little computers. They slide them in and when they die, they abandon in place and they wait for enough of them to die before they just take that rack out and just replace it with a new rack. It's all expendable.
uh like it costs them more money to go fix it than it does to actually just let it die. So I don't see how there's any difference in space like let it die and then like let it run for four or five years. It's similar to what they're doing in data centers now and then uh bring it back to Earth. Let it crumble and off you go to the next one.
>> I don't see a difference.
>> It's it's so the big difference is the altitude that the data centers are supposed to be at. They're going to be at much higher altitudes which is less than great in terms of more than zero altitude. [laughter] Current data centers are at an altitude of zero.
>> They're going to be so Starlink, you know, as an astronomer, first of all, not a fan. Uh secondly, uh I'm an absolute hypocrite uh for saying that.
Thirdly, um the >> because you have one.
>> Yeah, shut up. Um [laughter] and thirdly, uh Starlink is at a low enough altitude that that atmospheric drag will take care of it. Um but the data centers are going to be at higher altitudes than Starlink. I've even seen altitudes proposed at like 2,000 kilometers, which those are altitudes where the re-entry times now enter into the triple digits of years. Um, even with something like thinking to me, the radiator size of a data center that you're going to have to have is is going to be measured in something like square kilometers. It's going to be ridiculous.
Okay? Like gigantic. That's why this is to me a very difficult project to pull off. But again, I put SpaceX in the same category as JPL, which is basically never bet against them, right? Kind of crazy. Um, so, uh, >> hear me out. even at that altitude with some even even at that you could you could put them ON THE MOON. THAT would be a great solution I think to it. That would also open up lunar industry. Um and I got to say I love the idea of a of a of a magnetic the mag lev launcher um on the moon. Uh mostly because [laughter] I'm going to look up here and I'm going to grab this book and I'm gonna Oops, wrong book. That's my Gundam book. Uh it's my I actually accidentally grabbed it. But this book, which kind of talks a little bit about that, which you know, every time I bring this book, I'm going to throw it in you. I'm going to hit I'm going to hit you over the head with this book. Uh that that if you really actually care about spaceflight and doing things uh a good way for everybody, you should read Gerard Ko's uh the high frontier. So, >> but I mean, you you have to start somewhere. And I think SpaceX is going to have a hard idea of selling everyone going from where they're at, right? It's easy to sell the to the general populace. It's easy to to sell the idea of a data center in space because they already have 10 like 10 plus thousand Starling satellites in space. So they've shown that they can lift that much mass into space. It's a much harder sale to go, hey, you know, we haven't made it to the moon yet, but let's build a data center there.
>> But you can you can step into that, right? You can go you can kind of be like, yeah, we're going to do it in orbit. and then tweak your plans after HLS starts to work and go, you know what, let's move that to the moon because latency doesn't matter as much, right? Cuz especially if it's AI, it's all about like processing time and everything else. So, you send the initial command, it does what it needs to do on the moon for a minute and then it sends it back. And yeah, you got what a one second, one and a half second latency each way. But like that's not bad, >> right? I think also >> it's it's important too to understand that with Starlink, SpaceX has that like that constellation operations experience as well. Um, which is going to be very critically important. Uh, the communications experience as well because you need to be able to talk to your data centers if you're going to have them in orbit. Um, and then also uh just the the deployment as well. You got to figure out how to do that because that's that's going to be very very big.
If you thought the James Web Space Telescope was a very complicated thing to deploy, uh let me tell you, a data center in orbit is going to be another it's going to be an order of magnitude more complicated. Uh just because of of I would imagine the radiators alone are going to be an incredible thing [snorts] to work with. And I I actually look forward to seeing what the solutions to this are. I I would love to see it happen because from an engineering perspective that would be absolutely astounding to get that that those are those are real solutions to real problems that constrain and are are genuine dams in the flow of of getting a lot of humans into space.
>> I wonder if it has applications on Earth too. That would be kind of cool being able to like air condition spaces. Well, one of the one of the things we've always talked about with in space manufacturing or like going to the or moving heavy industry to the moon is the fact that a lot of the things that you have to do for heavy industry here on Earth are incredibly polluting. They're very bad for the environment. But if you go to the moon and you do things there, you actually don't have to do that. And it's not even a case of like now we're taking the pollution to the moon. It's like, no, we get to use completely different techniques that don't even actually require you to bring things along that are like, you know, poisonous to humans or or intensively bad to that environment around it. So, it it kind of changes things big time. And it to me, honestly, it's a big plus to do something like that.
>> Well, I'm wondering if deployments of these will be easier than we think, at least based on the first render that they showed us. They're just Starship sized Starlinks, which is a crazy sentence to say, but that initial render was a mini like a body and then just two big panels. Um I I'm I think my question with the IPO is are they doing it now cuz this is the best chance to get the most out of it? Because if we look at the Falcon program, and it's kind of crazy to say it's it's not winding down, but we we've had one launch in two weeks from Florida and most people don't care about a Falcon 9 Starlink launch anymore. Are we at a point that SpaceX is worried that in the next year SpaceX is going to get boring? The moon stuff will get exciting, but like right now everyone in their dog wants to buy SpaceX and has been asking for years to do it. In a year or two when, oh look, it's actually all working. Are people going to care as much to, you know, dump their life savings? Cuz I know I've talked to people that are like, we're mortgaging our house to put into SpaceX.
And I'm like maybe you should talk to a financial advisor.
>> But like is that part of this that like right now there is such a want for it where I don't think we saw that with other launch providers that went public.
If you watch like Rocket Lab stock, especially after they had some of their earlier failures, every time they went to a launch campaign, their stock went down until they said mission success and then it would go up at the end of the live stream. But literally every launch it was dropping because there was so much uncertainty that Electron would work in its early years. I don't I wonder how that'll balance with Starship. But I think there's an excitement. People want to buy it. I've always been shocked that Starlink didn't go public first. I feel like a lot of people would have bought in Starlink separate from Starship.
>> I I think you might be on to something.
Um, you know, you look at Falcon 9, every everyone was so excited about Falcon 9 back in the day and it was a gamecher and it was you were landing rockets like remember the Falcon Heavy launch webcast that energy that came out of that that made national news like the world was talking about this stuff. What when is the last time you saw Falcon 9 in the news? Does anyone care anymore?
Starship is going to have the same problem because once they figure it out, maybe it's block four or mark five or full thrust. Um [laughter] >> um >> dash dash use this one next >> underscorefinal final final.
