Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's the big tick. I'm
Speaker 1: west Kasova today after the Starship launch fell short. What's
Speaker 1: next for SpaceX and for the goal of putting Americans
Speaker 1: back on the Moon.
Speaker 2: The SpaceX is that you rocket the biggest and most
Speaker 2: powerful ever built, that's blasted off on its first test light,
Speaker 2: the Starship.
Speaker 3: Of super Heavy and a gift of the Starsick engines.
Speaker 3: When STARSIP sufferates, we light up six hungines in a
Speaker 3: staggered sequence. That all goes well, those six engines will
Speaker 3: burn for almost six and a.
Speaker 2: Half but just about four minutes after you can see
Speaker 2: Starship sort of spinning out.
Speaker 3: Of controlsion of the biggest rocket ever moments after it launch.
Speaker 1: Just this morning, Massa of course is counting on that
Speaker 1: rocket made by SpaceX to carry astronauts to the Moon's
Speaker 1: surface and potentially eventually Mars.
Speaker 4: Fortunately no one was on board.
Speaker 1: It was a test flight and the FAA is now investigating.
Speaker 1: In the days since the dramatic mid flight explosion of
Speaker 1: the SpaceX Starship, the company and the Federal Aviation Administration
Speaker 1: had been working to figure out exactly what went wrong
Speaker 1: and how to fix it. For the next test launch.
Speaker 1: The super heavy rocket also scattered pulverized concrete more than
Speaker 1: six miles from the launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas,
Speaker 1: and now environmental groups and a Native American tribe are
Speaker 1: suing the FAA. They say the agency approved the launch
Speaker 1: too hastily and should have done a more thorough environmental review.
Speaker 1: So what happens now. Bloomberg's intrepid space reporter Lauren Grush
Speaker 1: is back today to tell us, Lauren, do we have
Speaker 1: any idea yet why this launch failed?
Speaker 5: Well, we kind of got some indications at the very
Speaker 5: beginning if you looked at pictures or watched the live
Speaker 5: stream at all.
Speaker 3: Right now, it looks like we saw the start of
Speaker 3: the flip. But obviously we're seeing from the ground cameras
Speaker 3: the entire starship stack continuing to rotate. We should have
Speaker 3: had separation by now. Obviously this does not appear to
Speaker 3: be a nominal situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does appear to be spinning.
Speaker 5: But I do want to remind everyone that everything after
Speaker 5: clearing the tower was icing on the cake. You could
Speaker 5: see that some of the engines had gone out.
Speaker 4: So there's thirty three engines raptor engines at.
Speaker 5: The base of this vehicle, and not all of them
Speaker 5: were working throughout the entire flight. But you know, SpaceX
Speaker 5: has said before that they can still get to orbit
Speaker 5: with one or two out, so you know, that wasn't
Speaker 5: a clear indication that anything was super wrong.
Speaker 4: I think what really.
Speaker 5: Started to indicate there was something going on with at
Speaker 5: the point of a process called stage separation. So about
Speaker 5: two and a half to three minutes into the flight,
Speaker 5: the super heavy booster which is needed to loft the
Speaker 5: starship component the top of the vehicle into space, are
Speaker 5: supposed to separate, and that process just didn't happen, and
Speaker 5: then the vehicle, the entire vehicle just started spinning out
Speaker 5: of control in a weird way, and we were all
Speaker 5: kind of waiting for a stage separation to happen, but
Speaker 5: that just didn't happen. And then eventually the rocket blew up,
Speaker 5: and we learned later that SpaceX had actually intentionally blown
Speaker 5: up the rocket with its flight termination system.
Speaker 4: It's a matter of public safety.
Speaker 5: They obviously didn't want that rocket, you know, swirling back
Speaker 5: onto land and hurting anybody, so they made the decision.
Speaker 4: To get rid of it.
Speaker 1: And is there any indication about why it failed, like
Speaker 1: why that super heavy booster didn't separate.
