WEBVTT - Bonus: Is Elon Serious About Colonizing Mars? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.800 Hey, everybody. Max Chafkin here. The other day, Dana and I, 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.560 along with our colleague Ashley Vance, were guests on Bloomberg's 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.600 Odd Lots podcast for a special episode. It was all 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.520 about Elon Musk. We had a great chat with Joe 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.600 and Tracy, the host of Odd Lots, and we wanted 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.720 to share it with you right here. Enjoy it, and 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.160 after you do, you should check out the Odd Loots 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:27.880 podcast in general. It's a great, idiosyncratic, nerdy, weird, offbeat 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:32.360 and incredibly smart take on finance and markets and economics. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.720 And as for Elon Inc. We will be back on Tuesday, 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.519 just like we are every week. The vote is happening 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:40.760 right now. It looks like Elon Musk is going to 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.040 come out ahead, but we'll have the full report on Tuesday. 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.280 We'll tell you all about what it means for Musk's 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.160 empire and where we go from here. And until then, 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:51.440 thank you and see us soon. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:08.280 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.800 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.400 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. We're very excited 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.000 about this recording. It's a crossover episode with Bloomberg's weekly 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.520 Elon Inc. Podcast. So we're all about Elon today. And 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.280 to get into that, Tracy, do you remember our interview 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:30.639 with the Ukraine post CEO. 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.479 Yes, I do, Igor Smolensky. That was a really interesting 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.000 episode for a variety of reasons. One because I just 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.039 really enjoy talking about logistics. But secondly, one of the 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:42.959 things that stood out to both of us, I think 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.560 from that conversation was when he was talking about how 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.840 they're using Starlink in Ukraine and also the idea that 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.480 you know, if they were ever to redesign the postal 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.880 service from scratch, they would avoid traditional internet and just 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:58.080 use all starlink. 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:02.520 No, that was like a very eye opening moment for me, 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.920 and I feel like when it comes to Elon Musk, 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.760 obviously it feels like, I don't know, forty percent of 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.520 the attention on him is related to Tesla, another forty 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.120 percent is Twitter or x, and then we're aware that 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.640 there's like a bunch of all these other companies like 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:24.399 Neuralink and Grock and SpaceX, but SpaceX and Starlink. That's 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.320 a huge deal because my understanding or my sense is 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.720 that like he is just dominating the skies. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.440 Yeah, and that's kind of the cool business as well. Right, 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.760 it's really cool business, like rockets that can be reused. 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.480 If you ever see the satellites launching into the sky, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.600 the Starlink ones, they're really beautiful. Satellite internet is really 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.800 interesting to me, partly because of when I was in 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.080 Hong Kong. Yeah, and you know, they had the really 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.760 strict COVID rules and they would basically send you to 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.200 a government facility that was extremely limited. If you came 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.200 down with COVID, you had to have satellite Internet in 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.679 there because there was no government internet. So you had 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:00.720 to get a little box and bring it with you 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:02.480 if you were spending like three or four. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:02.919 You get it. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:03.440 Wait, you didn't. 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:04.120 You never had to go. 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:04.600 I didn't. 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.560 I know a lot of people who did. 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:07.800 And they had to bring their own box. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.720 Yeah, because otherwise there was either no internet or it 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.320 was so poor. The effectively there was no internet. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.640 I had not realized that element. But it is pretty wild. Like, Okay, 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:22.040 here's one company and it just totally dominates satellite communication. 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.160 I know, it dominates rocket launches. And historically space was 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.880 the domain of governments, right, space was the domain of 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.239 the military of any government and or NASA or the 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.680 NASA equivalent, And now we're in this world where there's 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:40.920 one individual and basically one company that is just completely 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.920 dominating space. And like I said, you know, I think 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.720 people talk about Tesla and they talk about Twitter, but 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.920 I feel like SpaceX deserves more attention, and I want 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:50.960 to learn more about SpaceX. 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:51.080 No. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.600 Absolutely, this is something I hadn't really I guess, internalized 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.920 until recently. But the degree to which NASA basically opened 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.760 up space to private companies is kind of remarkable compared 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:04.960 to the way it was in the past. So absolutely, 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:06.680 I think this is something we should talk about. 