>> Um but when that happens, it's going to launch a lot. A lot a lot. Do not forget they've got a pad. I'm sorry. No, I'll get you in a moment, Jerry. But they've got pads in Texas. They've got a pad that they're building at 39. They've got to pad their building in 37. They're probably going to do something in Vandenberg. They are talking to about all this land. I think there was something I saw in the news about like Louisville or something. I don't remember.
>> Like they're building pads everywhere, which means they're going to Yeah. Yeah.
They're just going to keep launching and launching and launching. If you think Falcon 9 launches a lot, you just wait >> and it's going to suck the excitement out of it because it's going to become normalized. Go ahead, Jared. Sorry.
>> Uh, yeah. So, you were talking about losing the excitement uh because it gets normalized or anything. And that's reminding me of a conversation that we once had. I think it was an after dark um where you said that nobody uh watches airplanes take off or land at airports.
>> Jared, hang on, hang on, hang on. Let me defend myself really quickly. I often say things to be contrarian so that we actually have a conversation. It doesn't mean I always believe them. Finish your thought as I call up a live YouTube video of airplanes launching and landing. Launching uh taking off and landing at LAX. So, finish your thought because I full well know that that is a real thing.
>> Uh yeah. So, I was just going to say uh you know like uh like at LAX there's thousands of aircraft movements a day, but uh there are not just one but multiple YouTube channels that are dedicated to showing those planes. uh including one YouTube channel that I know of uh that has installed uh operationally remote cameras uh that show both the runways for the north side and the south side with two cameras for each side to allow you to see an airplane taking off and then switch automatically to an airplane coming that's landing. Um, so you know, uh, and I'm not necessarily saying this because I've also been like invited to a party that the people who run the channels go, uh, throw a couple times a year, uh, because, you know, aircraft spotting >> is a hobby and it's a pretty big hobby, uh, for a lot of people. So, but I mean, I'm just throwing that out there.
>> Is that in the tens of thousands or the tens of millions, though? Well, this particular >> I think if you're making >> the one that >> I feel like if you're making money off of it, it doesn't end up mattering, >> right? Like there's a channel that I brought up. They are just short of a million subscribers. There are currently 2,225 people watching planes taking off and landing at LAX, right? And that's just one channel. Hang on. If I go back, check this out.
>> There are >> Which airport do you want to watch?
>> There are pages. And this is just hang on. This is just LAX and these are all live right now, right? So also live.
Also live. So I hear you. I hear you.
But there is still an energy difference, right? Like Yeah. Cool. For sure.
>> Right. And so when we're talking about this versus an IPO, there's something different about like the energy behind an IPO. These are nerds.
>> Like these are my kind of nerds. I love these. Like I'm I will >> honestly watch this sometimes. I think it's fun, especially when they put ATC in there. It's great.
>> But this is not normal people.
>> I was going to say it's a lot like NASA Space Flight's coverage at or or anybody's coverage down at Starbase. Um, you know, you're you're watching bolts get turned live. And this is this is not riveting. Actually, maybe it is when they're installing them. Um, they are riveting. [laughter] >> Yeah. Quite literally sometimes riveting. Um, >> that's the technical term.
>> So, again, it is it is for nerds. And then the really big things are when you can pull the general public in. But I I don't feel like there is going to be zero appetite or or the or a uh or sort of a a dampening of enthusiasm for things uh outside of the nerd circles at least. So >> I think there's already been a shift with that with Starship. And I mean if Ryan was here, he could correct me if I'm wrong, but >> no, he's still put words in his mouth.
Well, watching all the channels that cover Starship on top of us, we we've gone and looked at the numbers. If you went from flight one to the flight 11, uh some of the specific flights where, okay, we caught it the first time, everyone went insane. The next flight when they announced they weren't catching it, no one cared. And there was a very clear drop in viewership leading up to the launch and of the actual launch coverage. Now, people still watched it later, but that actual initial like people didn't call out a work >> to see, you know, flight, I don't know what it was, seven or eight. Um, but people did do that for five and six when they were wanting to do a catch attempt because I know people specifically did it.
>> That's because I was directing flight one and I wasn't directing flight five or six. That and people knew that. They knew that going in. How's that for ego?
All right. Um, yeah, I think you might be on to something. See, seems seems legit for a a fan base that is interested in a dude turning a bolt on a scaffolding in a hanger in Brownsville.
>> I mean, I got my key. I'm ready. Put me in. [laughter] >> This is the second bolt that Jacob has dropped from the scaffolding.
>> Okay, >> let's see if he can get this one in >> on that. Legitimately, I have a performance improvement plan to not drop any more bolts. If you have [laughter] if you have not been watching Figure for the last five days and their Figure 0.3 robot that is sorting mail right now.
This was supposed to be an 8 hour test.
>> God, >> they are 96 hours and 47 minutes in, but right now they are doing a 10-hour workday human verse AI challenge to see which will process more mail. But legitimately, there are tens of thousands of people watching a robot sort fake mail packages as we train it to make sure the labels are down to the point they have now released merch of each robot cuz they are naming the robot. Something SpaceX still hasn't learned. The robots are >> they need to name the stupid freaking rockets.
>> What I love is the human has a shirt that says human, but all the robots have names. [laughter] Okay, hang on. That is a brilliant marketing move. I think that's fantastically hilarious. Also, uh a a very dark look at our future.
>> Yes.
>> I mean, as a generic term, they all look the same.
>> I'm going to have a freaking factory full of robots that are going to be making aerospace grade galvanized screws, and I'm going to get more money from the live streams than I do the contracts for the screws.
>> Well, right now the AI is losing. The AI is the AI is running at a average human rate of three packages per so many seconds. And right now the human is almost 500 packages ahead in 50 minutes because they started right when we did.
>> I would say the human has to take a the human has to take a lunch break.
>> Give it time. The AI can learn too, right? Like learn. I don't know. We Let's have a conversation about AI and what we think AI is going to look like in After Dark because like I don't I think That's a whole thing.
>> It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.
Let's move on.
>> I love you, AI. Don't come for me. I love you. We're friends.
>> Let's Let's move on to our first trivia question. And since Ryan is not here, we'll send that over to uh we'll make Zach do it. Uh >> uh.
>> If it's a good question, I did it. If it's not a good question, it came from Ryan.
>> Yeah, exactly.
Um, okay. I think the question missed a couple of the the things, but if laid end to end, roughly how long would all Starship heat shield tiles be edge to edge in miles?
>> Uh, yeah, we we have a a limit on the number of characters. And so I I edited that down.
>> This is definitely a Ryan question. What the what?
>> Yeah, this is a toughy.
>> How big are they?