Speaker 5: I really don't want to speculate. There's all sorts of
Speaker 5: ideas running around. Maybe it didn't get enough thrust because
Speaker 5: of the engines that had flamed out. You know, it's
Speaker 5: unclear exactly why it didn't separate, why did.
Speaker 4: It start spending like that. I'm sure we'll learn all
Speaker 4: the details.
Speaker 5: In due time, but as of now, it's still an
Speaker 5: open question.
Speaker 1: So it's not just SpaceX that's trying to get the answers,
Speaker 1: but the federal government, right, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA,
Speaker 1: is also doing an investigation.
Speaker 5: Right. They're overseeing a mishap investigation. It's actually a pretty
Speaker 5: standard type of investigation they do whenever a rocket fails
Speaker 5: in flight or has an issue like this. So I'll
Speaker 5: be working with SpaceX on it, and Starship won't fly
Speaker 5: until they figure out what happened and you know, determined
Speaker 5: that the appropriate mitigation measures are in place.
Speaker 4: For it to fly again.
Speaker 1: One other thing that happened is when the rocket took off,
Speaker 1: it really wreaked havoc on the whole launch area, I
Speaker 1: mean just destroyed it. And there's a few chunks of
Speaker 1: concrete being thrown off. Was that supposed to happen or
Speaker 1: is that something that took them by surprise.
Speaker 5: I don't think SpaceX wanted that to happen, but I
Speaker 5: think there were some concerns ahead of the launch that
Speaker 5: that might happen. So essentially there was a big slab
Speaker 5: of concrete underneath the launch pad. Now the launch mount,
Speaker 5: which you know holds the rocket and where the rocket
Speaker 5: launches from, was raised above the ground, So that was
Speaker 5: supposed to help with you know, once they knighted those engines,
Speaker 5: but unfortunately, I mean, like I said, it's thirty three engines.
Speaker 5: Not all of them ignited, but a lot of them did.
Speaker 5: And that is just an intense, insane amount of pressure
Speaker 5: and forces all concentrated in one flat surface, and by
Speaker 5: all indications, it looked as if it just shattered the
Speaker 5: concrete underneath the pad, sent chunks flying. I mean, the
Speaker 5: US Fish and Wildlife essentially confirmed that chunks of concrete
Speaker 5: and metal just went everywhere.
Speaker 4: And so that retaboc on the infrastructu.
Speaker 1: Sure could get a sense of just how much is
Speaker 1: being invested in this starship that immediately after the failure,
Speaker 1: you started to see congratulations coming in including from the
Speaker 1: head of NASA saying, you know, no one gets it
Speaker 1: right the first time, but this is a great sign
Speaker 1: of the future. Is that just putting the best face
Speaker 1: on this or are they right?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think this is essentially how SpaceX tests, right.
Speaker 5: They are not afraid to fail very publicly, and I
Speaker 5: wouldn't even use the term failure because they wouldn't use
Speaker 5: the term failure. You know, elon before this launch very
Speaker 5: much caution that this was a test launch, this is
Speaker 5: still very experimental rocket and that if they cleared the
Speaker 5: launchpad that would be considered success for them, And that's
Speaker 5: essentially what happened. They cleared the launch pad. Now the
Speaker 5: launch pad's not in the best of shape at the moment,
Speaker 5: but they didn't completely destroy it, so I guess that's
Speaker 5: a win. But yes, you know, they really just needed
Speaker 5: to see this vehicle fly because they have seeing the
Speaker 5: entire vehicle working together in the air before, so to
Speaker 5: them that is valuable data that they'll just apply to
Speaker 5: the next flight.
Speaker 4: And we were out in South padre after the launch
Speaker 4: and the mood was extremely positive.
Speaker 5: They ultimately see any kind of tests and moving forward
Speaker 5: in this program as a good sign and you know,
Speaker 5: others might feel differently, but for SpaceX, this is just
Speaker 5: part of their culture and how they get to space.
Speaker 1: And so in that way, I guess you really could
Speaker 1: say that this isn't spin that it was a success,
Speaker 1: because even though the mission itself wasn't completed as hoped,
Speaker 1: the thing did get pretty high in the sky.
