{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzo0BtGf9oA", "page_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzo0BtGf9oA", "title": "Elon Musk, ISS R&D Conference, July 19, 2017", "show_or_channel": "Space SPAN (re-upload)", "date": "2017-07-19", "duration_s": 5232, "type": "interview", "speakers": ["Elon Musk", "Ken Shields"], "confidence": "medium", "notes": "ISS R&D 2017; moon base, Mars, SpaceX. Alternates Jv5LjA62Uw8, 5cPMS6cT0Ig.", "people": ["elon-musk"], "id": "2017-07-19_space-span-re-upload-elon-musk-iss-r-d-conference-july-19", "dupes": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5LjA62Uw8", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4b63Viqqlk"], "audio_duration_s": 5231.177125, "worker": "jc-w08", "transcribe_s": 211.5, "model": "large-v3", "segments": [{"start": 1.58, "end": 33.46, "text": "All right, everyone. I hope you're enjoying your lunch. I have to say it was a really exciting morning, but there is a lot more to come. It's incredible to me that many bold ideas are now turning into actions, and that new players from our last panel, like Rubbermaid, Made in Space, NIH, NCATS, and Burke,"}, {"start": 34.26, "end": 68.13, "text": "Did I say Rubbermaid? Ha! Okay, how are we doing? My guys are in trouble on that one. Thank you for that. Okay, hopefully that's the last one I'm going to say there. Sorry about that Tupperware. I think it's because Cindy was working so hard on the BD side of that after he described his experiment. So many of these players are investing in space as an achievable destination for human activity, research, and innovation."}, {"start": 68.13, "end": 97.74, "text": "In a few minutes, we'll be joined by someone who has played an important role in changing the equation of what we can accomplish in space and on Earth by embracing seemingly impossible ideas. However, before we introduce Elon Musk, we have an exciting announcement as we've increasingly talked about bringing in these new, innovative users"}, {"start": 97.74, "end": 127.7, "text": "Like Tupperware to conduct research to not only benefit life here on the earth, but also to benefit those businesses. Everyone in this room will be familiar with a company that will be the newest part of the space R&D community. Please join me in welcoming the Target Corporation as our newest ISS user."}, {"start": 137.36, "end": 169.36, "text": "TARGET will be launching an international space station research competition in the fall aimed at solving a global issue that is relevant to their industry. Please welcome Cindy Buteau, who you saw earlier on the panel for LEO commercialization, to talk more about the TARGET research challenge. Thanks, Craig. Thank you. So, we talked earlier about our"}, {"start": 169.36, "end": 198.5, "text": "Mission to use the International Space Station as an innovation platform and to look at solving these big challenges. We are so happy to announce that Target is looking at solving or understanding more sustainable cotton production using the International Space Station. This is really important. Target is"}, {"start": 198.5, "end": 227.1, "text": "Such a good partner from a social responsibility standpoint. They have announced a series of sustainability goals, long term and short term. And they've also started looking at green innovation technologies. What we're doing now with this cotton sustainability challenge is we're looking at the International Space Station as the platform to look at things like gene expression with seeds."}, {"start": 227.1, "end": 255.54, "text": "Water and membrane technologies and remote sensing applications that could result in more sustainable cotton production. And I bet you guys didn't know that in today's world it takes about 700 gallons of water to produce one cotton t-shirt. And what Target is doing is looking out at their whole supply chain from a sustainability standpoint trying to learn something"}, {"start": 255.54, "end": 280.62, "text": "Through this challenge on the space station, bring it back down here on the Earth for that more sustainable production. So again, we couldn't be happier. We're very pleased to announce this partnership. There is a website that you can see behind me that has now gone live. It's going to have all the details of this challenge, which is going to kick off in September."}, {"start": 280.62, "end": 322.1, "text": "So stay tuned for that, and again, very happy to announce this partnership with Target. We're excited to share that through this competition, Target will be investing significantly in space-based research, enabling new projects to fly to the ISS. All right, I love that. This is another great step in our nation's utilization and investment in space-based research."}, {"start": 322.16, "end": 353.36, "text": "We're proud that CASIS has facilitated more than 100 million in outside non-NASA funding to ISS National Lab research to date. Target, we're really excited to be working with you and to see new innovative research head up to the space station. You can learn more online, and all of you researchers and implementation partners out there, they'll be looking for your ideas. So let's move on."}, {"start": 353.36, "end": 378.03, "text": "To the next highly anticipated part of the program, a conversation with Kirk Shireman and Elon Musk. From a logistical standpoint, Elon and Kirk will be taking questions after their talk. There are microphones stationed on that side of the room and that side of the room, and I see them. So we'll be..."}, {"start": 378.03, "end": 409.49, "text": "Taking questions from those microphones because of the congestion in the audience. Elon Musk is a true visionary leader who has helped redefine multiple industries. We're honored to have him join the ISS R&D conference for the second time. He was with us two years ago in Boston showing his commitment and passion for the International Space Station."}, {"start": 409.78, "end": 438.19, "text": "He founded SpaceX in 2002. It's his third successful venture after the innovative companies Zip2 and PayPal. On May 22nd, 2012, Musk and SpaceX made history when a company launched its Falcon 9 rocket into space with an unmanned capsule. The vehicle was sent to the International Space Station with a thousand pounds of supplies for the astronauts."}, {"start": 438.19, "end": 467.6, "text": "Marking the first time a private company had sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station. Since then, SpaceX has generated many significant milestones and has delivered hundreds of innovative experiments to the ISS from many companies and organizations in this room today. In addition to SpaceX, Elon is the co-founder, CEO, and product architect for Tesla, a company that has"}, {"start": 467.6, "end": 506.13, "text": "Redefining the automotive industry. When I think about innovation beyond boundaries, the theme for our conference, I cannot think of a better representation of that concept in our generation. Please join me in welcoming Elon Musk and ISS program manager Kirk Shireman to the stage. Okay, I'm getting an indication there was a little bit of delay in this transportation."}, {"start": 506.96, "end": 555.15, "text": "The second faux pas, three strikes, I'm out. But I'm not going to fill your time. Kirk and Elon are going to come up momentarily. They're going to be stepping up to the stage, and they'll start the conversation. Thank you. Good afternoon. We thought we'd start off by making Greg very uncomfortable, so I hope we were successful. Where's Greg? All right. So I hope we made you uncomfortable, Greg."}, {"start": 555.82, "end": 583.41, "text": "Very good. So, Elon, thanks so much for being here today. Elon commuted from the West Coast this morning, so we appreciate you taking the time and coming out here and talking with us. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. We've had a pretty good conference so far, at least in my opinion. Over 1,000 people signed up for the first time, so a significant increase. And lots of people interested in space and low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station and the work that's going on."}, {"start": 583.41, "end": 613.09, "text": "Anyway, we're very excited about the work that's going on and excited to have you here today, too. Great. Thanks for having me. So you were here a number of years ago, July, in 2015. It's not that long ago, I guess, two years ago, and had a discussion like this with Mike Suffredini. And a lot of things have happened since 2015 for SpaceX. So can you talk about how things have gone, how they've progressed, how you're feeling about how the industry and SpaceX in particular have progressed?"