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.480 Right, So, we've wanted to do a space slash SpaceX 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.240 slash Starlink episode for a while to like really understand 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.480 this company and how it fits into the broader Elon 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.839 Musk Empire. So I'm very excited to say today we 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.240 have a bunch of perfect guests. They are all our 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.320 colleagues at Bloomberg. But first up, we're going to be 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.160 speaking with Ashley Vance, who reports on all kinds of 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.560 cool tech stuff for us here at Bloomberg, sort of 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.799 like the future cutting edge pieces. Every time Ashley writes 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.320 an article it's just about some crazy, mad scientist, usually 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.839 out in the Bay Area doing anything wild. He's written 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.680 a biography of Elon Musk, and his more recent book 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.320 is called When the Heavens Went on Sale. The Misfits 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.039 and Geniuses racing to put space within reach. So the 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:54.080 perfect guest to talk space. So Ashley Vance, thank you 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:55.000 so much for coming on. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.919 Oud, locks, thank you for having me. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.120 I'm aware that SpaceX exists, that it's in the business 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.720 of private rockets and satellites and all that stuff, But like, 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.640 how big is SpaceX or maybe how far ahead is 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:10.320 SpaceX versus the competition? 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.960 Well, yeah, quite far, you know. I always think of 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.960 this as one of the most unlikely business stories there is. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.320 SpaceX started roughly twenty years ago. Nobody, you know, had 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.280 really proven anything out as far as being a commercial 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.640 rocket company or satellite company in a meaningful way. Before 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.200 it was all governments, that a handful of governments that 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.080 dominated this business. And if you fast forward now twenty 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:40.440 years later, SpaceX last year, for example, they put up 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.559 about fifty percent of the world's rockets and probably close 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.800 to around eighty percent of the world satellites. So that's 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:53.240 SpaceX versus the entire world. That's SpaceX versus China, Russia, India, 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.200 et cetera. And if you look at this year so far, 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.480 they've put up about ninety percent of the out of 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.200 stuff that's gone into space this year has been put 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:07.280 up by SpaceX. So they basically revived the United States 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.080 space program. We'd fallen behind a number of countries that 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.160 looked like China was going to take this thing over, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.920 and now SpaceX is the clear winner of the space 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:17.880 economy so far. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.000 I have a embarrassing question, but what's the difference between 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:23.359 SpaceX and Starlink. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.680 Oh yeah, well, okay, so there's different pieces here. Traditionally, 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.760 most companies you've sort of divided either you were a 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.840 rocket company or you were a satellite company. SpaceX has 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.599 become the dominant player in both and Starlink fits into 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:43.320 that picture. So Starlink is a satellite communications service. SpaceX 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.599 puts up thousands of satellites around the Earth. They're always 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.440 surrounding the Earth. They're beaming down high speed internet and 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.560 so it's really designed for places where like half the 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.880 world today cannot be reached by fiber optic cables because 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.240 it's it's too hard or expensive to put them in 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.440 the ground. That's a lot of people. That's four billion 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.360 people that cannot get high speed internet today. And if 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.760 you buy a SpaceX antenna, it's like a little basketball 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.360 sized thing and you stick it at your house. You 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.080 then pull down this high speed Internet delivered from space. 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.160 And so SpaceX is dominant in rockets that it is 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.200 really dominant in satellites. If I could give you one 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.920 more data point just to like put this in perspective. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:27.400 So from like nineteen fifty until about twenty twenty, all 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.400 of the world we had two thousand, five hundred satellites 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.240 surrounding the Earth. That's what we've done in all those decades, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.040 from twenty twenty to today, that we've gone from two thousand, 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.840 five hundred satellites to about twelve thousand surrounding the Earth, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:47.640 and the vast majority of those now are SpaceX satellites. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:49.160 That's why there's that huge jump. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.920 Wow. I feel like it dominates the night sky amateur 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.880 like photography community as well. Do you ever see that 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.000 online people talking about like, what's this light in this sky? 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.600 I can't figure it out? And the answer is always starlink. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.920 It's always starlink. Launching new things. 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.000 Well, I mean it's funny. So you know, when they 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.680 do a Starlink launch, each rocket is filled with dozens 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.680 and dozens of satellites, and yeah, it's just cool phenomenon. 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.080 I mean, when they first come out of the rocket, 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.960 they're all kind of clumped together, and then over the 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.360 course of weeks they sort of slowly spread out, and 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:23.920 so now you can see that in the night sky. 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.400 It used to be a pretty rare thing, but over 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.360 the last two three years, people see this now all 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:30.840 the time. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:33.800 So I used to do a little bit of on 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.960 air reporting for Bloomberg Rocketry, like when they would fire 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.360 up some of those SpaceX trials and then the rocket 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.319 would go up and then come down, and like, I'm 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.800 still pretty blown away when I see those relandings, Like 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.120 it still doesn't seem like that should be physically possible. 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.240 I know there are other competitors. You wrote a whole 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.360 book about them. Jeff Bezos has one. Some of the 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.640 people who used to work for SpaceX have launched their 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.599 own Sitting aside the new miracle gap, what is this 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.240 sort of technological gap right now between SpaceX and how 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.640 good it is with its reusable rockets and so forth, 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.200 and where the competition is technologically. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.800 Yeah, I mean that's pretty dramatic too. So there used 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.240 to be there was a handful of government programs that 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.200 dominated space since the space race began. And none of 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.120 the government players do reusable rockets at all. So nothing 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.640 from Europe, nothing from Russia, India, Japan, any of that, 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:26.400 and so you have to kind of turn to the 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.840 commercial players that have popped up over the last ten 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.920 fifteen years and so so SpaceX has this dialed in 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.000 as we all know. You know, they've reused one rocket 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.400 I think as many as twenty times. And I wrote 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.640 a biography on Elon you know that came out a 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.640 few years ago. When I was researching that book, all 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.400 the traditional players said this was going to be impossible 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.120 and it was wasted time and the math would never 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.240 pencil out. But clearly it has. After SpaceX, the second 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.400 most successful rocket company is rocket Lab. It was started 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.160 in New Zealand. It's headquartered now in the United States. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.439 So AX has flown hundreds and hundreds of rockets. Rocket 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.440 Labs flown about fifty and they have a much smaller, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:11.240 cheaper rocket and they have started to move towards parts 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.160 of reasonable rocket, and they are building now a larger, 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.840 fully reusable rocket that they're hoping to fly next year. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.640 So they really are the only current real rocket competitor 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.720 to SpaceX, and they're doing very well. They're starting to 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.120 launch once every couple of weeks. You know. The next 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.760 step is the sort of last great hope to really 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.480 challenge SpaceX is Blue Origin, which has been sort of 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:39.520 like a sad tale for it was started almost the 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.840 same year as SpaceX and really hasn't done that much. 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.760 They do have a reasonable rocket for the tourism flights 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.840 where you go to space for about six minutes. Blue 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.560 Origin has never sent a satellite up. It's just not 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.720 been involved in sort of the commercial end of the business. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.040 This year they think will be the first time they 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.280 send up their much larger rocket that can take satellites. 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.760 And Blue Origin is also focused on reusable rockets. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.720 Wait, I have another basic question, which is how do 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.520 reusable rockets actually work? And why did SpaceX decide to 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:14.440 go down that route, because, as you said, a lot 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.600 of people thought it was mathematically or physically impossible. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.240 Yeah, I mean there's this thought that there was sort 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.280 of a waste of time because the rockets they go 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.160 through so much damage and pressure and violence during a 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.280 rocket launch that the idea of bringing this huge tube 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.640 back and it's still being usable again, that seemed a 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.480 bit far fetched. And you have to deal with the 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.560 whole process of actually getting that toobe back instead of 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.559 falling into the ocean or burning up in the atmosphere. 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.280 And so SpaceX, you know, they developed this technique where 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.280 they have these landing legs actually on the big base 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.240 part of the rocket, and it comes back towards Earth 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.000 and it's sort of free falling, and then all of 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.480 a sudden, the engines kick back on again and they 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.679 slow it down and just lands right back on the 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.640 pad where it took off from. There's a big trade 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.240 off in this, so the physics nobody has a great 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.760 advantage on the physics of rockets, and the physics of 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.680 rockets aren't that great. When you have this giant tube 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.960 full of fuel, you know, it's a few percent of 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.080 the total weight of that rocket is the stuff that 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.480 you actually get to take to space. The vast majority 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.160 of it is fuel, and you have to use some 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.880 of your fuel to land the rocket. And so people 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:32.920 also thought that was a bad trade off to make 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.600 it's better just to take more stuff. 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.679 Didn't. At one point, some people thought that rockets themselves 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.360 would be inherently impossible for that exact reason that just 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.360 like so much of the weight would be the fuel. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.880 And so some people just theorized that the idea of 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:49.760 rocket true would be inherently impossible. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.560 Yeah, going way back, you know, the first rocket pioneers 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:55.800 were sort of like in the nineteen tens and twenties. 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.240 This guy, Robert Goddard was the American pioneer in this field, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.160 and he there's a pretty famous moment where he writes 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.960 a op ed for the New York Times talking about 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.240 flying a rocket to the moon, and he was just 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.760 pilloried as this wacko, you know, and that none of 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.800 this whatever happened, and the physics don't make sense at all, 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:17.400 and so it took a while to sort of get 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.960 people to believe that these days. The way the basically 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.360 works is like the bigger you can make a rocket, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.760 you start to get these advantages, and so that's kind 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:28.320 of what you want to do. But the bigger you 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.560 make a rocket, the more complicated it is, the more 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.319 engines it needs, it gets harder and harder, and SpaceX 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.199 is really the only one that has dialed all this in, 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.079 has the manufacturing processes to make all this this math work. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.560 If you look at the government programs, they don't really 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.199 have an answer to what SpaceX is doing. And these 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.800 things take ten twenty thirty years to figure out. 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.480 How did we end up with a system where we 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.199 have you know, the government has a space program, NASA exists, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.679 and then we have these private companies who are doing 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:20.640 or providing very important services for entities like NASA. It 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.640 seems like a weird kind of pseudo government private commercial 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.000 system that we ended up in. 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.320 Yeah, I mean, if I could riff for a second, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.600 I've thought about this a lot. You know, there's an 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:36.280 economist named Alex McDonald. He works for NASA. He wrote 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.080 a really interesting book kind of on this topic. You know, 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.560 we were talking about these rocket pioneers in the nineteen 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.760 tens and twenties. The US had Robert Goddard. There was 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.840 a similar figure in Germany and Russia, and they were 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.200 all pursuing these kind of liquid fueled rockets very similar 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.280 to what we use today. They were essentially startups. These 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.720 were researchers who got private money. Back in the day, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.600 if you were really rich, the cool thing to do 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.920 was to build a giant telescope. That that's what like 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.360 rich guys used to used to put their money towards philanthropically, 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.840 and they started to do that to rockets. It was 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.240 kind of like everyone was interested in space and wanted 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.000 to prove this out, and so it looked like we 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.960 were kind of heading on this commercial path. I think 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.560 World War Two spilling into the Cold War, where space 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:28.960 turned into this national sort of achievement, this point of pride, 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.560 this way to show your scientific prowess, you know, it 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.960 turned into a government effort. And the result of that 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.160 was that the rockets could not fail. We got on 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.360 this race obviously to send humans into space, and so 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:47.760 you have to build very expensive, infallible rockets, and this 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.720 is it was sort of like history that pushed us there. 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.320 But then we got stuck. You know. Literally, rockets really 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:59.280 did not change from the nineteen sixties until SpaceX came along, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.320 and so everybody got fixated that these rockets had to 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.280 be huge, costly expensive. They couldn't fail. It was embarrassing 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.600 if they did, and that was the ethos, and so 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.160 SpaceX came along, they were able to take more risk 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.800 to make the rockets cheaper, to use modern technology, modern software, 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.200 and so they changed that equation. And it's only now 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.960 that we're in this weird world between government and commercial space. 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.400 I think, you know, we are leaving that era of 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.360 government space. I wrote my hope, my new book was 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.480 called When the Heavens Went on Sale because I think 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.240 this is completely becoming a commercial enterprise now. 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.120 It's so fascinating, this sort of like path dependency and 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.640 right like it's the sort of military over engineered. It's 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.880 about carrying people. It's about that triumphalism and then the 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.520 idea that okay, that's what people think a rocket is. 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.200 And then SpaceX comes along and just rethinks it from 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.800 the ground up and sounds like I'm curious about the business. So, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.280 you know, Tracy and I had a conversation on on 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.520 Lots several months ago, and we were actually talking to 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.560 the guy who runs the Ukrainian postal service and he 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.640 was talking about how, you know, thanks to Starlink, specifically, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.920 if Ukraine were able to retake a village, they wouldn't 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.600 rebuild the old internet infrastructure. They could get internet going 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.320 in a day with satellite, And it's sort of like 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.600 very jarring because you realize, you know, just what an 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:24.359 incredible asset Elon is building up. And so between SpaceX 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:26.960 and starlink, I you know, I know that like SpaceX 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.439 will charge you or an individual if you want to 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:31.359 like get some space on one of his rockets to 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.439 fire up your own satellite. Obviously Starlink subscribers pay I 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.399 guess presumably some monthly fee. But you know, where's this 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.920 going in terms of the monetization and business to have 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:46.679 both the launching infrastructure and the satellite infrastructure together, and 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.040 what can be done with so much physical material out 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:51.439 in space owned by one company? 