>> Oh my gosh.
>> That's what she said.
I don't know >> how big it um >> about mediumsiz dinner plate.
>> I mean, if I technically want to be right, there could be maybe two answers, right? Depending on early Starship versus current Starship.
>> Ryan never would have done miles. What?
Why did you do miles and not kilometers?
>> And And is this for a starship that has their full amount of tiles or is this for uh the ones that are missing a bunch of tiles?
>> Cuz y'all are American.
>> Well, hang on, hang on, hang on. When when is when when it launches or when it's coming back after a bunch of them have fallen, [laughter] >> you know, all of the above.
>> I don't know if Ryan actually wrote this question, but I think we should remove a point from him regardless.
>> Right.
Well, just because that and also because Ryan's not here to defend himself. So >> So, um, I'll go >> first. Man, I really don't know. I'll go last.
>> I've got no freaking clue.
>> Uh, >> I feel like it's going to be I I feel like it's it's going to be a scary high number. So, I feel like it'd be 25, but then you always want to add like one number higher than that. So, then you go, you know what I mean? So, like it's not the last number.
Oh, I don't know Zach's brain. I don't know how this works.
>> All right, I'm gonna go with I'm going to go with my standardized testing gut and go with B, 15 miles.
>> Okay.
>> I think any answer this from this is going to be complete BS and there's a lot of things wrong with this question.
So, um I don't think it's 10. I don't think it's it's as much as 10. You don't think it's even 10? So, you're going with a 10 miles. Okay. Uh Mike, what do you think?
>> Uh 15 miles.
>> You did 15. Sorry, it was Jared. Jared.
>> Uh I'm going to go with 20 miles.
>> Okay.
>> That's a lot of tiles.
>> I'll do 25. And the chat room chose 15.
Then now we've got one of everything, right? So there you go. So I've done 25.
What is the correct answer? Launchpad.
So accord according to computer calculations uh the older Starship which is what we were running it off and then we I switched it to the newer one. Uh newer one it says 20 miles um based on their calculations. Now I went and did other I went and did other calculations and I landed at 10.
>> So like [laughter] up to 10 because one of the issues is one of the issues is is they've now got small tiles too. So, we don't have the size of those cuz they haven't they haven't fallen off yet. So, I I was also going [laughter] to >> fallen off yet.
>> So, so based on a quick search and and you SpaceX's V3 Starship features approximately 40,000 hexagonal heat tiles. If they're all 12 in across, you get 480,000 in. Divide that by 636 360 for the inches in a mile, you get 7.57.
>> So, not even 10.
>> That's not 10. This was a I did not make this yesterday at all.
>> So, what [snorts] you're telling me is that we all get points and Ryan is minus one point.
>> Well, Zach made the question, but I Hang on. Technically, Zach did make this question.
>> No, no, no, no, no. We all get points.
Ryan gets minus one point.
>> Well, I Yes, I agree. Zach made a made made a question.
>> I agree. So, Zach made the question.
Ryan wasn't here. That's Ryan's fault.
So, Ryan loses one [laughter] point. I just wanted to make sure we all knew why Ryan was losing one point. I very badly hope he's in the chat room hearing his points drain away in real time. Also, as a fun aside, now I want really bad qu now that we've determined that Ryan always loses a point regardless of who asks the question. I purposely want bad questions. [laughter] J >> JTV is team Ryan.
>> Oh, yeah. So, we all get a point.
Everyone gets a point. Ryan loses a point. That's that's what happens here.
All right, moving right along. Uh, you know, we we alluded to this in the uh in the first segment before before the whatever we just did. Uh, but you know, >> Oh, wait. Airville has a has a good question. Are we are we laying the tiles the hexagonal tiles edge to edge or point to point?
>> Oh god. Jeez.
>> That's a big difference.
>> I don't know. The question was shortened. It wasn't specified.
>> Isn't it Isn't it the same distance? No, it's not. God damn it.
>> No, it's not. No, it's not.
>> Geometry.
>> And there's weird shaped ones, too.
>> Alls I know is Ryan loses a point. Uh SpaceX has promoted second stage landing since the Falcon like since Falcon >> V0 at least 2011 2012 at least >> for I remember the original animations coming out like when I was first starting at SpaceX and that was 2011. So like they but and remember like stage two would come down. It had his little legs that popped out like so cute. It >> was so adorable. And yeah um what's the word I'm looking for? Remember when all three parts of it were supposed to come back? The the first stage, the second stage, and the capsule.
>> Well, [snorts] we got close. First stage and capsule.
>> We got close.
>> First stage and the fairings. We come back.
>> We've brought back the second stage into some farmer's fields. It's just not reusable.
>> That's [laughter] That's a good point, Zach.
>> So, this is >> that's China's recovery method.
>> Well, no. Wow. That's that's an after dark conversation. Uh I I So the question is is getting back on track.
Man, we've gone way off the rails. Is uh Starship V3 the vehicle that will finally see second stage reusability for SpaceX? Keeping in mind like those things have come back and yeah, they've kind of landed in the ocean, but they've been toasty, right? Like you've seen little flaps and things just like melting away as they come back. I don't think we've seen a Starship come back in a reusable form. You know what I mean?
like, "Yeah, we got it back." But you're not reusing that vehicle. Do we think version three is going to be what unlocks second stage reusability for Starship?
>> Not the first.
>> Get freaking better.
>> Not the first one. I'm just saying.
Yeah, certainly not the first one, but like uh Mike, we'll go with you.
[snorts] >> Get freaking better or that IPO is going to go horribly.
[laughter] >> Well, it's going to IPO before that happens. Come on now.
>> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] But no, seriously, I mean, I think it'll it'll probably get close, but uh yeah, a lot of things do do need to happen. And I just don't know how far along they are with this is. And even if they do, my gut feeling is telling me that they might reuse it once, maybe twice. Kind of like the early Falcon 9 that were reused for the first time. they only reused it like maybe three, four, five times for some of those boosters before they retired them and moved on, you know, and here now they are pushing these records. So, I don't think that that we're going to get to something close to that with either the ships or the boosters for for Starship uh until it's closer to um the probably version four or five or something like that when they're actually doing more than just a small handful of reuse.
Uh, Aravail in the chat room says, "The heat shield still needs work, but they've made lots of progress. They'll get there." What I mean, forgive my ignorance. What still needs work on the heat shield? Is it that that it falls off or is it >> data?
>> Is it ablating too much? Like, what's the >> It's It's easy to build a bridge.
It's hard to almost build a bridge.
>> And in order to get every bit of margin out of their fuel, they need to almost build a bridge.
