Speaker 1: Okay, sure, So it's quick up on Tesla. You have
Speaker 1: to unute program for people hold on oneside.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. So I'm sure people have been reading
Speaker 2: about the order alone, bailouts and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's it's kind of a travesty at what's going on,
Speaker 2: although I hope I don't think it's gonna last too long.
Speaker 2: Into the Obama administration, there was a twenty five billion
Speaker 2: dollar loan program that Congress approved to find energy development
Speaker 2: of energy efficient vehicle, essentially the wean ourselves of oil.
Speaker 2: And ironically, the Big Three then came to Washington and said,
Speaker 2: now give us that money for our day to day
Speaker 2: operations building gas guzzlers, which is is obviously a sort
Speaker 2: of a version of the intent. And unfortunately, with the
Speaker 2: job situation being being the way it is, Congress has
Speaker 2: acceded to that demand and it is understanding currently giving
Speaker 2: fifteen of the twenty five billion to the Big Three
Speaker 2: to fund their data operations, which I.
Speaker 1: Believe gets them to about February. I love kidding. There's
Speaker 1: not even an exaggeration.
Speaker 2: Although the Speaker a Speaker Pelosi has also said that
Speaker 2: as soon as the new administration comes in they're going
Speaker 2: to replenish that fund, so I think it'll be I
Speaker 2: think it'll be okay.
Speaker 1: But certainly, if you have the opportunity to express to.
Speaker 2: Anyone in DC or in the press the importance of
Speaker 2: developing clean energy vehicles, please take the opportunity to do so.
Speaker 1: In the case of Tesla, if.
Speaker 2: Tesla actually is not applying for any bailout funds, although
Speaker 2: some of the press have mistaken that, what Tesla's done
Speaker 2: is applied for funding to develop lower cost mass market vehicles,
Speaker 2: and essentially the exact intent of the legislation, and.
Speaker 1: So hopefully this will some money left over to actually
Speaker 1: do that after the Big three have taken what the
Speaker 1: what what they will take?
Speaker 2: Uh so uh And and the Tesla Roadster, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people are familiar with that.
Speaker 1: That's the two seater sports car.
Speaker 2: In fact, my my car, which is production unit one,
Speaker 2: is parked outside if anyone's curious.
Speaker 1: To see it. There's uh there's also Tesla.
Speaker 2: Sales and service center on Santa Monica Boulevard, so if
Speaker 2: you want to pop in and take a look at
Speaker 2: the card at that time, we also welcome do so.
Speaker 2: And we're about to deliver our hundredth production Tesla next week.
Speaker 2: And that's interestingly enough, our hundredth customer is Sam Perry.
Speaker 1: If if if anybody.
Speaker 2: Watched the the when Obama won and an Oprah was
Speaker 2: crying on some guy's shoulder, that same guy's hundred customers.
Speaker 1: So it's good.
Speaker 2: Like Zelig, I mean, he's sort of everywhere. So anyway,
Speaker 2: he's a really great guy and lives in the area.
Speaker 2: It's going to take a little bit of his car
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, so I'm going to hand him the keys
Speaker 2: personally and think of being a customer. So and you know,
Speaker 2: there's an important point about Tesla, which is, whenever somebody
Speaker 2: buys the Tesla Roadster, even though it's a one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars one hundred nine thousand dollars sports car and
Speaker 2: it's kind of a fancy sports car, every pointy that
Speaker 2: Tesla makes goes into development of lower cost mass mark vehicles.
Speaker 1: So the company doesn't.
Speaker 2: Issue any dividends, nor will it ever know my stalary's
Speaker 2: minimum wage, you know.
Speaker 1: So I'm a volunteer.
Speaker 2: Basically, So and then you know, it's it's like it's
Speaker 2: just an important point because sometimes people think, well, gee,
Speaker 2: what's the point of making these these expensive cars, which
Speaker 2: are sort of toys for rich people, hows that really
Speaker 2: helping the environment.
Speaker 1: The important point to bear in mind is that when.
Speaker 2: You have new technology, it takes time to optimize that technology.