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.920 Yeah? Well, look, I mean this has been SpaceX's huge advantage. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.840 It has rivals trying to build this space internet. There's 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.800 one web which which started as a sort of quasi 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.960 US and European venture. It's gone through bankruptcy in many 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.399 twists and turns. But it has tons of satellites, but 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.480 it lacks rockets, and it was actually hoping to fly 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.080 on a ton of Russian rockets. And when the Ukrainian 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.760 War broke out, they don't have access to these Russian 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.320 rockets anymore, and so they got sort of stock in 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.560 SpaceX was able to race ahead. Amazon is looking to 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.399 build a giant constellation. Jeff clearly has a rocket company, 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.920 but he doesn't have the rockets right now that can 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.480 can send all these satellites up. And so SpaceX is 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.359 in this unique position. There's trade offs, right. You can 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.160 think of starlink. I think of it as a it's 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:43.960 really like the first global internet slash communications provider. As 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.080 we all know, telecoms tends to be a sort of 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.919 nationalized thing. If you're in the US, you're on whatever 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:51.960 at and T or Verizon. When you go to Europe 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.160 you have to switch to something else. You know. Being 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.600 in space you get past all of that, and so 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.800 you become this global force. And that is how they 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.760 make their money is on these monthly subscriptions. I have 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.639 Starlink at a house in Mexico. I think it's about 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.280 sixty or seventy dollars a month to get the service. 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.320 And so you've got consumers paying for that, You've got 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.000 some businesses paying for that, and yeah, so there's this 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.440 idea maybe you could avoid building a lot of infrastructure 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.720 on the ground. There is a trade off, Like space 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.760 Internet is almost definitely never going to be as fast 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.960 as fiber. And so if you're you know, if you're 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.000 in a country like the United States, where we have 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:31.720 this huge land mass and we have the money to 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:33.719 lay all this fiber, you know that is still going 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.399 to be in the backbone that most people use. But 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:41.600 in all these other circumstances, planes, cars, boats also like 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.600 this idea. This is what I think about the most, 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:48.960 is this unified fabric of the Internet blanketing the earth, 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.040 so that no matter where you are, there's Internet service. 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.280 All of our modern devices are working, things like autonomous 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.439 cars and drones and all this stuff that need to 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.040 be connected all the time. You know, I think I 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.800 think SpaceX right now is in the pole position to 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.640 be that sort of future backbone of all that. 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.919 You said something interesting earlier, you said our last hope 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.200 for competition to SpaceX was Blue Origin, And that. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.639 Might have been dramatic, but they are the biggest of 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.200 just because Jeff has so much money to. 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.280 Actually right, well point taken. But I do get the 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.920 sense that there is a desire to have more than 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.679 one company that's doing this, And I guess my question 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.000 is why is that important? Because when I think of 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:39.119 natural monopolies, Like, it's usually something pretty important like infrastructure 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.679 or rockets. In this case, couldn't we have a world 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.720 where one company is very very good at building these 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:47.880 and dominates Like, what's the trade off here? 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.840 Well, we do have a world like that at the moment, 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.320 and you know we've already seen subtradeouts. I think there's 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:57.080 a bunch of reasons you would want multiple rocket companies, 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:03.800 particularly if you're the United States or Russia. Clearly for political, military, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:08.120 strategic reasons. You don't want to be dependent on one 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.399 company for all kinds of reasons. Something could go wrong, 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.520 their rocket could stop working, they could go out of business. 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.000 You know, you want these other paths to space. We've 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.320 talked about how many satellites are going up. I mean 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.639 this is the next I think of it as the 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.400 you know, we spent the last thirty years building out 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:27.480 this internet infrastructure on Earth. We are now doing the 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.000 exact same thing in space. It is going to be 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.480