}, {"start": 613.09, "end": 642.8, "text": "Sure. I think we are entering a new era of space exploration, which is extremely exciting. And it's not just SpaceX, but there's a number of other companies that have developed new approaches. NASA is taking new approaches to things, which is really exciting. In the way that the contracting has been done for space station resupply, I think is a great model."}, {"start": 642.8, "end": 671.26, "text": "That frankly should be adopted throughout government. I spoke a little bit about this at the governor's conference and was actually using the NASA cargo resupply contracting process as a really great model for government in general. It's where you have two competitors, fixed price, milestone based, where the milestones are"}, {"start": 671.26, "end": 700.72, "text": "are primarily hardware-oriented. And then if one of the two companies that's competing does not reach their milestones, then the remainder of the milestones are competed to another company. And that's what happened with Kaga Resupply. It started off with SpaceX and Kistler. Kistler made some progress but wasn't going to get across the finishing line. And then Orbital Sciences competed for the second slot, and they did get across the finishing line. And now both SpaceX and Orbital"}, {"start": 700.72, "end": 730.58, "text": "Are providing NASA with cargo services to the space station. And having that competitive dynamic is, I think, just a very powerful function for getting a great outcome for NASA as the customer. And I think that was a great model, really well executed. And to the degree that's applicable in other areas of NASA or the government, I think there's the potential for revolutionary progress."}, {"start": 730.58, "end": 765.94, "text": "So from a technical standpoint, the biggest thing that's happened in the last couple of years, which I'm really excited about and I think makes a difference for access to space, is the landing of the Falcon 9 rocket booster."}, {"start": 766.13, "end": 796.5, "text": "And if you ever get a chance to go out to the Cape or Vandenberg to see that, I'd really recommend it. It's really pretty fun. And there'll be a lot of those flights in the remainder of the year. We've got about a dozen flights still to go this year. And then after landing, reflying that same booster with minimal work to the booster."}, {"start": 796.5, "end": 831.66, "text": "We believe we can get to the point where, in the not too distant future, in fact probably by next year, where the Falcon Egg Booster can be re-blown within 24 hours. And the key to that is that all you do is inspections, and no hardware is changed."}, {"start": 831.66, "end": 860.56, "text": "Not even the paint. This is very important. So that's our aspiration for next year. Obviously while paying very close attention to mission assurance and reliability. But we think we've got at least a technical path to achieving that. And then I think we're quite close to being able to recover the fairing. So there's a huge nose cone on the..."}, {"start": 860.56, "end": 890.93, "text": "Thank you very much."}, {"start": 890.93, "end": 920.99, "text": "A pallet of cash that was $6 million is falling through the sky. Would we try to catch it? I say we do. I say we give it a shot. Worst case, it ends up at the bottom of the ocean, but maybe we do catch it and then pay $6 million. Let me know when that pallet of cash is coming back. I'd like to give it a shot, too. It might as well be a pallet of cash because it costs $6 million."}, {"start": 920.99, "end": 951.36, "text": "But I think we got a decent shot of recovering the fairing by the end of the year and possibly reflight by either late this year or early next. And that just leaves the upper stage of the rocket. Upper stage is about 20% of the cost of the mission. So if we get boost stage and fairing, we're around 80% reasonable."}, {"start": 951.36, "end": 981.42, "text": "I think for a lot of missions we can even bring the second stage back. So we're going to try to do that. Although our primary focus will be on our Dragon, particularly over the next year or so, our Dragon 2 spacecraft, which is the Crew Dragon, next generation Dragon spacecraft, which has got all of the Eclos systems and the ability to do a launch abort."}, {"start": 981.42, "end": 1011.15, "text": "All the way to orbit and do an automated docking maneuver. So it doesn't need to be both with the aid of the arm. It can do a direct docking maneuver. And then that will be the, once that's operational, the new method of taking both cargo and crew to the space station. So if I say what's our primary focus, it's making sure we stay on track for getting crew to station."}, {"start": 1011.15, "end": 1040.02, "text": "As we promised NASA around the middle of next year. It's going to be real exciting. I think it's going to be great for getting the public fired up. You know, that's really... It's been a while since we launched astronauts from U.S. soil, so we're all looking forward to that. Yeah. And I'd just like to thank people at NASA for giving SpaceX a chance to do this, and just want a word of appreciation for the working relationship."}, {"start": 1040.02, "end": 1067.94, "text": "With NASA, which is great. In fact, I told the governors last week that for a long time my password was, I love NASA. That is actually true. You know, you've just given all the hackers around the world something to go work on. Hopefully I don't have some old email account somewhere to start with."}, {"start": 1067.94, "end": 1098.02, "text": "I was like, I've got to change this. We're going to cut now. Very good. So you talked a little bit about commercial crew. How is that going? I know it's flying humans. There's more systems involved. Of course, the risk is higher. How is that progressing? You know, it's been way more difficult than cargo, for sure. Yeah. I mean, as soon as people enter the picture, it's really a..."}, {"start": 1098.02, "end": 1129.7, "text": "Giant step up in making sure things go right. And for sure, the oversight from NASA is much tougher. I thought that it wasn't tough with cargo, but it's really intense for crew. So coming from the right motivations. But yeah, it can be a bit tough on my guys."}, {"start": 1129.7, "end": 1161.39, "text": "I know where it's coming from. It's the right motivation. And there'll be some debates going into next year about some of the technical details. But I think we really want to do everything humanly possible to make sure it goes well. And triple check everything."}, {"start": 1161.52, "end": 1192.29, "text": "Overall, I think it's going really well. Getting these little, small, technical bones of tension. We're working through those. We're engineers. We live for that. Exactly. Some of these things are really esoteric. Unless somebody's really in the weeds on rocket and spacecraft design,"}, {"start": 1192.29, "end": 1220.24, "text": "It will just sound like you're talking Greek, but ancient Greek. Yeah, but I think it's good to have these debates. And overall, I'm confident that it's going to be a system that NASA feels good about and SpaceX feels good about. And I look forward to continuing the partnership into next year and doing a great job for NASA."}, {"start": 1220.24, "end": 1248.88, "text": "Excellent. Thank you. And, of course, we're looking forward to it. We're excited about it. And as you mentioned, NASA's working hard with you. Yep. Oh, yeah. And, yeah, we're also all down in the weeds on those technical details. Yep. Let's see. Let's lead down to the little ball, to the little thing. Oh, yeah. Where's Gerst? Gerst is here somewhere. That's Gerst's gravy, too. Gerst, if you can't have a dry lube."}, {"start": 1248.88, "end": 1276.22, "text": "Bolt pitch discussion with Gerst. It's not a good day. Gerst and I have many sort of in the weeds technical discussions. I actually love talking to Gerst. One of my favorite people in the world actually. There you go. Mine too, but he's my boss. I have to say that."}, {"start": 1276.22, "end": 1303.01, "text": "Let's see. So we talked a little bit about commercial crew. We have cargo supply, resupply one, which you have the Dragon, which, of course, Dragon one, which is birthed. And, in fact, you've done a reflight recently with the Dragon. Thanks for bringing that up. Because that's kind of important. Yes, it is. And, again, thanks for the massive support on that. God, we really should, you know."