Speaker 2: If you think back to the early days of cell
Speaker 2: phones or laptops or pretty much anything new, it's expensive
Speaker 2: in the early days because the first job with a
Speaker 2: new technology is you've got to make it work, and
Speaker 2: you make it small volume you sell those cars. But
Speaker 2: if you the critical point is that you can't get
Speaker 2: to the low cost cars unless you start with the
Speaker 2: expensive cars. And and that's that's the point that sometimes lies. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that's enough on Tesla. I'll jump into the space stuff
Speaker 2: and I'll kick it off with our last flight video.
Speaker 3: Fuel turned out actually are set.
Speaker 1: To trigger system. So this is actually on a remote
Speaker 1: trop of the island. We launched a small rocket, the
Speaker 1: Falcon one from an island in the quadronin anshole. So
Speaker 1: so it feels a bit of nefarious to be launching
Speaker 1: rockets for a moretrochoical islands. Yeah, I feel a bit
Speaker 1: like a brine villain in this case. It's basically just
Speaker 1: a dummy satellite. So if this is basically.
Speaker 2: A test flight to get to orbits. So this is
Speaker 2: actually our fourth flights. The flights two or three made
Speaker 2: it to space, but they didn't make rule a way
Speaker 2: to orbit. And it's actually a lot harder to get
Speaker 2: to orbit than it is to get to space. You
Speaker 2: can get to space just by getting going up to
Speaker 2: mark three, but to get to orbit you get to
Speaker 2: get you have to have a minimum of mark twenty five,
Speaker 2: and that doesn't actually explain the full difficulty because the
Speaker 2: energy scales with the square of the last seas, So
Speaker 2: getting space nine inntes of energy, getting to orbit six
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five minutes of energy. It's about seventy
Speaker 2: times harder to get to orbit than to get to space,
Speaker 2: and that's why there's only been about half a dozen
Speaker 2: countries in the world that have actually reached aubit. So
Speaker 2: this is actually the first completely privately developed rocket uh
Speaker 2: to to reach orbit and also the first amen privately
Speaker 2: about liquid fuel rocky disorders. This is it's named This
Speaker 2: is the Falcon one. It's named Falcon after the Millennium Falcons.
Speaker 1: From Star Wars. Looks nothing like it, but.
Speaker 2: So the music in the background is a high roller
Speaker 2: from the crystal method.
Speaker 1: Actually with with with rockets. Uh. The only semi reuseful
Speaker 1: rocket in.
Speaker 2: The world right now is the Space Shuttle, and they
Speaker 2: say sam reusul because the main tank is actually.
Speaker 1: Thrown away every time, so it's typically we're really almost
Speaker 1: in all cases rockets are not recovered.
Speaker 2: They basically re enter and kind of either burn up
Speaker 2: or crash into the ocean and think to the bottom.
Speaker 1: Typically now a.
Speaker 2: Falcon one, our intent is to recover the first stage,
Speaker 2: which unfortunately we weren't able to do it this flight.
Speaker 2: The clametry coming down showed that that the it didn't
Speaker 2: have enough normal protection, so it actually ended.
Speaker 1: Up burning up. We need to increase the thermal protection.
Speaker 1: Got Uh. The field is is a high purity kerosene,
Speaker 1: so it's.
Speaker 2: Like sort of a very clean form of jet fuel
Speaker 2: basically with no sult of content dry. It's not the
Speaker 2: greatest thing in the world, but we do buy lots
Speaker 2: of carbon ox sets, so.
Speaker 1: It's a nine degresional that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, we're making use of thest rotation to help
Speaker 2: with the insert simplacity.
Speaker 3: Could you actually go out wouldn't it be easier to
Speaker 3: go into space?
Speaker 2: And well, the only way to go up and stay
Speaker 2: up is to reach orb it. The the gravity is
Speaker 2: actually almost the same force at say two hundred.
Speaker 1: Miles above the surface as it is on the on
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth.
Speaker 2: The only reason people seem to be sort of floating around,
Speaker 2: but actually what's happening is they're zooming around the Earth
Speaker 2: super fast. And the said the outward acceleration is equal
Speaker 2: to the inward acceleration of gravity, and so when that's neutralized,
Speaker 2: you have what appears to be zero gravity, but you're
Speaker 2: actally just sort.