Speaker 5: Right And presumably during the next launch they'll get a
Speaker 5: little farther, and then then one after that they'll get
Speaker 5: a little farther than that. And one of the big
Speaker 5: points of this program is that they are going to
Speaker 5: launch a bunch and that's part of the starship architecture.
Speaker 5: This vehicle really needs to fly back to back with
Speaker 5: increasing frequency if it's really going to work as designs.
Speaker 4: So, yes, this launch.
Speaker 5: Got a lot of fanfare, as it should have, but
Speaker 5: this is by far not the last time we're going
Speaker 5: to see this rocket launch. So we're probably going to
Speaker 5: see a lot of failures, but we're also going to
Speaker 5: see a lot of launches, and so this was just
Speaker 5: the beginning of what's really going to hopefully ramp up
Speaker 5: over the next few years.
Speaker 1: And in fact, not long after this test flight, Must
Speaker 1: said he thinks we're going to have another one on
Speaker 1: the launch pad this year, given the condition of the
Speaker 1: launchpad and what heaven do you think that's realistic?
Speaker 5: You know, I never want to make predictions. In fact,
Speaker 5: SpaceX's gwynshot Wall always says, you know, I don't like
Speaker 5: to make predictions.
Speaker 4: It makes a liar out of me.
Speaker 5: And Elan is notorious for making very bold, very aspirational
Speaker 5: predictions for timelines. But given the state of the launchpad
Speaker 5: and the extensive repairs they're going to have to do
Speaker 5: to their infrastructure, also presume they're going to have to
Speaker 5: make some changes. There are a lot of questions about
Speaker 5: why there wasn't a better flame diversion system for those engines,
Speaker 5: and Elon mentioned a steel plate that they were hoping
Speaker 5: to put under the launch pad before this flight with
Speaker 5: water running through it. Perhaps they'll put that in for
Speaker 5: future flights. There's still some questions that that will work.
Speaker 5: But all that's going to take time. It's going to
Speaker 5: take money. I don't know how much time. I don't
Speaker 5: know how much money. They do work fast. But I
Speaker 5: think maybe Elon's prediction of one to two months, which
Speaker 5: he said on Twitter, might be a little ambitious.
Speaker 1: Does he have a hangar full of these things waiting
Speaker 1: around that they could roll out there or do they
Speaker 1: have to build another one from sprat.
Speaker 5: So that is one thing that is extremely oppressive about
Speaker 5: the starship program is that they are popping these things
Speaker 5: out pretty fast.
Speaker 4: I don't know the exact.
Speaker 5: Count of what is in the hangars over at Starbase
Speaker 5: their launch facility in Bokachika, but I did get a.
Speaker 4: Glimpse swallows down there.
Speaker 5: There's definitely vehicles in the production line that are being built,
Speaker 5: and some are stored in those tents, so I don't
Speaker 5: know how ready they are, but that is part of
Speaker 5: the starship architecture.
Speaker 4: They are constantly building new vehicles.
Speaker 5: And sometimes they work so fast and iterate so quickly
Speaker 5: that they'll build a vehicle and then it won't be
Speaker 5: long before that vehicle is obsolete and a new vehicle
Speaker 5: has been built that's better designed and ready to go.
Speaker 5: And so it's very possible that their starship hardware is
Speaker 5: ready or will be ready soon.
Speaker 4: It might be the launch pad that's the ultimate.
Speaker 1: Issue after the break, What does this setback mean for
Speaker 1: NASA's ambitious plans to return people to the Moon.
Speaker 2: And here we go. Hydrogen burnoff the Nighters, initiate seven
Speaker 2: six five four stage Agent start three two one boosters
Speaker 2: a Magician, and lift off of Artamus one. We rise
Speaker 2: together back to the boon and beyond all four.
