you it's s like people before me thought didn't realize that re reusability was a thing verer Von Brown was actually big on reusability he really wanted to push reusability design but uh thus far for whatever reason uh no rocket organization has been able to execute on reusability inal SpaceX hey guys so look at the sign behind me I'm here in front of Stargate which is of course the Starbase headquarters and I just spoke with Elon Musk about this incredible day here down in South Texas the fourth flight of Starship a truly historic day we got our mics we got the phone good old iPhone and we are trying to pick which questions we have a few questions oh nice to meet you formally hi hi okay how are you feeling after today's flight 4 uh great I think uh the S performs performed very well and uh the SpaceX team done an incredible job talk about the views from starlink I want to give a shout out to starlink it powered my live stream and obviously the three plus million people who watched on X yeah uh we actually had I think 16 video feeds or thereabouts from stall link uh some of which were external most of which were internal just looking at the internal systems for uh kind of debugging issues um and yeah we had uh uh almost continuous stalling coverage um for the next flight we making some adjustments to stalling so we'll actually have completely continuous the entire way I'm sure everyone at home would love that would you say that fourth time is the charm maybe for SpaceX as we look at Falcon 1's history uh the fourth launch is certainly great I mean third launch was was solid too I mean we did make it to orbit um by normal standards that would be a success on third launch uh for this launch we we hit two key reusability Milestones which was having the booster boost back um to a precise location and uh execute a landing burone and land softly in the water which it did um and getting the ship to go all the way through um the super high heating of reentry where it's coming in like a meteor um and uh and then maintain control subsonically and uh land in a pretty prec precise location uh well it was technically 6 kilm off geographically but it was able ship was able to maintain control and then relight the the three uh raer engines for for a for landing so that's uh a super successful days um yeah uh as you were watching people are saying on X the little flap that could what what was going through your mind I was surprised that the flap lasted so long so it's uh you know cuz it's once the heat chill tiles are gone the uh you really just have um bare steel which is mostly the sort of uh sx300 steel alloy and uh it was it was actually quite surprising how well the steel held up uh despite the extreme heating yeah so I I I thought the flab would fail uh because it's not supposed to be able to survive but it did I think a lot of us were surprised um does that validate your choice to use stainless steel um yeah absolutely if if if we'd use carbon fiber or aluminum they they both would have failed due to high heating now we saw you post on that maybe flight five you'll attempt to catch how what do you think is the likelihood of that well I I need to regroup with a team and confirm that there aren't any other known issues but I think uh given that the booster came back uh came to a precise location came to uh essentially zero velocity Landing uh on the ocean I think we uh I think we should probably try to catch it with the tower arms on the next flight um absolutely I was lucky enough to take a tour of Starbase and it's amazing that you guys are able to manage construction and production at the same time tell me about the team down here at SpaceX yeah well we've always done we've been doing continuous construction of the factory and the launch site while Bel doing development of the rocket that's been the case uh you know ever since we we came out here um I mean for 3 years uh this was my primary loc primary residence I lived here kind of building up uh the star base Factory and and launch site uh from basically nothing from just being a sandb bar um and uh and we're just trying to figure out how to deal how how to work with uh stainless steel as opposed to aluminum lithium and carbon and uh how to deal with methane as a cenic fuel instead of uh kerosene or refined jet fuel so um yeah so it's really always been a case of uh bu build the Factory build the launch site and keep developing the rocket and if people have never been down to Star base this is much more than a factory you're trying to maybe build out a city can you tell me more about your vision it's not a city would be a strong word but maybe a small town does having a young Workforce benefit basx by not having preconceived notions uh well we we have people that range from you know sort of 70 to 18 so it's a it's really a wide range I don't I don't know about um age I mean really it's a a question of mindset is somebody gung-ho about the future and wanting to drive advanced technology as fast as possible that could be true at any age what kinds of missions do you think SpaceX could accept that will act as development Stepping Stones towards Mars well we're we're seeing the development Stepping Stones to Mars here which is the fundamental breakthrough that is needed