Speaker 1: Of falling around the Earth.
Speaker 2: Do you want We've not encountered any any space junk
Speaker 2: issue that it's although there's been a lot of launchers
Speaker 2: up there and been issues like the where the Chinese
Speaker 2: blood for satellite and scattered bits all over the place.
Speaker 1: It's so big up there that the statistical chance of
Speaker 1: being hit is tiny.
Speaker 2: But but for things which are which carry people, like
Speaker 2: the space station and our Dragon spacecraft.
Speaker 1: Uh, they actually have my Cromeinia rights shields so they
Speaker 1: can take a high impact which essentially a.
Speaker 2: High speed bullet coming at its picture.
Speaker 1: Ah, the bigger picture. Very good question.
Speaker 2: So the reason I started SpaceX was because the cost
Speaker 2: and reliability of getting to getting to orbits and beyond.
Speaker 1: Has not really improved since the sixties. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: Scottland worse so.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the trajectory over time, it's
Speaker 2: not an improving trajectory if you would extrapolate that the
Speaker 2: cast trajectory, and Steve could tell could affirm that if
Speaker 2: if you would extrapolate to the future, you would basically
Speaker 2: be able to afford no launchers at some point.
Speaker 1: Because it's just it's actually was getting more and more expensive.
Speaker 2: So I started SpaceX to really reverse that trend and
Speaker 2: make it affordable to get to orbit and beyond. The
Speaker 2: huge breakthrough that space aspires to achieve, and this is
Speaker 2: a very difficult thing, is to make a fully reusable.
Speaker 1: Orbital launch vehicle. So with Falcon one, the first stage
Speaker 1: is intended to be re usable. With Falcon nine, both
Speaker 1: stages are intended to be reusable.
Speaker 2: Now it's going to take us many launches to figure
Speaker 2: that out and get the stages back safely and optimize
Speaker 2: the refurbishment for flight and make sure they're reliable and what.
Speaker 2: But that's that's the that's sort of the big tech
Speaker 2: technical breakthrough wereing for and you can imagine in any
Speaker 2: mode of transport, if you had a reusable vehicle or
Speaker 2: expendable vehicle, it would be a night and day difference.
Speaker 2: I mean, how many people would have driven here if
Speaker 2: the car was single use or or even And that
Speaker 2: applies to any mode of transport, bicycles, horses, planes, you know,
Speaker 2: really pretty much anything.
Speaker 1: So we've got this weird.
Speaker 2: Situation in space where vehicles can only be used once.
Speaker 2: In fact, you want to return journey, you've got like
Speaker 2: tow one behind you. So that's what we're aspiring to it.
Speaker 2: It's a tough goal. We're not saying we can achieve it,
Speaker 2: but we're aspiring to achieve.
Speaker 1: That, and I think we will. But to explain why
Speaker 1: that's so difficult.
Speaker 2: When an orbital rocket is after they've really optimized the
Speaker 2: weight of the rocket and use the most advanced materials
Speaker 2: and the engines are incredibly efficient, and you've pushed everything
Speaker 2: to the maximum, you typically get about three percent of
Speaker 2: the lift off weight to orbit. So if you make
Speaker 2: even a small mistake in the design, you know, if
Speaker 2: you get three percent off your you know you got nothing.
Speaker 2: So and that's for expandable single use rockets, where they're
Speaker 2: not trying to make the rocket robust enough to have
Speaker 2: multiple flight. They're not trying to make it robust enough
Speaker 2: to re enter safely. It doesn't have to have heat
Speaker 2: shields and all that lot of stuff. So when you
Speaker 2: add in all those things, if that exceeds three percent,
Speaker 2: well you're getting nothing toward it.
Speaker 1: So uh So to make it.
Speaker 2: Reusable and still deliver it a useful payload is extraordinarily difficult,
Speaker 2: and and no one has ever succeeded in doing that, right,
Speaker 2: So I'm getting I'll get So the why Essentially.
Speaker 1: I should? I should? I Actually, you're right, I should
Speaker 1: perceive this with the Y and then and then the how.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, technics, for granted, being in a space business.