}, {"start": 1303.01, "end": 1331.84, "text": "We should have made a slightly bigger deal out of it because it was the first reflown spacecraft since the shuttle. And we kind of forgot to let people know. I mean, I guess it was there in the details, but we forgot to, you know. I don't think the public even realizes that it's the first reflight of an orbital spacecraft since the shuttle. Which performed very well, too. Very good, clean mission. Yeah, solid. I mean, now that was a case."}, {"start": 1331.84, "end": 1358.66, "text": "In full disclosure, I say that it costs us almost as much, in fact, probably about as much, maybe more. We're not negotiating a contract here. No, I know. I know. I've just been totally honest here. The SpaceX internal accounting said that it costs us almost as much as building a Dragon 1 from scratch."}, {"start": 1358.66, "end": 1388.59, "text": "I suspect our internal accounting was probably being, wasn't counting good and things. There were some circumstances unusual about this one, right? This one had some water incursions and things like that, so the amount of rework on this particular one. This had a lot of rework, yeah. But the next one, we think there's a decent shot of being maybe sort of 50% the cost of a new one. Keep going, my contract is up. Yeah, I'm negotiating against myself here."}, {"start": 1388.62, "end": 1410.38, "text": "We want to offer the best possible deal for NASA. It's always tough to get that top line budget to increase. I hope it does. I think so much good could be accomplished if the NASA top line budget was increased. People have no idea."}, {"start": 1414.22, "end": 1441.1, "text": "So talk a little bit, so we talked about CRS-1 and birthing in CRS-2. We talked about commercial crew. CRS-2, the Dragon, is going to do its cargo Dragon. It's the similar out-of-mold line of the crew Dragon, but it's going to dock. So talk about the synergisms and things like that. So the only thing cargo Dragon won't have is the launch escape system."}, {"start": 1441.1, "end": 1469.9, "text": "Or they'll still have the logic associated with separating from the vehicle. So I think most likely even Cargo Dragon 2 would be able to survive a booster anomaly, like that word anomaly. We don't like that word either. I guess I don't like it. It won't have the launch. It'll have everything else that Crew Dragon 2 has except the..."}, {"start": 1469.97, "end": 1491.9, "text": "The thrusters, but I think in most cases, actually, it would still be able to survive reentry and keep the cargo safe. But having that commonality is great, yeah. Yeah, I mean, going forward, it seems like docking itself and if, you know, even beyond testing of systems evolutions and things, it might be beneficial to test on..."}, {"start": 1491.9, "end": 1521.28, "text": "Yeah, totally. Absolutely. And I know you've already done some things on CRS-1 to prepare for CRS-2 and testing some TPS repair capability and things like that. Exactly. Actually, I'd really just like to express some appreciation for the whole CRS team because they've really allowed us to update the rocket and..."}, {"start": 1521.28, "end": 1550.69, "text": "You know, add crazy things like landing legs. And been really fair, I think, in allowing us to iterate with the booster for the CRS contract. And then, as you're pointing out, Dragon 2 being used for both Cargo and Crew allows us to iterate with just a little more risk on the Cargo version and prove it out."}, {"start": 1550.69, "end": 1561.41, "text": "It's really helpful. Excellent. So let's talk about, I know we've got a few more minutes here and then we'll open it up to questions."}, {"start": 1561.41, "end": 1593.73, "text": "The theme here for the conference is innovation, and of course we talked already about some innovations in the launch business, but what do you think needs to be, where are the areas or the thrusts for innovation that we really need, both not excluding the launch, but also looking at low Earth orbit, what's in low Earth orbit, where do you think we as a space industry need to go and look for our innovation?"}, {"start": 1593.73, "end": 1620.86, "text": "I still believe, and I think many people do, the key to opening up space orbit, LEO and beyond, is rapid and complete reusability, or near complete reusability, like we have with aircraft, or cars, or almost any form of transport."}, {"start": 1620.86, "end": 1650.94, "text": "It's super hard with space, because we live on a planet with pretty high gravity. So it would be pretty easy if we were on Mars or something like that. But Earth's gravity is really pretty high, and we've got a thick atmosphere. So reusability is tough, and you're going through operating a vacuum, hypersonic, supersonic."}, {"start": 1650.94, "end": 1677.76, "text": "Transonic, subsonic, that's just a lot of regimes for any sort of flying object to go through. But reusability, I think, is absolutely fundamental to a breakthrough in access to orbit and beyond, Leo and beyond. Anything that can be done in that direction, I think, is good."}, {"start": 1677.76, "end": 1706.82, "text": "Trying to change the economics of transportation to low Earth orbit, right? Really fundamental. You get quick reusability, the economic equation. It becomes easier to get to low Earth orbit and do more things. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, just any mode of transport. And before there was Union Pacific going across the U.S. to California, and there was, like, hardly any people in California. People thought building the Union Pacific was just crazy because you got, like, nobody there. So why are we building a railroad to nowhere?"}, {"start": 1706.82, "end": 1733.79, "text": "Now, California is the most popular state in the country. Some people stopped in Texas along the way. Yeah, yeah. A few of us did. Not in the summer, by the way. I love Texas. We do a huge part of our R&D in Texas, in Central Texas. A lot of people don't know about that. Near Waco. So Central Texas, we do..."}, {"start": 1733.79, "end": 1763.2, "text": "You did Bosa Chica down in the south there. That's right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we've got a lot of activity throughout Texas. We're building, yeah, a third launch site in south Texas near Brownsville. I think that'll give us good contingency capability if there's, say, a hurricane coming through the Cape and we still need to get to the station. We could launch out of south Texas, and that'll ensure continuity of service."}, {"start": 1763.2, "end": 1794.43, "text": "I spent a lot of time in Texas. It's great. Excellent. All right. Traffic's not as bad as in Southern California. Oh, man. That's the biggest issue with Southern California. Traffic hell. I mean, it's like, which level of hell are you in if you're in hell? Yeah, Washington's trying to catch up. You know, I mean, this is, I mean,"}, {"start": 1794.43, "end": 1824.93, "text": "We're digging a tunnel. I don't know if you heard about that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, and the tunnel starts right across from SpaceX HQ. So if you're ever out and you want to see our tunnel. Yeah, as long as you promise not to close it in after I get in. No problem. Yeah, we're digging the tunnel. And it's kind of like a, I don't know, sort of."}, {"start": 1824.93, "end": 1854.0, "text": "Actually, oddly enough, it's like a little low-stress activity because everyone expects it to fail. I mean, the sort of groan-worthy joke that I make about tunnels is that they have low expectations. There's no way to go but down. I can keep going. Wow."}, {"start": 1854.0, "end": 1873.12, "text": "That makes sense. You're involved in space. You're involved in tunnels. You're kind of covering the gamut. Yeah, they used to call me Internet Guy when I was installed at OpenSpace. Hey, this is Internet Guy. He's in space. He's obviously going to fail. So then they stopped saying Internet Guy. I think they're going to say Transport Guy."}, {"start": 1873.12, "end": 1899.58, "text": "He's a transport guy. So, Tom, speaking of transport, you know, so today ISS is up there, and really the conference is focused a lot on some of the research and developments going on there, and commercialization, too, by the way. And commercialization, at least NASA's strategy is commercialization will be fostered on ISS, and then at some point in the future, ISS will go away, and we expect..."}, {"start": 1899.58, "end": 1926.5, "text": "We hope for a vibrant low Earth orbit economy at that point in time. That's cool. And I'm kind of curious what you see in terms of SpaceX and your transportation relative to that economy. What's next for commercial crew after ISS? Sure. Well, first of all, I don't think the public realizes how cool ISS is. You know, that is an awesome thing that's up there. You know?"