When we talk about, you know, getting to Mars, how realistic do
you think that is. There's a book that just came out as review in
the Wall Street Journal talking about all of the various obstacles to human beings actually
living on Mars. Like we we live in a pretty propitious place. I
mean, the world's pretty wonderful planet. Yeah and us Yeah exactly. So
what are the biggest obstacles and what do you think the timeline is in terms
of having a robust presence on other planets. Well, we're hoping to have
the first humans on the Moon in less than five years, Mars maybe a
little longer than five years. I'd be surprised if we don't have humans on
Mars are within ten years? Wow? Yeah? And then we're going to
aim to have a lot of humans and both a city on Mars and a
base on the Moon. How do we mobilize that many resources there that quickly?
That's a lot of resources necessary. It's not like you can draw from
the environment a lottery source. And now I should say, in order to
pass the firmly grateful to of being a multiplanet species, that the other,
the second planet, has to be self sustaining, so that the ass a
test being that if the resupply ships from Earth stuff coming for any reason whatsoever,
it could be mundane or more serious, will Mars die out or not?
So Mars has to be completely self sufficient in order to pass the firmly
grateful stup that the particular gratefulture I'm talking about is if something climbs has happened
to one planet, is is humanity gone or not? And so how long
will it take for that to be self sustaining? When you say, you
know, in ten years people will be on Mars like forty issues. So
one of the things I think that captures the imagination about what you're doing is
that you're speaking in ambitious terms that people have not spoken in the West for
solidly half a CENTI. I mean, really, it's an amazing thing.
Yes, I say it's so often not going. I mean, you say
this stuff because it's you all the time. But the reality is that the
last time people were talking about within a decade we're going to have a man
on the moon was JFK talking at the beginning of the nineteen sixties. Yeah,
it's been full on half a century since anybody talked like this, and
I think people find it shocking, and I think maybe we should look at
the other side of that to both sides. One what makes you different?
And two why do you think that dream went away? Why do you think
it was that for half a century after we put a man on the Moon,
we just kind of receded back into into whatever the hell was else going
on. Yeah, that's the long story. But the the fallouf to the
Shuttle to the Saturn fire was the Space Shuttle space stalk could only go to
low Earth orbit, but that there, and the aspiration was to make it
reusable, but the they unfortunately did not succeed in that in that goal.
The Space Shuttle was so difficult to refub that it ended up costing as much
as a Saturn five. And then the main, the primary structure of the
Space Shuttle orbit system, a big orange tank was it's actually a primary airframe
because it takes the load from the the orbit of the sort of airplane looking
thing, and this the side boosters, so you lose that every time the
side boosters landing the ocean, and and their solid rocket boosters, so that
you know, they have to get shipped back to the factory to get solid
propellant loaded in cut a long story short, the cost per flight of the
Shuttle ended up being roughly the same as as a Saturn five expendable. So,
but the Shuttle had about a quarter of the paler to orbit and could
not reach the Moon. So it you know, so nobilized ideas at the
start, but ultimately it was it was not a good design. So and
then the Shuttle retired obviously, and then we had nothing. That curve is
that is not a good curve going from the Moon to lower th orbit to
nothing. That does not extrapolate to being a multiplanet species. So that's why
I started SpaceX is to try to reverse that trend and get us back on
to doing exciting things in space again, you know, things that make people
excited to get up in the morning and say, yes, the humanity is
going to do some amazing thing in space. We're experiencing a lot of global
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eight ninety eight ninety eight today to get started. One of the things that
that's so impressed about SpaceX is not just the aspiration, but the fact that
it's a successful business and that you realized very early on that it's not enough
to have the aspiration. I mean it was a government to put a person
on the mood that that's not the same thing as actually being able to build.
You said, self sustaining with regard to life on Mars, but a
self sustaining business that actually has the capacity and a profit driven model to do
something like that to project Yeah. I mean to be clear, at the
start of SpaceX, I gave us a less than ten per cent chance of
success. I thought we'd probably die. But you know, I think if
something is important enough, it's worth doing even if you think it's going to
fail. And we almost did fail. The first three launches of our small
rocket failed. Only the fourth one launch succeeded and if we if that fourth
one had failed, we would be dead. So it's close at this point,
you know, K not gonna word. SpaceX is quite prosperous. SpaceX
dead about eighty percent of all paler to orbit last year of Earth, China
did about twelve percent and the rest of the world at eight percent. So
in this year, if things go well, SpaceX will do ninety percent of
all paler to Earth and then as Starship really takes off, SpaceX will be
doing at least based on what other companies are currently doing, which is,
you know, around three four hundred tons to orbit. SpaceX ultimately will be
doing several hundred thousand tons to orbit, maybe a million tons to orbit.
It's amazing. And what you mentioned there that it is a sort of skin
of the teeth thing, I mean that's been true in a lot of companies
that you've worked with. I mean that was true in Tesla also, that
it was a real skin of the tee thing. And so maybe you can
talk a little bit about what does that feel like. I mean, as
a CEO in your person who is a professional, you must do you enjoy
the risk? Do you enjoy that stressful? Well? I don't see grisk
for risks. Say, Tesla had many close calls with death. The natural
state of a car company in America is dead. I mean the only two
car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla. Do you have
a cry story bankrupt in two thousand and nine. There have been hundreds of
car bankruptcies before. So it's one of those things where like I said that
the natural state of a car company is dead, So you have to keep
pulling rabbits out of a hat to not be dead. Do you think that
your personality is suited to that and that's why you're successful at this? That
you think that's unique to the companies you pick, that that you're pulling rabbits
out of hats? Are isn't that everything pulled so many rabbits out of hat
It's like an arcer rabbits here there. I mean, I'm good at solving
technology problems, so and rockets and cars both technology problems. Have a very
strong team that work with me, and uh yeah, so far, so good.