Speaker 1: Lauren, you say, how Elon Musk is very willing to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money iterating and failing again and
Speaker 1: again until they get it right, and NASA is certainly
Speaker 1: hoping that he gets it right pretty soon, because they've
Speaker 1: met a lot on this spacecraft being the thing that
Speaker 1: returns the US to the Moon.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, you know, before that partnership was announced, Starship was
Speaker 5: really more or less Elon Musk's pet project. He started
Speaker 5: SpaceX to take people to deep space and to start
Speaker 5: a settlement on Mars, and Starship was ultimately kind of
Speaker 5: the key to that vision.
Speaker 4: But yes, a few.
Speaker 5: Years back, NASA partnered with SpaceX on the Starship program
Speaker 5: and gave them a nearly three billion dollar contract to
Speaker 5: develop the vehicle into a lander that could take the
Speaker 5: agency's astronauts to and from the.
Speaker 4: Surface of the Moon.
Speaker 5: So that significantly raised the stakes for the program and
Speaker 5: also made it a government funded program in the process,
Speaker 5: and so there's now a lot more writing on it.
Speaker 5: Than just Elon's dream of starting a.
Speaker 1: Mars settlement, and here we are in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: NASA has this goal of returning to the Moon by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. So that's a pretty ambitious timeline.
Speaker 5: That is very ambitious, and I think motht reporters that
Speaker 5: have been following this that you'll talk to will tell.
Speaker 4: You that no one really believes that that's going to happen.
Speaker 5: I would not be surprised if we heard very soon
Speaker 5: that twenty twenty six becomes the new deadline.
Speaker 4: I think they're mostly setting it.
Speaker 5: As a goalpost and ambitious goalposts and trying to work
Speaker 5: towards that to motivate everyone to work with urgency.
Speaker 4: But at the same time time that is also a
Speaker 4: recipe for.
Speaker 5: Launch fever, and we've seen that not play out well
Speaker 5: when it comes to accidents and tragic outcomes.
Speaker 1: What exactly is NASA's goal when it comes to the Moon,
Speaker 1: because there's a couple different pieces to it, right.
Speaker 5: So this time they are focusing on sustainability.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So with the Apollo program back in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 5: and seventies, we really just went for these quick trips
Speaker 5: and we planted flags we gathered samples and then we left.
Speaker 5: So ultimately, what they're hoping to do with this program
Speaker 5: called the Artemis.
Speaker 4: Program is to set us up for a path where we.
Speaker 5: Can be living and working on the Moon for extended
Speaker 5: periods of time.
Speaker 4: So that will include maybe a base on the Moon
Speaker 4: at some point.
Speaker 5: There's plans to build a station around the mood called
Speaker 5: the Gateway. So the idea is kind of to make
Speaker 5: the Moon like we've done with Low Earth Orbit and
Speaker 5: the International Space Station, where we can send astronauts for
Speaker 5: extended periods of time. They can work, do research, and
Speaker 5: then come home after long stays.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot involved in that that's beyond just
Speaker 1: the successful mission of this starship. That requires a lot
Speaker 1: of very technical, sort of very complicated things to go, right.
Speaker 5: Sure, yes, the architecture to get to the Moon for
Speaker 5: the first time, a mission called.
Speaker 4: Artemis three is definitely very wonky.
Speaker 5: Starship is just the lander portion of the entire process.
Speaker 5: NASA has its own deep space rocket that it is
Speaker 5: built in partnership with Boeing called the Space Launch System
Speaker 5: or SLS, and that is used to boost a crew
Speaker 5: capsule called Orion made by Lockey Martin The way it'll
Speaker 5: work is that first Starship is going to launch, and
Speaker 5: because Starship is so massive, it gobbles up a lot
Speaker 5: of propellent. In order for it to get all the
Speaker 5: way to the Moon, it's going to have to fill
Speaker 5: up essentially like a car at the gas station. So
Speaker 5: SpaceX plans to launch a bunch of tankers to space
Speaker 5: where they'll fill up a Starship depot, you know, like
Speaker 5: you're filling up a gas can. Then they'll launch the
Speaker 5: lander portion and just to go back. It's unclear how
Speaker 5: many tankers they need to launch, right it could be
Speaker 5: over a dozen.