}, {"start": 1926.5, "end": 1955.41, "text": "I told a lot of people that, first of all, some people don't realize we have a space station. You can't be serious. We have a gigantic space station. It's huge. It's really gigantic. I mean, it's a pretty incredible structure that we have orbiting the Earth. And I think just, I'd recommend, man, we've got to do something to educate the public about the awesomeness of the space station, because it is pretty amazing."}, {"start": 1955.41, "end": 1986.08, "text": "And big. Like, people just lose sight of like, they think, oh, there's like a little thing. No, it's big. It's real big. And, yeah, so, and now it's finally getting into sort of real operational use. And that's great. It's like an amazing technological achievement. So, but then, yeah, I think in terms of low Earth orbit stuff,"}, {"start": 1986.08, "end": 2015.62, "text": "On the commercial side, I think there's a lot of opportunities in kind of a global internet capability, so providing internet to parts of the world that either don't have it or where it's very expensive and not very good. And the space is really good for providing internet connectivity for sparsely populated or low populated regions. So it's not really a threat to telcos. It's actually going to take..."}, {"start": 2015.62, "end": 2043.97, "text": "I think Telco's life's easier because there are a lot of customers that are very hard to serve where, like digging a fiber cable for two miles, they'll never pay off the investment to get to one house type of thing. But for space, you can really serve those customers at economically sensible rates. There's Earth observation, getting better understanding of"}, {"start": 2043.97, "end": 2075.2, "text": "Crops and climate and any natural disaster information. But I think if we want to get the public real fired up, I think we've got to have a base on the moon. That would be pretty cool. And then going beyond that, getting people to Mars."}, {"start": 2075.2, "end": 2104.9, "text": "Certainly sending people further than we've ever sent them before, I think, is captivating for the people. Yeah, exactly. It's captivating for me, I know that. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, just having some permanent presence on another heavenly body, which would be kind of the moon base, and then getting people to Mars and beyond. And, you know, that's the continuance of the dream of Apollo."}, {"start": 2104.9, "end": 2133.55, "text": "People are really looking for it. Excellent. This might be a good time to go ahead and open it up for a few questions from the audience. Where are they on the side? I think microphones are on the side. I can't tell if people are over there. The lights are so bright, it's hard to tell. I know this is a risk asking people to ask questions, but any questions? It looks like there's a few people lined up over here, so go ahead."}, {"start": 2134.06, "end": 2164.82, "text": "Hi, Elon, over here from the UK. Pleasure to ask a question to you. My question is, how are you managing the risks associated with the Falcon Heavy, and particularly the recently announced private launch around the moon? Thank you for your time. Sure. So, first of all, I should say Falcon Heavy, that requires the simultaneous"}, {"start": 2164.82, "end": 2195.34, "text": "Ignition of 27 orbit-class engines. There's a lot that could go wrong there. And I encourage people to come down to the Cape and see the first Falcon Heavy mission. It's guaranteed to be exciting. But this is one of those things that's really difficult to test on the ground. I mean, we can fire the engines on the ground, but..."}, {"start": 2195.34, "end": 2223.73, "text": "And we try to simulate the dynamics of having 27 instead of 9 booster engines and the airflow as it goes through transonic. It's going to see heavy transonic buffered. Max Q, how does it behave on a Max Q? There's a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy. Real good chance that that vehicle does not make it to orbit. I want to make sure."}, {"start": 2223.73, "end": 2253.71, "text": "Set expectations accordingly. I hope it makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest. And, yeah. Very exciting. Major pucker factor, really. That's another way to describe it."}, {"start": 2253.78, "end": 2282.8, "text": "That dwindles the amount of people who want to ride on that the first time. Full disclosure here, man. Full disclosure. I think Falcon Heavy is going to be a great vehicle. Just like so much that's really impossible to test on the ground. We'll do our best. It actually ended up being way harder to do Falcon Heavy than we thought."}, {"start": 2282.8, "end": 2311.33, "text": "At first, it sounds real easy. You just stick two first stages on as strap-on boosters. Man, how hard can that be? But then everything changes. All the loads change. Aerodynamics totally change. You've tripled the vibration and acoustics. So if you sort of break the qual levels on so much of the hardware, the amount of load you're putting through that center core is crazy. Because you've got..."}, {"start": 2311.33, "end": 2341.46, "text": "Two super powerful boosters also shoving that center core. And it's like, so we had to redesign the whole center core airframe. It's not like the Falcon 9 because it's going to take so much load. Then you've got the separation systems. And yeah, it just ended up being really way, way more difficult than we originally thought. We were pretty naive about that. But the nice thing is it's, yeah, when it..."}, {"start": 2341.46, "end": 2371.52, "text": "Fully optimized, it's about two and a half times the payload capability of a Falcon 9. So, you know, it's well over 100,000 pounds to Leo. Payload capability, 50 tons, could even get up to a little higher than that if optimized. And the nice thing is that it does have the throw capability to toss a Dragon 2 in a loop around the moon."}, {"start": 2371.52, "end": 2403.02, "text": "And then dragging to itself, the heat shield is designed with a huge amount of margin. So it's got enough margin to handle a lunar reentry. And particularly if we do initial velocity scrub, do sort of at least one pass to scrub velocity and then come in on the second pass. Yeah, but no question, whoever's on the first flight, they're brave."}, {"start": 2403.02, "end": 2432.26, "text": "Yes. Let's see. Let's go over here to this side here. Is there a question from over here? Hey, Elon. Ted Tagami with an educational company called Magnitude.io. I had the good fortune of meeting you back in September watching your five sons launch their own rockets at Black Rock Desert. Oh, yeah. Cool. Yeah. That was fun. And since then, we've actually had the great fortune of sending students' payloads up to the International Space Station."}, {"start": 2432.26, "end": 2461.55, "text": "And we're now working with CASIS to extend that. We'd like 50 million students to get on the International Space Station, their experiments on the Space Station by 2014. So my question to you is more about the innovations in education and your thoughts. That same year that I met you and your sons, you announced Ad Astra. Oh, yeah. And before the advent of Neuralase gets fully implemented, what are your thoughts on the innovations in education today? Thank you. Just thoughts on education."}, {"start": 2461.71, "end": 2490.72, "text": "Well, I think there's definitely some good schools out there, but I think some of the mistakes, at least in my opinion, that I see being made in education is that teachers do not explain why kids are being taught a subject. You just sort of get dumped into math and like, well, why are you learning math?"}, {"start": 2490.72, "end": 2519.71, "text": "What's the point of this? This seems like some, you know, for some people, like, maybe it's, I don't know why I'm being asked to do these strange problems. But, you know, the why of things is extremely important. Because, you know, our brain has evolved to not, to discard information that it thinks has no relevance. So then, if on the one hand, you're being asked to memorize or learn, say, formulas."}, {"start": 2519.71, "end": 2547.84, "text": "But you do not know why this is the case, then you have this cognitive dissonance of it seems irrelevant, but I'm being told to remember it, so I'll be punished. So I better remember it. So the why of things is very important. And then picking kind of a problem and then using various educational tools to solve that problem"}, {"start": 2547.84, "end": 2576.7, "text": "Using math or physics or economics to solve that problem is far more engaging than teaching the tools. There's a difference between if you say, well, we're going to take apart this engine and see how it works and put it back together again. And then in order to take the engine apart, we need wrenches and screwdrivers and a winch and Allen keys and whatnot."