I feel like that was deep, but I don't understand it. It's easy to build a brain. [laughter] Am I dumb? Am I dumb?
I mean, yes, but like hang on. What?
>> I I use the I use the wrong word barely.
Not almost barely. Um, you can you can overbuild something very, very easily >> and it will suit its purpose and it will do the thing, but in order to get the performance out of it, you need to make it barely that thing.
Um, you take uh any high performance aspect of any mechanical device and there is no fluff. There's no room for fluff. You can't have extra weight on gears or extra weight on structure, extra extra structure that doesn't need to be there. So, they need to remove every bit of extra ounces that are going into this thing and they need to only put on what is absolutely necessary. And thus far, they've been airing on the not quite there yet side of the curve. They need to get to sufficient, but they don't want to get to overbuilt. So, yeah, they'll get there, but it may take a couple more iterations, and I don't think this is the one.
>> Uh, you know, in the chat room, uh, Joshua C135 is asking, "How are we defining reuse? Are we talking turnkey reuse or shuttle reuse?" And I would argue that the stance of the show has been for a long time the shuttle was not reusable. It was refurbishable. And I think when we say reusable, we mean you kick the tires, you send it back up.
Think like an airplane, right? Like you need to go around, do a spot injection.
Uh injection. What? Uh spot inspection.
>> Yeah. Spot check of, you know, major systems, make sure the flaps are working and whatnot. And you kick the tires and go good to go. Yeah. Right. Back up. So, and and we're saying that not because that's what we want to see. We're saying that because that's what SpaceX is promising with Starships that gravity, right? So, like the the whole point was rapid reuse. Land it, stack it, refuel it, see it four, five times a day. You know, that that is the the whole idea behind it. And it's not because ooh I really I Jared really want to see that.
It's because that's what the company's been saying for a very long time. The ultimate goal is >> but they haven't even got there with Falcon 9 yet. I'll play the devil's advocate. It's it's still not at same day turnaround. It's it's getting closer. We're we're seeing faster turnaround. I I if they can't get it with Falcon, which they've been flying for what, a decade now, are is that something we're going to see with Starship within years, >> or is we talking long run?
>> This this this standard is Elon's fault, though, because he was comparing rocket use to airplane use. You don't throw away an airplane every time you use it.
Okay. You Yeah, you're right. You refuel it. You change the people inside and you take off again. Maybe you empty the toilets and repack food. But like >> maybe you empty the toilets. Do you not empty the toilets? Like >> may maybe not on every run.
>> It was only a flight.
>> If you have an hour Yeah. If you have an hourong flight and three people use the bathroom, you're not going to go through all that trouble.
>> Fair enough.
>> Have you ever been on a plane that only three people use the bathroom? There is normally a line the length of the plane for some reason cuz everyone forgot before they took off.
>> I've been on planes where nobody used the bathroom.
>> Because there was no bathroom.
>> Me, too.
No, just like the small small commuter commuter prop turbo props that you know there's >> 40 people in the plane and nobody nobody needs to use the restroom. I mean, Elon Elon's not >> I've had plenty of times on my my LA SF SFO runs where just nobody's gotten >> Well, okay, before we get completely hung up on on that, uh to kind of get back to to what you're asking, Jamie, I mean, this is something I bring up all the time of having high ambitions and even getting close is still impressive.
Like to your point, Zach, even though um SpaceX hasn't achieved same day turnaround, they've achieved next day turnaround. They're what's their record right now? 24 hours. That's impressive.
Holy crap. And that's with Falcon 9. And so, yeah, will they ever get to the point with Starship to have 100 launches a day like they like they want? Probably not. But we are probably only a few years away from seeing four or five launches a day if especially with all these pads they're building all over the place.
>> For clarity that wasn't >> pad turnaround pad turnaround. That was not vehicle turnaround.
>> Oh, you're right. That was pad turnaround.
>> Having said that, I think there's a big difference between >> three days is still impressive.
>> There's a big difference between Falcon and Starship, right? Like Falcon was not designed from its core to be a reusable vehicle. It was like that it was reusability was kind of tacked on as they learned how to do it. Starship at its core was designed as a reusable vehicle and there's going to be stuff they need to learn because it's so massive, right? It's just so huge. It's such a different type of vehicle, but out of the gate they designed it for reuse. The chopsticks are a great example of that. Not only do I think they can get to same day turnaround, I think they're gonna be able to turn that thing around, assuming there's not a heat problem, at least the first stage, they can land that thing and if they can figure out how to get the quick disconnect back on really quickly, like get it all lined up, like you could do next hour turnaround of those things, like they thought about reusability and rapid turnaround out of the gate with Starship, which was not considered for Falcon. And I think that's the fundamental difference between the two vehicles. They're not there yet. They're not they're not there yet. and stage two.
>> Yeah, >> I don't know. We still haven't seen success with stage two. I'm hopeful for stage two, but like and then rapid reusability of stage two. Uh I don't know. I feel like that's going to be >> that might be >> think you >> Yeah, >> I think you've nailed it on the head there is that the booster is what will be rapid turned around. We will have hundreds if not thousands of ships, but we might only have a couple of dozens of boosters. Like each pad might have, you know, three or four boosters that they rotate through. Um, and I think that's solely because just because you can catch the ship, if we get to that point, great, you caught the ship, you brought it down. There's nothing on it. How are you going to load in a whole new thing of Starship, a thousand new people?
Like, okay, maybe you can catch it, put it back on, fuel it right away. Great.
But there's nothing in it to launch.
That's not going to be a rapidly reusable. I mean, maybe same day if you lucky, but I I think ships will be one to two day turnaround. The booster makes total sense. I mean, they've caught it now. They put it down. We could have fueled it if we had enough fuel at the tank farm.
>> This is the second refueling that Jacob is attempting this week.
[laughter] >> He was moved off of the build program after dropping one too many bolts. He's been moved into [laughter] the fueling program.
>> He remains >> an NSF stream from 2035. [laughter] If if you take if you take concepts like the the shuttle bay uh where they would integrate horizontally and turn it vertically and then bring that to the pad and be able to swap it out like a cartridge. I don't think that we're too far off. I think that technology exists.
Um, and and that that kind of mentality is is totally feasible where you can take a cartridge of Starships and of of uh Starlinks and put them in into a carrier and just be able to integrate that in a in a short period of time and then the next time it lands, you've got, you know, a crew capsule that you put in and and that's able to to to it's able to do that. I don't see that as as totally unreasonable. Similar to uh like a C17, they have uh freight pallets that lock into the floor and you can put a tank in one day and a bunch of loose cargo the next day and then get pallets that have seats on them to transport a bunch of executives or or military officials and then the follow on the on the return trip you can turn it into a hospital. I mean like that's not totally so so unreasonable.