Speaker 4: That's a lot. Then they'll launch the Lander, which will
Speaker 4: fill up its tanks from that depot, and then it
Speaker 4: will go all the way to.
Speaker 5: Lunar orbit and essentially park there waiting for the next step.
Speaker 4: Then we launch the people who will.
Speaker 5: Be on the SLS, the Space Launch System riding inside
Speaker 5: of Orion on top of the vehicle. Oriyan will then
Speaker 5: launch the deep space meet up with Starship and lunar
Speaker 5: orbit dock with Starship.
Speaker 4: Two of the four.
Speaker 5: Astronauts on there will transfer over to Starship.
Speaker 4: Then Starship will take them down to the Moon.
Speaker 5: They'll land, they'll don their spacesuits and you walk around
Speaker 5: to take samples, do what they need to do, get
Speaker 5: back into Starship, leave the surface, redock with Orian, they'll
Speaker 5: transfer into Orion again, and then Orian will leave lunar
Speaker 5: orbit and take them back to the Earth.
Speaker 4: Well, they'll land under parachutes. Does it sound like an
Speaker 4: intense process.
Speaker 5: Yes, But ultimately this is the plan for getting humans.
Speaker 4: Back to the Moon for the first time in over
Speaker 4: half a century.
Speaker 1: Does it have to be this complicated?
Speaker 5: You know, that is the ultimate question, and I think
Speaker 5: we could spend another podcast talking about it. But there
Speaker 5: is a lot of politics involved when it comes to
Speaker 5: the Space Launch System rocket, and there's been also a
Speaker 5: lot of questions of why the humans don't just ride
Speaker 5: in Starship and not do this docking. But you know,
Speaker 5: ultimately Starship is, as we've seen, still has quite a
Speaker 5: ways to.
Speaker 4: Go in this development process.
Speaker 5: You know, they haven't even started testing this propellant fuel
Speaker 5: up process that's going to be really key to their
Speaker 5: mission success. And meanwhile, the Space Launch System did launch
Speaker 5: on its first test flight successfully around the Moon in November.
Speaker 4: Of last year.
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you. You said there's a lot
Speaker 1: of politics involved, what does that actually mean.
Speaker 5: The Space Launch System has been a program that has
Speaker 5: been funded for a very long time. That particular rocket
Speaker 5: was in development for over a decade in one form
Speaker 5: or another, and they tried to cancel it because it
Speaker 5: was getting very costly and it was very delayed.
Speaker 4: However, it has a lot of support in.
Speaker 5: Congress because a lot of people in various states and
Speaker 5: in various communities work on that rocket and rely on
Speaker 5: that rocket, and so a lot of politicians have pushed
Speaker 5: to keep it alive. It gets a lot of generous funding,
Speaker 5: so that rocket has a lot of staying power.
Speaker 4: In the meantime, you know, SpaceX, they were.
Speaker 5: The underdog for a really long time and not a
Speaker 5: lot of people trusted that they could become this behemoth
Speaker 5: that they are now, and so SpaceX really ultimately had
Speaker 5: to prove to everyone that they were a serious contender,
Speaker 5: and so that also took a while. Took a similar
Speaker 5: amount of time that it took for the Space Launch
Speaker 5: System to get developed. So now we're coinciding in a
Speaker 5: time where the SOLS is more or less ready it's
Speaker 5: starting to fly, and SpaceX is also at a point
Speaker 5: where they have proven that they are capable and so
Speaker 5: we're kind of in this hybrid approach of the old
Speaker 5: space way where we had these large government contracts with
Speaker 5: the likes of defense contractors like Boeing and Locking Martin,
Speaker 5: and we're also giving money to SpaceX with fixed price contracts.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like when the old way of
Speaker 5: doing things is criss crossing with the new way of
Speaker 5: doing things and they're kind of coming together at the
Speaker 5: same time.
Speaker 1: Is there any criticism within the space community that they're
Speaker 1: trying to push these two things together just because they
Speaker 1: both exists, they both have supporters, rather than saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the easiest, cleanest, most viable way to return people
Speaker 1: to the Moon.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Of course there's always criticism about.