}, {"start": 2576.7, "end": 2606.3, "text": "And then in the course of solving the problem of taking the engine apart and putting it back together, you learn about wrenches and screwdrivers and all the tools that you need. And then now you understand the relevance. This is why wrenches are important. Whereas if you had a class on wrenches, you'd be like, why does this not seem that great? So tying it to solving a problem is..."}, {"start": 2606.3, "end": 2625.31, "text": "I think very powerful for establishing relevance and getting kids excited about what they're working on and having the knowledge stick. To some extent, building a CubeSat or flying an experiment on ISS"}, {"start": 2625.31, "end": 2654.66, "text": "It's like that, right? You've got the why or the relevance and the curiosity in terms of building that device or that experiment. It really is cool. It gives you a really concrete example of what you're learning and why. Yeah, exactly. I think things like CubeSats, exactly. What is a solar panel? How does orbital dynamics work? How do we power this thing?"}, {"start": 2654.66, "end": 2683.17, "text": "How do batteries work, electronics, control systems? And you need to, then you're like, oh, we want to make our satellite work. That's why we need to understand all these disciplines. So I think it's like CubeSats, student CubeSats are great. Like things like design, build, fly for model airplanes or formulae SAE. We've got to design and build a kind of a race car and race that against other people. I think those things are..."}, {"start": 2683.17, "end": 2710.93, "text": "Very powerful as learning tools. Yeah, it's very cool. All right, thank you. I see over here another question. Hi, my name is Jacob, and I actually live near the Cape. So my question is not much of a tech question, but more of what your prediction is. So about maybe 100 years after we developed sustainable colonies on Mars, do you think, and of course many other countries will also try to get to Mars, that there would be like..."}, {"start": 2710.93, "end": 2739.87, "text": "A conflict for the best resources on Mars. Like in, I guess you could say, in sort of like a interplanetary warfare, if you know what I'm trying to get at. This sounds like a video game, doesn't it? It's an idea. Mars attacks. You know, I think it's a pretty open territory on Mars. So there's, I don't think we're going to be..."}, {"start": 2739.87, "end": 2770.69, "text": "There's going to be any kind of scarcity. There's like a lot of land on Mars. Not many people. Unless they're hiding on the backside. Yeah, no, I mean, they're pretty clever. If there are people on Mars, man, they are way cleverer than us because they're hiding well. So, yeah, no, there's plenty of land on Mars. I mean, you know, the history of..."}, {"start": 2770.69, "end": 2796.06, "text": "Human civilization does contain a lot of war, so I don't think we go to Mars and be war-free forever. But there's certainly not going to be a resource-based conflict due to scarcity of resources on Mars. I think we're going to go to Mars as a multinational effort too, right? So it's not one country going and another country going and then they're fighting over wars. I think it's..."}, {"start": 2796.06, "end": 2824.43, "text": "Countries going together, and so I think we're more likely to be peaceful in that scenario as well. Yeah, but you know, I'd actually advocate for, I think it's fine if countries get together to form teams, but I think it's actually probably better if there are at least two or three country coalitions going to Mars in a friendly way, and competing to see who can make the most progress."}, {"start": 2824.62, "end": 2852.96, "text": "And if you look at, say, the Olympics, it would be pretty boring if everyone just linked arms and crossed the finishing line at the same time. Friendly, but it would not be... More like the opening ceremonies, I guess. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think friendly competition is a good thing. Very good. Well, I think NASA wants to be part of one of those coalitions with the United States, and so I know we're actually trying to build such a coalition now."}, {"start": 2852.96, "end": 2881.78, "text": "Let's see, from over here, another question. Hi, I'm Yotam Ariel, founder and CEO of Bluefield. We are deploying methane tracking microsatellites. And my question to you, I hope to learn your thoughts on advancing remote sensing capabilities of critical gases on Earth and on Mars. Thank you. That's a pretty esoteric question. Remote sensing of gases, yeah, I think..."}, {"start": 2881.84, "end": 2913.06, "text": "That's something that's going to be important. Mars has a number of trace gases that are pretty helpful. It's very helpful that Mars has CO2 and nitrogen and argon. Those are really helpful gases to have in the atmosphere. It's mostly CO2, but that little bit of nitrogen and argon is really going to be pretty helpful. And whatever other trace gases we can get out of the atmosphere. We always say Mars has just enough atmosphere to..."}, {"start": 2913.06, "end": 2936.03, "text": "It's not enough to be really helpful in terms of aerobraking, but it sure makes it a lot harder. So it's just enough to be difficult. But in terms of in-situ research utilization, when we get there, to be able to build, to get your oxygen, and hopefully we'll have water that can get hydrogen, manufacture hydrogen on the planet. Hopefully there are enough resources that will..."}, {"start": 2936.03, "end": 2965.76, "text": "We don't have to carry everything with us. Well, the nice thing, if you've got H2O and CO2, you can build hydrocarbons of any kind. So you can build plastics. You can build short-chain, long-chain hydrocarbons. The current SpaceX thought for kind of a Mars transport vehicle is primarily methane-based system because you get to have kind of a smaller, I mean, the tanks are half the size."}, {"start": 2965.76, "end": 2987.7, "text": "And Mars with a CO2 atmosphere and a lot of water rise is great for that. Going beyond Mars, I think there's a lot of merit for hydrogen because then you only need water. But that's also our current thinking on that front."}, {"start": 2987.7, "end": 3017.26, "text": "So speaking of that, last year at Guadalajara at the ISE conference, you talked about plans to go to Mars, and I know you guys have been working on that since then. Yep. So you plan at some point to talk about that work publicly? Yeah, I'm thinking probably the upcoming ISE in Adelaide might be a good opportunity to do the updated version of the Mars architecture, because it's evolved quite a bit since that last talk."}, {"start": 3017.26, "end": 3047.17, "text": "I might ask for questions to be collected of time for that IAC. Good strategy. There were some very enthusiastic people to the mic at the IAC last time. The key thing that better be figured out is how do you pay for this whole something to go to Mars? That's super expensive."}, {"start": 3047.17, "end": 3076.45, "text": "And I kind of think if we downsize the Mars vehicle, make it capable of doing Earth orbit activity as well as Mars activity, then maybe we could pay for it by using it for Earth orbit activity. That's one of the key elements in the new architecture."}, {"start": 3076.45, "end": 3106.3, "text": "It's similar to what was at ISC, but it's a little bit smaller, still big, but I think this one's got a shot at being real on the economic front. That's the trick. All right. Let's see. I think another question is over here. Hi, Elon. Eva Jane Lark. I have mostly one important question and one little aside."}, {"start": 3106.3, "end": 3132.66, "text": "Can you talk a little bit about your R&D strategy for your companies and is it all focused on short-term problem solution or how much and in what fashion do you allocate time and money towards R&D spending on some of the long-term goals you're working at? And then just as a little aside for the boring company, are you looking at not only as a transportation but potentially as a habitat company?"}, {"start": 3132.66, "end": 3162.64, "text": "For not just tunnels, but habitats on Mars or the moon? Yeah, actually, so I do think getting good at digging tunnels could be really helpful for Mars. Because once you've got a kind of a, it would be a different optimization for a Mars-boring machine versus an Earth-boring machine. But for sure, there's going to need to be a lot of ice mining on Mars and mining in general to get raw materials."