>> Uh Aravail has a great comment. It kind of touches on what we were just talking about, which is Starship was designed for faster turnaround. Though with a lot of lessons learned from Falcon, they can uh fuel it super quick these days. I think the cadence will increase faster than Falcons did. And actually that fueling time is something I want to highlight. Um it takes uh space launch system I think like six or seven weeks to fuel. And uh New Glenn I think is about a month and a half to maybe two months of fueling time. It's it takes forever. I'm I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. Um, and then a Starship I think is what, like 30 something minutes to fuel. It's crazy.
>> SLS you need you need to restack new boosters.
>> Yeah. Every time.
>> Yeah, that's a 5year fueling process.
>> And not only that, you need to uh get waivers to allow the boosters to remain stacked longer [laughter] than they're legit supposed to be stacked. The liquid fuel fueling process on both space launch system and New Glenn is painful >> because they're using shuttle because they're using shuttle arrow size pipes.
>> Well, maybe New Glenn like I I don't New Glenn like shuttle. Okay. Or not shuttle space launch system. I was right the first like you know. Yeah. with space launch system. They're also using hydrogen, cryogenic hydrogen. Like good lord, you know, one of the hardest things to work with.
>> Well, it's not a shuttle launch without a leak or two.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
>> Right, Dada?
>> Well, if you leak, >> I love that he's just like the good old days staring at the camera. [laughter] >> Da's code name is ground umbilical carrier plate.
>> Carrier plate. [laughter] Um, the fun joke is Dada never got to see a shuttle launch because of the ground umbilical carrier plate leaking liquid hydrogen one unit of everywhere.
Um, >> by the way, as an aside, just really quickly, uh, and this is in my notes, like you know, >> are you going to tell me how cool shuttle launches are, you bastard.
>> Yes. Yes. It was it's the most amazing thing. There's nothing like it on the planet. But no, actually, um, I >> just come to Artemis 3 and hold a shuttle in your hand while it launches [laughter] >> and it's the same. just like, "Oh, look." Um, no, I actually there's a I have a new appreciation for space shuttle watching uh Starship Stage 2 struggle to come back down with the heat shield and just like being, you know, just all the fins and the aerosurface just like burning and melting away. Like >> Colombia did that.
>> Oh, too soon, man. But like legit legitimately space shuttle had this and and like they figured this thing out in the I mean I guess the 70s fundamentally and then flown in the 80s but like >> Mhm.
>> Well done to the NASA teams.
>> It's it's almost like that technology is there and and if you're a commercial entity you can go to NASA and look over those things. I I feel like they kind of did and they're I feel like they're having similar issues to space shuttle, right? Because like if you remember right, space shuttle had huge issues getting the heat shield to like a fix to the vehicle and I feel like >> Yeah, sure did.
>> If you breathe on Star if there's a little gust of wind, half the heat shields on Starship fall off. So, am I exaggerating a little bit? There's there's some very interesting photos of Colombia's delivery in July of 1979 when basically like half of the entire thermal protection system came off in the airflow when it was on the shuttle carrier aircraft. So I wonder like how many 10,000 tiles like fell on the United States as it flew over and just like have never been recovered.
>> What's falling on me? What's going on?
I feel like that's I feel like that's going to be We should make that an obscure song. 10,000 tiles.
>> Oh, that's a great idea. [laughter] >> I'm They stick as good as Post-it notes.
>> 10,000 tiles. And I would [laughter] >> No, >> they they stick about as good as Post-it notes.
>> You know, here's the thing. NASA figured it out. I SpaceX will figure it out, too. And it's fun to give them it's fun to give them guff over this, but like never never count out the SpaceX engineering teams like they they're like, "Yep." And they're you can see them working on different solutions on each vehicle. So they'll figure out what works best. They always optimize for data gathering on every flight. They'll figure out the thing that they like the most and then all at once they'll switch to that and like overnight all of a sudden all the tiles will just miraculously start staying on the vehicle, right? They do this time and time again. So, it's fun to joke about, but realistically, they'll solve this.
They'll solve this in short order. I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Having said that, like the leading edge of like the flaps, the forward flaps and, you know, things where you're just seeing plasma like seep in, that's a harder thing to solve. I >> I'm curious to see if E3 solves that, >> right? Like, first of all, >> those are some those are some warm bits.
>> Those are some That's the hot >> warm bits.
>> That's the hot area.
Uh, you know, moving on to our next, you could argue that we've talked about this earlier. I I think Falcon 9 is one of the, if not the most successful rockets ever. Uh, [laughter] >> wait, why is Da laughing? How is it not the most successful rocket ever?
>> 10,000 tiles stuck to the shuttle. Fly it around faster than sound. 99 9,999 tiles left on the ground. [laughter] >> Nice. Very nice. That's fantastic.
>> There we go. We got our song.
>> It's not copyrighted or nothing.
[laughter] >> I know someone's going to pump that into AI and build that into a real thing.
We'll have to add that. We'll make that like the the intro music for next week's show, like the pre-show music. See if anyone notices. Okay, the point I was trying to make, let me go back to my my question that I am not reading from my computer. One could argue that Falcon 9 is the most successful rocket ever. uh other companies uh and even countries struggle to compete. Will Starship take that to the next level? And how if so, how is anyone going to be able to compete with the Starship program?
Right? Like they can barely compete with Falcon 9. How is any right? How are they going to compete with a because Starship's going to work again? As much fun as it is to give them trouble, it's going to work. And when it does, I mean, Vulcan, Vulcan isn't even reusable. Space launch system. Come on now. How do you compete with a fully reusable launch architecture that can just upmass so much stuff? Uh, Mike, you know, I feel like there's only going to be a brief window of opportunity for all of the competitors, including other countries, because most of the Starship flights are going to be for either [snorts] NASA and moon oriented goals or for SpaceX and their own business goals and especially if they are leaning more into making shareholders happy and doing all the d the orbital data centers and even more Starlink satellites, you know, let's not forget they want to do like something like 55,000 more or something like that. Um, so there with the Falcon 9, aside from their transporter flights, uh, which is the ride share program flights where tons of people put on their small cubats or kind of small to to midsize satellites that would, you know, only be big enough for like a dedicated electron, but too small to be the primary payload for just about anything else. So, let's put, you know, a hundred of of these small satellites onto these programs. Starlink Star Ship will be able to do something similar like that. But I feel like there's not going to be flights opportunities for those types of missions for a bunch of different customers or doing really interesting bespoke things until way later after they have made it fully reusable and have satisfied some of their own internal goals first. And even looking around at all these competitors, they don't seem to be trying to compete with Starship at all. They're trying to compete with Falcon 9 and be the replacements for Falcon 9 when SpaceX eventually takes it offline. And I don't know, I I'm rooting for everybody, but I really worry that if they don't make it in within that window of opportunity that SpaceX is going to have a monopoly on just about everything.