Speaker 5: How NASA pays for things and if it's pain too much,
Speaker 5: and if they're actually doing the more efficient process or
Speaker 5: what if they're doing the more politically advantageous process. But
Speaker 5: the one thing you have to consider is the way
Speaker 5: NASA is run. It's a government agency and they rely
Speaker 5: on government funding, and so they have to do things
Speaker 5: that get them the government funding that they need, and
Speaker 5: sometimes that is not always what is logically and most efficient.
Speaker 4: It also has to be.
Speaker 5: Politically advantageous as well, and so that factors into their
Speaker 5: decision making.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, are the traditional defense contractors who are providing part
Speaker 1: of this mission and SpaceX working together or is their
Speaker 1: rivalry there?
Speaker 5: There's definitely rivalry, but yes, they are now in an
Speaker 5: interesting position of being frenemies because they have to rely
Speaker 5: on each other for this mission to work. I truly
Speaker 5: love the concept that Starship is going to have to
Speaker 5: dock with Orion. You know, Lockheed is going to have
Speaker 5: to play nice with Starship in order for these two
Speaker 5: vehicles to work. Ultimately, this is one big, happy family now,
Speaker 5: and they're all gonna have to work together to get
Speaker 5: astronauts safely to the lunar surface.
Speaker 1: When we come back between the Starship and NASA's Space
Speaker 1: Launch System, how soon before a Moon mission becomes a reality,
Speaker 1: we choose to go to the Moon and mistcate and
Speaker 1: do the other thing not because they are easy, but
Speaker 1: because they are hard. Because that gold.
Speaker 2: I'm all.
Speaker 3: Are bathlete, beautiful mic Earlier.
Speaker 1: Lauren, you say that NASA's Space Launch System, the SLS,
Speaker 1: has had staying power. How much of that is? This
Speaker 1: is just the way NASA does things and always has.
Speaker 5: Essentially, how it worked is the same contractors who are
Speaker 5: working on SLS are born of the contractors who worked
Speaker 5: on Shuttle, born of the contractors who worked on the
Speaker 5: Apollo program. So one can argue that the effort to
Speaker 5: go to the Moon in the first time kind of
Speaker 5: created this like space industrial complex, and so people have
Speaker 5: relied on those contracts for a really long time, and
Speaker 5: so they were reluctant to give them up when they
Speaker 5: tried to cancel the SLS program, and so ultimately they
Speaker 5: got politicians involved, and that is why SLS has such
Speaker 5: staying power after all this time. But I think with Starship,
Speaker 5: the reason SOLS also was able to survive for so
Speaker 5: long is because there really wasn't an alternative. We need
Speaker 5: a powerful deep space rocket to get to the Moon
Speaker 5: if we're going to do big, bold things in space.
Speaker 4: And so you can criticize SLS.
Speaker 5: All you want for being over budget and delayed, but
Speaker 5: until we have something else that works, then.
Speaker 4: What else are you going to do?
Speaker 5: But now what people are pointing to is Starship is
Speaker 5: kind of slowly edging into that role of being that
Speaker 5: cheaper alternative and that more efficient alternative.
Speaker 4: Problem is it needs.
Speaker 5: To fly and prove itself before you can actually make
Speaker 5: the case that SOLS shouldn't be flying at all and
Speaker 5: shouldn't be funded anymore.
Speaker 4: So until Starship can prove itself, I don't think SLS
Speaker 4: has much to worry about.
Speaker 1: Do you think if the Starship program actually starts to
Speaker 1: show success that ultimately it could just take over the
Speaker 1: whole mission?
Speaker 4: That is the prediction from some folks. The way that.
Speaker 5: Elon advertises Starship sounds really enticing. So it's supposed to
Speaker 5: be fully reusable, which is supposed to lower costs, and supposed.
Speaker 4: To make it easier to launch back to back.