Speaker 1: But so I'm a huge believer in the extension of
Speaker 1: life beyond Earth.
Speaker 2: So making life multiplanetary, I think, is one of the
Speaker 2: most important things we could do.
Speaker 1: So then why why is that important? Well?
Speaker 2: How do you how do you say that anything is important?
Speaker 2: How do you judge importance? Well, if you look at
Speaker 2: things on an historical time scale, and the further you
Speaker 2: zoom out more, the important stuff stays behind, and the
Speaker 2: unimportant stuff you can't see it anymore.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the the span of life's
Speaker 1: evolution on Earth, you know, the multi billion.
Speaker 2: Year history of Earth itself, of life on Earth itself,
Speaker 2: you can really point to about half a dozen major
Speaker 2: steps on the evolution of life. There's obviously single cell life,
Speaker 2: multicellular life, differentiation to plants and animals, life moving from
Speaker 2: the oceans to land, mammals, consciousness.
Speaker 1: You know, those are sort of like the big ones,
Speaker 1: and that's why we're here talking.
Speaker 2: And on that scale also would fit I think the
Speaker 2: extension of life to multiple planets. So life becoming multiplanetary,
Speaker 2: it would be at least is important, if not more
Speaker 2: important than life going from the oceans to lands, oceans
Speaker 2: to land.
Speaker 1: You could jump back to the ocean if forgot uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: But going to another planet you've got to go over,
Speaker 2: you know, billions of miles of hostile space and then
Speaker 2: land and try to create an ecology on a planet
Speaker 2: that is nothing like the planet that we live on today,
Speaker 2: or if my current planet may become more like that
Speaker 2: planet if not careful, But you know that's so if
Speaker 2: you have something which arguably I could fit on the
Speaker 2: important scale of the evolution of life, itself, then it's reason.
Speaker 2: We'll say it's important and should get some of our resources.
Speaker 2: And I think, say, well, what is some of our resources? Well, probably,
Speaker 2: like you know, less than what we spend on medicare
Speaker 2: and more than what we spend on lifstick. You know,
Speaker 2: you can sort of bracket it. So we spent a
Speaker 2: lot of lipstick quo, which I.
Speaker 1: Think is great.
Speaker 2: But if you said, well, maybe we should spend a
Speaker 2: quarter of a percent of our of our economic product
Speaker 2: on the extension of life to another planet, making my
Speaker 2: fault planetary, and that would be like a reasonable number,
Speaker 2: and you know that's uh, you know, several tanza billions.
Speaker 2: So I don't think it could be done for that.
Speaker 2: And but a critical element is making having that reusable
Speaker 2: orbital craft. So that's the that's the fundamental breakthrough is necessary.
Speaker 2: First bill to afford to do it at a price
Speaker 2: that is going to be palatable to the general public.
Speaker 1: Planetary and think about the kind of fuels used. Probably
Speaker 1: it looks so ideas about well my wild's idea about feels.
Speaker 2: I think long term, you know, once we well, if
Speaker 2: we I suppose figure out fusion, you're having a fusion.
Speaker 1: If you can have a compact fusion reactor and that
Speaker 1: that would be the best energy source.
Speaker 2: And then you need to sort of shoot something out
Speaker 2: of the back end, uh, you know, which could just
Speaker 2: basically a high energy ion engine powered by a fusion reactor.
Speaker 2: That's like, that's pretty much about as good as're gonna get.
Speaker 2: I mean, theoretically from a physics standpoint, sorry a gravity saying,
Speaker 2: maybe a solar sale. Yeah, solar sale is an option.
Speaker 2: But now the sun doesn't have a lot of force
Speaker 2: because if you stand outside, you don't feel yourself getting
Speaker 2: knocked down by the Sun.
Speaker 1: But but so you need a big sale in space
Speaker 1: and it can and it can work, and it's an option.
Speaker 2: And particularly, you know, if you had, like to say,
Speaker 2: a cargo ship going from Earth to Mars, where the
Speaker 2: time of the journey wasn't that big of a deal,
Speaker 2: then that could be actually a good option.