>> Neutron uh not Electron, Neutron, right?
uh from Rocket Lab. They've got the Chomper, which is an interesting concept, right? So, oh, there you go.
So, right, like omn uh so they're going to hungry hungry hippo out satellites and whatnot. So, they're thinking about this stuff. And you're right, this is more of a Falcon 9 class rocket. I'm not sure that we need a Falcon 9 class rocket just because well I mean once you've got a a Starship class rocket that can just upmass a whole bunch of stuff and bring back all the stages it's going to be so low cost to bring mass up to orbit. Like I I just like >> I don't know. Is there going to I >> I could think of a reason why you wouldn't want to fly on Starship, >> which is me >> 100%. I could think of an absolute use case that you wouldn't want to. Hello, I'm the National Reconnaissance Office and I would like to fly a dedicated spy satellite that doesn't actually weigh all that much. So, >> but hang on. If I read >> there's c there are going to be customers regardless of whether Starship drops the cost or not because they just want that that like ultra dedicated way of getting their payload to exactly what they want it to do. Um and they will spread across as many options as they can because folks like the United States government don't want to rely on one rocket. So, we saw what happened in the 1980s when they legislated the they tried to bake in the legislation and the law that space shuttle was how you put things into orbit. And we saw exactly what happened in 1986 when you do that, which is that, oh, this doesn't work because you might have a problem. So then you start having to do other things like the like developing the 7000 series Delta 2 or or improving the Titan 3 and making the Titan 4.
>> Buying launches from Russia.
>> Buying launches from Russia. Yeah. So just because having one provider is just not I mean I know a lot of people think that it's that that Starship is just going to become this titan of of low cost and that's going to wipe out everybody else. But it is ultimately up to the customer and a group like the United States government is absolutely not going to go single source for something as important as defense or something like that.
>> I mean that's Mr. Mr. NRO and how it works.
>> That's fair, Mr. N.
>> But it's going to be Starship in New Glenn then.
>> And at some point, at some point, you're going to you're going to get the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commun Commission involved in >> Yep.
>> uh examining SpaceX as a monopoly. Like, you can't just have one provider to do this. And I can envision a world in which you have sufficient scruples and money that you don't want to be associated with SpaceX or any of the atrocities from their uh uh uh charismatic billionaire that owns it or and runs it so that you you want to launch on somebody else's rocket.
>> I don't think they're [laughter] going to make a decision based on that.
They're going to make a decision based on how much it costs to get their payload to space realistically. I mean >> I mean that's >> if if if you listen to all the Apple people there shouldn't be a reason that that Android exists.
[laughter] >> Good point. Good point. I think there may be also I don't think finances will be the reason people start selecting providers which might sound crazy as a business idea but I think it's going to be availability not necessarily availability to get you to an orbit but with SpaceX as I said earlier we've already seen them rolling back how frequently Falcon 9's been launching from 40 now that might have been ISS mission getting priority on the pad but within that in the next few years when they start focusing on Starship 39A is now only Falcon Heavy In Starship, they don't do single stick from there. 40. So on Florida, you got one pad for Falcon 9 and at Vandenberg, you got one pad for Falcon 9. In 2 years, you're going to have three Starship pads in Florida.
Realistically, we'll see one in Vandenberg be built by then, I would assume. However many get built in Louisiana if they confirm that because we've seen them crank out these towers really quickly. Um, I think it's going to be who can I actually get a launch with in 6 months because Starship in 10 years might have wide open availability like an airline. But like we were saying with the data centers with Starlink, keep in mind Starlink success relies on Starship [snorts] actually being able to deploy V3 to the point V1 and 2 had date cut offs by the FCC for frequencies that if they hadn't launched so many. Now, those have been stretched out. But I think it's going to be Starship's going to Starship already has such a huge payload manifest that it needs to launch, you know, just a million satellites, just a few that when Falcon 9 starts getting pulled back, there's going to have to be people that pick those up like Transporter. I can't remember. What is it? Transporter, bandwagon, something else.
>> Yeah, that was the other one. Yeah, Transporter and Bagwag.
>> Yep. SpaceX just gave any other launch provider a perfect menu on how to offer something if they can have the frequency even a tenth of what Falcon 9 was because those are always sold out.
>> And you don't even have to go to a medium launcher. You could go to a small launcher as well if you want to like a dedicated launcher. So a a company with a dedicated launcher may say, "Hey, buy 10 launches from us. We'll take 20% off of the cost for you." I >> and that's why Rocket Lab with their comically small electron is doing great business with it.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, there's I think the market's going to change when you've got a fully reusable rocket. Fully reusable stage one and stage two. Think about this.
Falcon 9 when it flies, it has to throw away the entire second stage, which includes the engine, the power plant.
All has to be thrown away every single time. You got to pay for that. That's expensive. Now, you get Starship going and it's going to be in the future. It's not going to ride away, but you get Starship going. Stage one and stage two fully reusable. Fully reusable, right?
You get all of it back. The only costs are fueling and then just like, you know, whatever your personnel costs are.
I don't have to build a second stage anymore. I can drive the price of that launch down below anything that a smaller medium launcher would ever do that's that's not reusable, right?
Because you're paying for the entire rocket, not just for the fuel at that point. Just because it's smaller does not mean it would be lower cost. If it's not reusable, it cannot compete.
>> I don't mean not on price.
>> So that's that's that's not that's not true because you're if you need to get from a specific airport to a specific airport, you don't take a bunch of commercial flights and hop if you have the money and the need to get there quickly. You take a private plane.
>> Yeah.
>> There's still a market for for small small carriers.
>> There'll always be a market for small carriers. And because the private plane will get you directly to where you need to go. It will get you closer to your destination which will also in many in some cases lower costs.
>> But why would not be by New Glenn 2 or Starship? Why could it not bring you exactly where you need to go? Cuz again, I'm not throwing away the vehicle. Alls I'm doing is fueling it up. So you want to take you want to be the only carrier on this and go to a very specific SSO orbit. Okay, cool. Whatever you want. I get the rocket back. But if but if you're if you're flying from one specific airport to another specific airport, you fly on a G5, not a 747 or an A330 for one person or a small group of people.