}, {"start": 3162.64, "end": 3188.11, "text": "And then along the way, building underground habitats where you've got good radiation shielding. And you kind of have as much, you can build really an entire city underground if you wanted to. I think people are still going to want to go to the surface from time to time, but you can build a tremendous amount underground."}, {"start": 3188.11, "end": 3218.27, "text": "With the right boring technology on Mars. So I do think that there's some overlap in that technology development arena. And then R&D, you know, I try to spend as much on R&D as we can at my companies. So we really max out R&D. I mean, I spend most of my time on engineering. That's probably 80% of my week is engineering meetings."}, {"start": 3218.27, "end": 3254.72, "text": "And so any money that we get in revenue, we put that right back into R&D. And some of it is longer term. Yeah. Like, for example, the Mars vehicle. We're looking at doing some Mars communication stuff, potentially with NASA. Yeah, but I'm super pro-R&D. Engineering is my most fun thing."}, {"start": 3254.72, "end": 3282.08, "text": "So try to dial that to the max. Over here. Hi, my name is Chris LaFleur. I work for Congress for Representative John Conyers. A couple days ago, I read about you talking about artificial intelligence and the dangers of it and how as a businessman, you are totally against regulation and stuff like that. But as a human being, you think it's critical that we get ahead of this issue."}, {"start": 3282.08, "end": 3310.94, "text": "Can you please elaborate on what are you seeing that we don't get to see and what, as a policy maker, I should be looking to do to sort of, I guess, protect us all? Sure. Well, I think it is difficult to appreciate just how far artificial intelligence has advanced and how far it is advancing."}, {"start": 3310.94, "end": 3339.9, "text": "Because we have a double exponential at work. We have an exponential increase in hardware capability, and we have an exponential increase in software talent that is going into AI. So whenever you have a double exponential, it's very difficult to predict. Predictions are almost always going to be too conservative in terms of thinking it will be further out than it is. You start to see things like..."}, {"start": 3339.9, "end": 3368.38, "text": "I don't know if you've seen the videos where you can really quite accurately video simulate someone and put words in their mouth that they never spoke. Use Google this. It's really pretty amazing. And then they had something called a generative adversarial network. It had two of them compete with one another to make the most convincing video."}, {"start": 3368.38, "end": 3399.94, "text": "One would generate the video, and then the other one would identify where it looked fake, and then the other one would fix that, and then it would go back and forth to the point where you couldn't tell which one was the real video and which one was the fake one. And, you know, obviously there have been some very public things like the defeat of AlphaGo, or defeat of Go by AlphaGo, the world's best Go champion. People thought defeating Go was..."}, {"start": 3399.94, "end": 3432.88, "text": "Either never or 20 years away. That was the world's best Go player was defeated. And now that same AlphaGo system can defeat the top 50 players simultaneously with 0% of chance of them winning. And that's one year later. So the degrees of freedom to which artificial intelligence is able to apply itself are really increasing, I think, by 10 orders of magnitude a year. That's really crazy."}, {"start": 3433.52, "end": 3466.26, "text": "And this is on hardware that is really not as well suited for neural nets. Like a GPU is maybe an order of magnitude better than a CPU, but a chip that is designed optimally for neural nets is an order of magnitude better than a GPU. And there are a whole bunch of neural net optimized chips coming out."}, {"start": 3466.38, "end": 3493.52, "text": "Either late this year or next year. So I think part of the role of government is to make sure the public is safe, like to take care of public safety issues. So I think the right move is to establish some government regulatory agency, which at first is just there to gain insight."}, {"start": 3493.97, "end": 3523.34, "text": "It's not about shooting from the hip and just putting in rules before anyone knows anything. But you've got to set up the agency. It's got to gain insight. Once that insight is gained, then start applying rules and regulations. We have that for aircraft, the FAA. We've got that for cars. We've got that for drugs, for food. And I don't think anyone wants the FAA to go away or the FDA to go away."}, {"start": 3523.34, "end": 3547.44, "text": "Any of those regulatory agencies. I think we just need to make sure people do not cut corners on AI safety. It's going to be a real big deal. And it's going to come on like a tidal wave. All right, thanks. Let's see. Over here, question. Good afternoon."}, {"start": 3547.44, "end": 3574.34, "text": "My name is Anna and I'm a film director and VR producer. And I'm currently working on a documentary film about future scenarios for humanity, which actually brought me to this amazing conference where I can learn and complete my research on the space exploration area. And in the previous few days, there was a lot of talks, which is, I think, an extremely beautiful phenomenon about this."}, {"start": 3574.34, "end": 3596.56, "text": "A kind of dual philosophy behind space exploration and space solutions about solutions that are coming back to Earth that can benefit humankind in a very, very wide area. And today we've been talking about the commercialization of the space area. And it brings a lot of questions to me about social responsibility behind..."}, {"start": 3596.56, "end": 3623.92, "text": "Gigantic companies that would actually probably take over how the space industry would develop in the nearest future. So I'm very curious how you see in long term these kind of benefits for people or social goals for SpaceX and especially in the context that you are an entrepreneur that invests in infrastructure and transport."}, {"start": 3623.92, "end": 3653.42, "text": "Phew."}, {"start": 3654.0, "end": 3685.33, "text": "I'm not sure I fully understood the question. Yeah, or the answer. Yes, I think mainly about long-term benefits from the R&D endeavors that your companies would conduct that could actually also not only building a service that can be useful for business or for people, but also"}, {"start": 3685.33, "end": 3712.99, "text": "How do you see the social responsibility of the companies who actually do that and where are the limits of what can be done, what should be done? The same way as you think about, for example, OpenAI mission in the area of AI development."}, {"start": 3712.99, "end": 3739.71, "text": "So could we translate that into space industry endeavors? Well, I think there's a pretty big social benefit or civilizational benefit to being a multi-planet civilization. That dramatically increases the probable lifespan of human civilization if we are a multi-planet species versus a single-planet species. But sometimes that is misinterpreted as..."}, {"start": 3739.71, "end": 3769.28, "text": "Well, shouldn't we just focus everything on Earth? It's like, well, you know, we should focus almost everything on Earth, but I think there should be maybe 1% or 2% of our resources that are applied to making life multi-planetary because there's certain irreducible risks on Earth. It's possible in the future that there's some global war that knocks us back many levels of technology. You know, certainly if it was a..."}, {"start": 3769.28, "end": 3798.38, "text": "Major nuclear award would. And just sort of the general decay of societies over time. We see this throughout history. If you look at ancient Egypt or ancient Rome, they had reached peak technology levels and then for reasons that aren't obvious, just declined. And so I think just having..."}, {"start": 3798.38, "end": 3828.85, "text": "Being a multi-planet civilization, having human bases throughout the solar system, I think, first of all, I think that's very exciting and inspiring, and there need to be things that are exciting and inspiring and make you look forward to waking up in the morning. It's like, yay, the future is exciting. This is underappreciated. Like tunnels. Sorry."