Speaker 5: They're talking about doing like one hundred flights a year,
Speaker 5: crazy stuff like that, which all sounds really great. And
Speaker 5: so the idea is that once they show that, why
Speaker 5: would you continue flying a rocket like SLS. It's so
Speaker 5: expensive and only flies like once a year. I'm skeptical
Speaker 5: that Starship will kill SLS because, like I said, it
Speaker 5: has a lot of supporters at very high places, and
Speaker 5: it does provide a lot of jobs for folks, and
Speaker 5: that is really a powerful aspect of the program.
Speaker 1: So, Lauren, you're covering this every day, what are you
Speaker 1: looking for? What comes next for this program?
Speaker 4: I have a saying that launch is only the beginning.
Speaker 5: Even if they were to get it into orbit, there
Speaker 5: is still quite a lot to do in order to
Speaker 5: really mature the system into what SpaceX has advertised it
Speaker 5: to be. So remember I talked about the challenge of
Speaker 5: how to fuel this thing up.
Speaker 4: You know, they need to test that process. They haven't
Speaker 4: even gotten.
Speaker 5: To space yet, so they can't do an in space
Speaker 5: test of that yet, and that's going to be a
Speaker 5: key part of the development program. And then beyond testing
Speaker 5: the fueling up, they have to demonstrate that starship can
Speaker 5: actually land on the Moon.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think people think it's maybe I
Speaker 4: wouldn't say easy to land.
Speaker 5: On the Moon, but because we've done it before, you know,
Speaker 5: we can just do it again.
Speaker 4: But that's not the case.
Speaker 5: Just recently, a Japanese company, I Space tried to become
Speaker 5: the first to land a mostly privately funded robotic lunar.
Speaker 4: Lander on the surface and.
Speaker 5: They came into fast and they crashed, and that title
Speaker 5: still hasn't been claimed. So, you know, a company that
Speaker 5: hasn't put in a substantial amount of its own money
Speaker 5: has yet to land on the Moon.
Speaker 4: Itself intact, and the ice space Lander was just a
Speaker 4: small robotic lander.
Speaker 5: Starship is massive, and so to get that on the
Speaker 5: surface of the Moon intact is going to be.
Speaker 4: An impressive feat. Then they also have to.
Speaker 5: Take off from the Moon again, they have to demonstrate
Speaker 5: that they can take off from the Moon. And then
Speaker 5: for artemis Iree, Starship does not have to return the
Speaker 5: humans all the way to Earth.
Speaker 4: That will be Orion.
Speaker 5: However, in the future, SpaceX is promising rides to tourists
Speaker 5: around the Moon on Starship, and so for those rides,
Speaker 5: people will board Starship, fly.
Speaker 4: Around the Moon and come home no oriyon component.
Speaker 5: And for those rides they will have to come back
Speaker 5: to Earth in Starship. And coming back to Earth from
Speaker 5: deep space is also extremely technically challenging, and that's why
Speaker 5: if you look at the surface of Starship really closely,
Speaker 5: you'll see all of these tiles that the company has
Speaker 5: adhere to the surface, and those are essentially heat shield
Speaker 5: because when you come in from deep space, you're going
Speaker 5: to be coming in very hot and very fast, and
Speaker 5: so they need to ensure that the vehicle won't burn
Speaker 5: up on reentry, and so they'll need to test that.
Speaker 4: Process out before they put humans.
Speaker 5: On it too, So there's quite a lot standing in
Speaker 5: the way of a successful launch and seeing people coming.
Speaker 4: To and from deep space on Starship safely.
Speaker 5: One thing I will say is to never count SpaceX out.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of things that they have said that
Speaker 5: they will do, and a lot of critics have been
Speaker 5: quick to say they won't do them. I will never
Speaker 5: say that SpaceX can't do something. However, their timelines just
Speaker 5: might not match up with the timelines they're publicly saying.
Speaker 5: These are all engineering problems. You know that we can
Speaker 5: engineer and overcome, and I will never doubt SpaceX to
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 4: But I just have zero concept of how long it's
Speaker 4: going to take.
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