>> Like that very specific use case.
>> No. No. Let's make this apples to apples. Would I fly a singleuse G450 that I buy the entire aircraft for for this one flight? or would I fly on an A321 that is reusable to get from airport to airport even if I had the money to fly and throw away my GFream?
>> No one need no one throws away the airplane anymore. That's insane.
>> If if you didn't need to be there until next Tuesday, you would take a series of commercial flights or you would ship it in a container. You wouldn't need to be to take the the jet jet directly today.
But but but if I have a reusable rocket I can and I have a large enough manifest and large enough fleet of them, I will be able to get your payload to space faster than you having to custom build a rocket for that. Which means I can >> No, I'm in a queue.
>> You're in a queue.
>> Mhm.
>> Okay. No, wait. Why are you >> NRO needs to launch a satellite right now in order to be able to observe something across across the planet?
Whatever.
>> Mhm.
>> Whatever the reason, it needs to happen right now.
>> Yeah.
>> I just found out about it 3 hours ago.
>> It needs to be in space in an hour.
>> Yeah.
>> You're telling me >> SpaceX team, your next flight is going to be available in 6 years.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> No, no, no, no, no, no. You guys have this exactly backwards. You Okay, so let let's run that scenario, right? I'm the NRO. I I'm anyone. I need to get something into space right now. I've got 24 hours to get this into space. I call up SpaceX. Hey guys, I have 24 hours to get this into space. They have a fleet of vehicles that have already been built. All they need to do is pay enough money to get in the front of that manifest. I call up Firefly. I say, "Hey, oh no, Rocket Lab." I call up Rocket Lab. Hey, I need to get into space. Well, I got to build you a rocket. Who can do it faster? the company that has the rocket already built that's fully reusable and alls I have to do is a manifest change or the one who has to build a rocket specific for your payload like there I just do not see how this how anyone who doesn't use reusability will ever be able to compete in this marketplace >> but the up andcoming ones are reusable storon and >> some of them are but are they fully reusable I mean some of them some of them are >> just the nova one >> I I think I think I'm having a hard time comprehending how someone with a 300 kg satellite would look at a rocket that can lift a 100 tons and say, "Sure, we'll just put our single satellite on that >> because it doesn't matter how much it can lift. It matters how much it costs."
>> It costs cost is a lot, but also like you don't want to lose a vehicle.
And I it's just I'm I'm having a hard time understanding it and I think I I don't think I'm going to get it by the end of the show. I think this is one of those Jared, we have a we have a picture for you that shows you exactly what it'll look like and it was when SpaceX launched a singular banana in the Starship. [laughter] >> They already showed you what it'll look like.
>> Okay. [laughter] Okay. All right. Yeah.
I Jamie, I I I get what you're trying to say and I do agree with you, but I think it's going to be a couple of years until SpaceX gets there. And that's what I'm talking about with that window of opportunity for competitors. Until such time that SpaceX gets there that it's just a matter of negotiating a fee to cut to the top of the to the head of the line. That's where we still have this opportunity for other other companies.
And if they can't get their own business going, then yeah, they're going to be completely left behind once SpaceX does reach to the point that you're talking about that it's just a matter of yeah, how much you willing to pay to get to come to the front of the line. Yes, we have a backlog of 40,000 payloads and we have our fleet that's ready to go, but you know, it's still going to take them a while until they're at that operational status.
>> 100% 100%. But >> they're still not they're still not going to be permitted to be a monopoly.
Does SpaceX ever become Airbus >> and start selling rockets to >> you know awesome that would ever >> do we get to that point in 30 40 years >> that if they can't be if they can't be a monopoly is that what has to then happen that >> Amazon goes and buys starships and is launching you know space on planes or rockets type of thing like they do their >> sell the starships to someone else who does their own operations. Hi, this is this is tomorrow and we have our own booster and three Starships that are available at our junkyard garage that we're launching out of Louisiana because an original deal fell through. But we picked it up and finished it, >> but SpaceX still owns all the launch sites.
>> Mhm. But it's a Jebidiah's junkyard spacecraft emporium that's uh operating a small scale version of it. Like if we want to get to what Elon wants, is that not where we're going? That airlines or whoever start buying Starships and boosters and they're parked around star bases around the world, but SpaceX operates the star bases.
>> SpaceX builds the planes and somebody else runs the space line.
>> That's pretty cool. I do love that vision.
>> This is This is a really cool conversation. [laughter] I got to say I like >> Spirit Space Lines.
>> Yes.
Spirit Starlines. Thank you very much.
>> Can you imagine a fully yellow starship?
>> Finally, I can watch my fights happen in microgravity. [laughter] >> My god, >> we'd really be have to lean into the banana theme then.
>> Uh, you know, Mike, I I you're absolutely right that there's a window of opportunity, but the thing to remember is um it takes many years for these programs to come to fruition.
SpaceX is already many years into their Starship program. And you're right, it's not gonna what I described is not happening this year. Probably not next year. We probably have three to five years before the vehicle gets into a state where it can just go go go.
But if you thought Falcon 9 was launching fast last year, just wait until Starship gets up to speed. It's going to break your brain. And uh you know, D's point of you still can't have only one. That's fine. I'm not saying it has to only be Starship. I'm saying it's going to be large reusable rockets only because it doesn't matter what size payload you put on there if all you're paying for is the fuel and the human cost, right? It's fuel plus, you know, a little bit of whatever whatever your >> fuel plus overhead.
>> Fuel plus overhead. Exactly. As opposed to fuel plus overhead plus an entire launch vehicle, right? No matter how small you make that really tiny rocket, you cannot compete with a fully reusable rocket. There are other fully reusable rockets that are coming out on the market, but it just imagine a Starship that you don't have to fully fuel up, which means now my fuel price goes down, right? Uh Starship's pretty heavy, so like there's always going to be a bit of fuel on that thing. But like, you know, if you've got a teeny tiny payload, just optimize for whatever you need to do to get to space. I I'm, you know, I think that it's going to be in the United States, Starship and New Glenn, and then New Glenn 7-3 or whatever that was. Uh, and then New Armstrong, right? That's and then star whatever Starship turns into. And then probably China, right?
Because China's starting to do some of this stuff, too. I don't see Aron Space surviving unless they're just shovel money into it. Uh, I don't see ULA surviving unless they just choose to shovel money into it.
>> Uh, I'm not sure Rocket Lab survives, >> right?