}, {"start": 3828.85, "end": 3862.72, "text": "There's got to be things that make you excited about life. It can't just be problem solving, one sort of miserable problem after another. It's got to be like, I'm fired up about the future, and here's why. And space is one of those things that does that for people all around the world. When Apollo 11, when they landed on the moon, that was something for all of humanity. It really was."}, {"start": 3862.72, "end": 3893.94, "text": "If there was like one TV for 50 miles around, people would walk 50 miles just to go find that one TV to watch it happen. So sometimes people think, well, what about the poor nations of the world? They're like, you know what? It inspires them too. And we need things like that. We don't have enough of them. All right, thank you. Over here. Hi, Elon. Quick question."}, {"start": 3893.94, "end": 3921.17, "text": "I heard that Dragon is no longer planned to land propulsively. Is that true? Yeah, that was a tough decision. Dragon 2 is capable of landing propulsively, and technically it still is, although you'd have to land it on some pretty soft landing pad because we've..."}, {"start": 3921.17, "end": 3950.72, "text": "Deleted the little legs that pop out of the heat shield. But it's technically still capable of doing it. The reason we decided not to pursue that heavily is it would have taken a tremendous amount of effort to qualify that for safety, particularly for crew transport. And then there was a time when I thought that the Dragon approach to landing on Mars"}, {"start": 3950.72, "end": 3981.23, "text": "We've got a base heat shield and side-mounted thrusters would be the right way to land on Mars. But now I'm pretty confident that is not the right way and that there's a far better approach. And that's what the next generation of SpaceX rockets and spacecraft is going to do."}, {"start": 3981.55, "end": 4015.06, "text": "Yeah, so just the difficulty of safely qualifying Dragon for propulsive landing and the fact that from a technology evolution standpoint, it was no longer in line with what we were confident was the optimal way to land on Mars. That's why we are not pursuing it. It could be something that we bring back later, but it doesn't seem like the right way to apply resources right now. Go here."}, {"start": 4015.06, "end": 4045.04, "text": "Hi, Elon. My name is Ellia Overby. I'm a PhD student studying genomics. We've all together made a lot of technological progress on space systems. My question isn't about the technology. It's about the biology. What are the principal biological concerns you have about human health on long-duration missions, such as a mission to Mars? And have you identified any solutions to these problems? Well, I'd say going to Mars is not for the faint of heart."}, {"start": 4045.23, "end": 4079.23, "text": "It's risky, dangerous, uncomfortable, and you might die. Now do you want to go? For a lot of people, the answer is going to be hell no, and for some it's going to be hell yes. There will be issues. I don't think it's going to be a case of you get irradiated to death along the way. I don't think that's the case at all."}, {"start": 4079.23, "end": 4109.82, "text": "You know, the radiation levels sort of roughly, you know, in worst case scenario, really kind of about equivalent to smoking on the way there. Now, smoking's pretty bad. But I think with some moderate shielding, we can cut down on a large percentage of the incremental radiation. And that should be enough that the sort of marginal risk of,"}, {"start": 4109.82, "end": 4137.2, "text": "Cancer is not something that is going to be a showstopper. That's my best assessment to date. Certainly learning a lot about solar winds and fast particles and whatnot. And one of the things I learned recently that I didn't quite understand is that I always thought of the particles from the sun."}, {"start": 4137.2, "end": 4166.77, "text": "The solar wind is going kind of straight out from the sun, but they follow the magnetic field lines. So you actually can get the particles coming at you from the side, even though it's kind of a directional particle to the sun. So you do need some amount of protection, at least on kind of four or five sides."}, {"start": 4167.12, "end": 4197.47, "text": "But I think it's not a showstopper, but it's definitely, you know, if safety is your top goal, I wouldn't go to Mars. You know, there's a bunch of work going on at ISS right now to understand the risk to the humans for long duration. Certainly, we're in the Van Allen Belt, so the radiation environment is different. And part of it is understanding what happens to the humans the longer you stay. So far, we've had humans stay a little bit longer than a year, and that's it. So in the history of the species,"}, {"start": 4197.47, "end": 4225.57, "text": "We've had someone off the planet for a little more than a year, and we're talking three years to go to Mars. Well, you know, I think you can get the... Perhaps shorter, but it's in the years. So there's potential for things out there that we haven't found yet. And so we'll learn more as we go along. Hopefully learn more before ISS is done. Yeah, it's interesting. Actually, you know, Mars is only the same sort of..."}, {"start": 4225.57, "end": 4255.07, "text": "Rough quadrant of Earth, roughly six months every two years. By same, I mean slightly offset because it's like a transfer quadrant. But if you can get the ship to and from Mars inside that six-month window, then you get to reuse it twice as often. So there's actually a lot of merit to being able to get to Mars in under three months. If you can get there quick and back, of course you could make some bigger..."}, {"start": 4255.07, "end": 4283.06, "text": "Bigger vehicle and resupply. So anyway, interesting problem that I'm sure we'll work on here as we go forward. A lot of Earth orbit refueling. It's not really mostly oxygen, but it's propellant reload. There's no good word for propellant for fuel plus oxygen. Prop, I guess. Prop load. We'll have to invent a new word, right? That's it."}, {"start": 4284.21, "end": 4322.51, "text": "Okay, a question over here. Dimitri Stradubov, FOMS in Los Angeles. First, thank you very much for digging those tunnels. They will be really handy during Olympics. My question is, like with Tesla cars, will we see you riding the crew module to ISS and back? Thank you. I would like to at some point. I would like to. Yeah."}, {"start": 4322.51, "end": 4353.66, "text": "I think assuming things work out, you know, I'd like to, yeah, maybe three, three or four years, something. Yeah, it'd be great. All right, we'll put you on the manifest. Okay. Next question over here. Hello, I'm Anna-Sophia Bagirayev, and I have kind of a follow-up on the biology question from before."}, {"start": 4353.66, "end": 4383.18, "text": "It is one thing to say, obviously, it's not going to be a safe experience to go to Mars, but there are some technologies essential, especially if we're looking to putting humans there permanently, that are going to have to be developed with biological capabilities. Speaking of like flight suits, habitats, eventual artificial biospheres for people to live in. Do you see your company playing a part in the development of those technologies? Do you see biology having a place in SpaceX's work, or will that be outsourced to other..."}, {"start": 4383.18, "end": 4417.79, "text": "And before you answer, you should know that Anna-Sophie over here won a genes in space competition and flew on a SpaceX Dragon. Anna-Sophie, was that SpaceX 10? When was that? Eight. SpaceX 8. And a very smart young lady. In fact, I think she's smarter than me in high school than I am now. Anyway, so good luck with your answer. Sure."}, {"start": 4417.79, "end": 4447.86, "text": "Biology obviously has a significant role to play in any kind of permanent Mars base or city. I mean, for SpaceX, we're trying to make sure we can get people there reliably at a cost they can afford and get cargo there at the right cost number. Because there's kind of a threshold cost per ticket or cost per ton to the surface of Mars,"}, {"start": 4447.86, "end": 4475.79, "text": "A self-sustaining city can develop and above which it cannot. That sort of critical economic and technical threshold is what we're focused on at SpaceX. We'll probably also have to do a fair bit of work on propellant depot, basically a propellant plant on Mars. But then our intent is to"}, {"start": 4476.37, "end": 4505.94, "text": "We don't want to get in the way of what others are doing. We want to make sure that, let's say if somebody makes an investment and wants to do something on Mars, create a business or do some scientific endeavor, that SpaceX does not compete with them. Because they need to feel like, okay, we're not going to just go in and compete with them arbitrarily. We want to make sure that they feel it's going to be a fruitful environment."