for life to become multiplanetary is uh a a fully and rapidly reusable rocket so that means the the boo stage and the and the upper stage or ship uh must both come back to the launch site and be immediately able to fly again with no no refurbishment this has never been accomplished the closest that anyone's ever gone is is Falcon 9 where the booster comes back and is is quickly available for flight in really less than a week um and the the fairing or nose cone is also refurbished for flight the only thing that's lost is the upper stage um so in terms of so F Falcon is the first rocket ever to demonstrate commercially feasible uh reusability in fact re or another way of saying it is reusability that actually mattered and was useful right um now falcine is still we lose the upper stage um so falcine is about 80% reusable but it it's it's also not rapidly reusable in terms of enabling immediate reflight um so with Starship the whole thing will be reusable and and it's designed for immediate reflight that's that's a very profound thing that is the fundamental thing that is necessary to make life multiplanetary uh there is I put everything else in the uh category of of of being really a different order of magnitude or difficulty uh the uh you know I I like I don't think it will be very difficult to to survive on Mar s frankly I think it'll from technology challenge standpoint that is that is small compared to full and Rapid reusability um we live on a planet with a deep gravity well and a thick atmosphere uh this makes full reusability extremely difficult If gravity was even 10% lower it would be easy and if it was 10% higher it would be impossible so uh you know we it's not as though uh prior rocket designers um you know you know It's s like people before me thought didn't realize that re reusability was a thing verer Von Brown was actually big on reusability he really wanted to push reusability design um and he was a brilliant guy um and um and he had many sort of design ideas for that as did others uh but uh thus far for whatever reason uh no rocket organization has been able to execute on reusability until SpaceX um and Starship is the first rocket design where uh full and Rapid reusability is in fact possible um because what this does is drop the cost of space transport by at least 100 fold maybe a th000 fold so it's a gigantic difference uh as it would be for any motor transport if it was Cars horses bicycles airplanes imagine if you needed to get a new airplane with every flight right uh airf flight would be impossible for almost anyone one thing that never ceases to amaze me is there's not enough people that really know what's going on with Starship and why is it important to generate public interest it's not it's not I mean I do think we want the public on our side and supportive but we're not trying to maximize public awareness um I think the the you know a large portion of the public is aware of it and I think when we start taking astronauts to the moon and especially Mars It Will Be everyone on Earth will know about it at what point do you think it would be safe for people to bring or have children on Mars uh well I think you you can have children on Mars as soon as you're able to um I wouldn't bring children initially because it's dangerous the first flights may not succeed um it's a hazardous environment so um but I think within I don't know less than 10 years of the initial Landings I would expect that it's safe to bring kids do you think that you'll go to Mars in your lifetime depends if I if I live long enough um then yes I just want to say that I am so incredibly grateful for Elon Musk taking some time to talk to me on the same day of if4 it was already such an amazingly successful day with the launch that we witnessed and then to be able to talk to Elon on top of it was really just the icing on the cake I have been working for a very long time to get an interview like this so if you would like to support my work it really goes a long way as this is my full-time job and the revenue can be very inconsistent I thought about breaking this up into many different clips and you might see some shorts but I just wanted to give you the full Starship recap from Elon the day after the Starship launch so hopefully you appreciate it and I just can't express how grateful I am for Elon making time to talk to me and of course so incredibly proud of the SpaceX team Humanity has a bright future thanks to the Starship program and what spasic is doing making the world's first fully reusable rocket we are well on our way and it is so amazing to see it unfold in person I've been lucky enough to cover all four launches now from the roof of Margaritaville and to talk to Elon on one of the launch days I I don't even know if I'm Dreaming so um I might make an additional video about this experience but but I hope that you enjoyed this video please share it if you enjoyed it thank you so much for watching um I am feeling very excited to talk to Elon I've been following the Starship program now since 2021 actually on the ground here and so um it's actually very surreal and to be doing it on such a successful flight day for if4 is kind of the best time to do it and so I'm I'm really excited to share this moment in history [Music]