>> Rocket Lab will survive, but not as a launch provider.
>> That's a good That's a good statement.
Yeah, >> they'll survive as as a parts supplier.
>> Well, or solar panels. Oh, you need radiators for your giant data center.
Well, guess what? We have our line right here. That's the the most efficient radiators ever developed.
>> Yeah. Like, like I could see Rocket Lab doing my my like dream project, which is that that like turnkey modular spacecraft system, you know? Yeah. Like what do you like like we can like literally it's like your computer.
You're just you're just going to rocket lab and you're specking out the the the the space, >> everything you put in it. So >> they'll be the Nvidia of space. Ooh, that is actually kind of exciting. And you may not be wrong. Like if they kind of pivot into that like they still need to do launches for a hot minute cuz what I'm the thing I'm talking about ain't happening tomorrow.
>> But like yeah, they could just kind of like hyperfocus on the everything else cuz no one is doing that right now.
Everyone's building these massive rockets and no one's building the everything else we need to get to this lunar space. So there is a multi-trillion dollar market that Rocket Lab could tap into. And don't like don't bet against Elon and don't bet against Peter back. So like I I that that could be really interesting.
>> Rocket Lab more money. Rocket Lab made more money from those two twin uh escapade spacecraft that NASA paid them to uh to to develop. They made more money from those two spacecraft that they built entirely themselves in house than I I want to say somewhere close to like six or seven electron flights.
>> Yeah.
>> What is What is the industry going to do?
>> What is the industry going to do when SpaceX uses up all of the helium?
>> I don't think uh Starship uses helium.
It it represses using methane.
Falcon uses helium, but I don't believe Starship does.
>> Yeah, that's part of the that's part of the whole they were having problems with helium uh and helium supply costs and everything else. So, they just they were like, "All right, well, we can just use methane." So, I believe it use uses gas methane to repress >> that audio autogenius pressure or something like that.
>> I can't I can't remember the technical term for it.
>> All right. Uh on that note, this was a fun conversation. I hope everyone had a had a good show. Let's jump into our next trivia question and get a point taken away from Ryan here. So, let's uh uh Zach, you want to want to take that one away?
>> Sure. Uh how much lunar material did the Apollo missions, so all of them uh return to Earth in total?
>> Man, >> this is so hard not to cheat on these.
>> No cheating, >> Jamie. I'm sending you your direct message.
>> Oh, thank you. [laughter] Hey, wait a minute.
>> He's not cheating. He's just It's just a backroom conversation not related to the answer of this particular thing.
>> Yeah. No, >> it has to do with next week's question.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Has a question about next week. Absolutely.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Speaking of, I have not seen that DM yet. Zach, >> will you answer last?
>> All right. Uh, Dada, go ahead.
Uh, I'm going to say 382 and go with the chat room.
>> Uh, sorry, I was not looking at the back room. Uh, Jared.
>> Mhm.
>> I'm going with the chat room. 382 kg.
>> Uh, space mic.
>> I feel like that's correct, but I also feel like 1,000 kg is correct. So, probably wrong, but I'm going with 1,000 kg for all of the Apollo missions combined. You know, I'm gonna just randomly choose 382. Uh, based on no other information whatsoever, uh, I'm gonna choose 382. What, um, >> isn't it the amount that went missing or something, >> Zach? What is the correct answer?
>> Uh, 841.5 lb or 382 kg.
>> I love that you pound.
>> Damn. [laughter] >> Oh my gosh. H. All right. So, >> and for the record, I did not tell Jamie the right answer.
>> That is correct. He did not actually that is a true statement. He did not tell me the correct answer.
>> He did not.
>> Yeah, just me and Da did.
>> Um, so I will say I think what we should do here is, you know, Mike, you were on the fence, so why don't we go ahead and give Mike the point and take take Mike's point that he would have lost away from Ryan instead. So, let's just take Ryan's point away and and give it to Mike. I think that's what we'll do. Uh, so >> and then everyone else who got it correct, including the chat room, gets plus two.
>> You know what? That's a good note. So, we should take away Let's hear one, two, three, four, five. Let's take five points away from Ryan [laughter] and then give >> Don't forget the chat room got it right, too.
>> Uh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, wait, it's four, five.
>> Yeah, that'd be five points, right?
Because Zach's not playing, right? Yeah.
So, it' be five points. Let's take five points away from uh away from Ryan and then give me da Jared two points. Space Mike gets one. You know what, Zach?
Because you came up with that question, I think you get 10 points. So, let's go ahead and take 15 points away from Ryan.
[laughter] >> Perfect. I feel like that's how that show go. That's how this show.
>> We're going to win this year. I can feel it in my bones.
>> I I'm wondering what Sack is going to do. I'm I'm curious to see how he how he puts that how he deals with that. Uh you know, >> we're going to win this year.
>> That's our show for this week. I hope everyone had a lot of fun. I know I did.
This was a sporty one. If you've got comments, please leave them uh leave them below. I'm What I might start doing uh you know, maybe we'll talk about this a little bit in After Dark, but what I might start doing is taking block two, the point after the first review question, and dedicating it to questions from the previous show. So, that might be kind of fun. We used to do that. Um, I do actually go back to previous shows and kind of look at what worked and what didn't work. And I I I kind of like that. So, uh, but on that note, I'd like to thank all of the crew of tomorrow for helping to make every single episode happen. You guys are all amazing, uh, you know, week after week, month after month. And keep in mind, [music] uh, we are back up on Patreon uh, now.
So, if you want to, uh, contribute to the show either on Patreon, by the way, you can be a free [music] Patreon subscriber. You can subscribe at $1, I think it's 99 cents per month, [music] uh, which is way less than even a cup of coffee. And all of that will get you access to our, uh, uh, on [music] demand or our live after dark episode as well, where you put olives into uh, some sort of oil substance. [music] [laughter] I still the viscosity of that is just wrong. It's just wrong.
>> Sickening.
>> It's just sickening. It's not great.
All right. Anyhow, that's that's our [music] show this week. There is no promo for an interview. We We've got a few more in the can, but uh we're still working on figuring out what those are going to look like. I I got to figure that out. Uh Sack has the final tally.
Oh my god, look at Ryan's score.
[laughter] >> We're going to win this year, chat. I believe in you.
>> Oh, this is great. This is great.
>> We're on it.
>> All right.
>> That's actually not That's actually not correct. You missed my point for the last question because everybody got a point.
>> And did Jamie say I get one or 10? I Well, you got you got 10. Yeah, >> we'll figure it out.
>> We'll figure it out after dark.
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