}, {"start": 4505.94, "end": 4535.62, "text": "To go there and do something special. So our focus is going to be on transport, fundamental utilities, survivability. And we'll do more if we need to do more. But we want to make sure that lots of people can go and do all sorts of things on Mars or the moon. And not feel like SpaceX is going to do anything but try to help them. We don't want to interfere or compete."}, {"start": 4535.62, "end": 4565.52, "text": "They're going to feel like the opportunity is there. Next question over here. Hi, Elon. My name is Tracy, and I'm not here for any reason related to my career or to my area of study. I'm actually here as a very cool and only slightly overbearing mother to my 10-year-old daughter, Harper, and a sister to my 14-year-old brother, Ben, who are both in the audience today."}, {"start": 4565.52, "end": 4594.05, "text": "And who think of you the way that I guess I thought of Madonna at the same age. Well, that gives you some wardrobe options. That's some high praise there. Thank you. In the spirit of that, I wanted to get your advice for our two kids who are very interested in space and engineering and entrepreneurism. Thank you."}, {"start": 4594.05, "end": 4624.4, "text": "I'm sorry. Space, engineering, and entrepreneurialism. What's your advice? Oh, advice. What's your advice? Yeah, well, you know, there's a lot of technical problems to solve. So I guess we'll be sort of, you know, starting kind of engineering and physics and biosciences and that kind of thing would be the way to go. Yeah. There are going to be a lot of problems to solve to make a city work on Mars."}, {"start": 4624.91, "end": 4653.9, "text": "We were thinking of, just as sort of a semi-joke, putting a job description on our website for urban planner in brackets, Mars. But there's going to be a tremendous amount of problems to solve. There's a lot of building, building and problem solving. So those are the right skills to work on if someone's interested in going beyond Earth or space in general."}, {"start": 4656.05, "end": 4688.98, "text": "Thank you. We're glad you're here. We're glad your kids are here, too. They're the future for all of us, so thanks for coming. Over here. Hi, my name is Gerard Valle, NASA Johnson Space Center, and my question is, in your quest to colonize Mars, do you foresee utilizing expandable spacecraft modules as a stepping stone or even a final utilization? Well, I think there's definitely going to be..."}, {"start": 4688.98, "end": 4721.79, "text": "Inflatable things on Mars itself. In the journey there, there might be some amount of inflatable, but we're not currently baselining that. On Mars itself, I think there'd be quite a lot. Thank you. Inflatable and perhaps just building it with the materials that's already present. Yeah, exactly. Local materials are key. You don't have to carry it with you. Yeah, tunnels."}, {"start": 4721.79, "end": 4751.81, "text": "Tunnels. You've got to get that tunnel, that boring machine there, though. That's going to be... Well, right now, the Earth ones are really heavy. Like, really heavy. Well, they're not built by aerospace engineers. You're not worried about weight for an Earth tunneling machine. You actually want one that's nice and heavy. But for a Mars one, you'd have to redesign it to be super light. That's a tricky one. And then just taking into account the different conditions on Mars and everything. Yeah."}, {"start": 4751.81, "end": 4778.14, "text": "It's interesting, the Curiosity Rover and the tires being chewed up by the sharpness of just the dirt, the gravel there. It's a very foreign environment to us, and even in very subtle ways. Let's see, next question over here. Hi, Alan. My name is Prafula Chandra. I'm a regenerative medicine scientist from Wake Forest University. My question is regarding your company, Neuralink."}, {"start": 4778.14, "end": 4808.91, "text": "That makes brain machine interfaces. So what do you think this technology, how is it useful for humans when they go into low Earth orbits or even deep space explorations? And do you have any plans in that direction? Well, the reason I wanted to create Neuralink was primarily as an offset to the existential risk associated with artificial intelligence. I think we will..."}, {"start": 4809.42, "end": 4838.48, "text": "Human intelligence will not be able to beat AI. So then, as the saying goes, if you can't beat him, join him kind of thing. So I think having some basic kind of way to link human will en masse to the outcome of AI, having AI be an extension of individual human will, that's really the point of..."}, {"start": 4838.48, "end": 4868.1, "text": "Neuralink. Now along the way, I think there'll be a lot of good that's achieved in addressing any brain damage that's as a result of a stroke or a lesion or something congenital or just loss of memory when you get old, that kind of thing. And that'll happen well before it becomes a sort of..."}, {"start": 4868.1, "end": 4900.4, "text": "Brain, AI, symbiote situation. You'll see it coming. It won't happen all of a sudden. I do think it increases the long-term relevance of human exploration. For me, it increased my motivation long-term that it doesn't just need to be done by robots."}, {"start": 4900.4, "end": 4919.74, "text": "I don't know if that answers your question. Does that answer your question? Oh, yes. All right. Let's see. Maybe one more question here, and we'll wrap it up. On the left here. Okay. Hi."}, {"start": 4919.74, "end": 4939.55, "text": "Kalle from Space Nation. As we are building the first global astronaut training program for everyone, my question relates what you earlier said about International Space Station and how it's a shame that it's not better known around the world as probably compared, for example, the shuttle program."}, {"start": 4939.55, "end": 4967.82, "text": "Thinking that in the future we need thousands and more space pioneers, so how do you see the significance of this public engagement and especially in the time where we have more and more tools to do that and do you have specific plans on that and how you see that affecting, accelerating or does it have that kind of effect for the whole humanity's transition to space and the new space era? Sure."}, {"start": 4968.27, "end": 4992.62, "text": "Well, I think just getting more human spaceflight is going to automatically engage the public. As you point out, with the space shuttle, there was a lot more engagement when the space shuttle was launching. I think if the public sees some path, even if it's long-term, where they themselves may be able to..."}, {"start": 4992.62, "end": 5022.48, "text": "Go to orbit or beyond or to the moon or Mars. I think their interest level increases dramatically. And it may not be even that they want to go, but they have a son or a daughter or a brother or a friend that really wants to do it. And so they want to support their friends and family in that ambition. But it really needs to be something ultimately that looks like it's going to be accessible to a large number of people."}, {"start": 5022.48, "end": 5051.92, "text": "I think we'll get a large number of people engaged. One of the things about engagement, too, I think for the U.S. anyway, will be we're having people launch from the United States. I can't tell you how many people around the world have said, oh, you guys are still flying. Well, absolutely. We never stopped flying. We've had people living on board ISS for almost 17 years. But they don't see the smoke and the fire. They see that. They turn on the TV and there's a shuttle going and it's got..."}, {"start": 5051.92, "end": 5080.75, "text": "Thank you very much for joining the conference."}, {"start": 5093.49, "end": 5110.06, "text": "You're a big part of ISS and a big part of the research and development that goes on in ISS, so thanks very much. I'm glad you've been able to be helpful, and thanks for having me. I'd like just to extend my thanks also for an incredibly insightful and frank discussion that you guys have had."}, {"start": 5110.06, "end": 5136.32, "text": "With the groups, we really truly appreciate it. And as my takeaway, since we are at the ISS R&D conference, I loved your quote of, I don't think people understand how cool ISS is. So I hope you all go and spread that word, and tunnels are cool too. So we appreciate it. We're running a little bit late, so if you're going to the technical sessions, if you could kind of walk..."}, {"start": 5136.32, "end": 5154.83, "text": "Thank you all very much."}]}