Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that
shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
And I'm your host Will Walden One.
More thing before we start, Google Podcasts is being
discontinued by Google. So if you want to continue
getting episodes of the Elon Musk podcast.
Please check. Us out over at YouTube Music
Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to
find our our podcast through Google products.
Thank you so much for understanding.
I had no control. Over this.
Google pulled the Google Podcast app off of Android, and I want
to let you know where to continue finding the show.
Over at YouTube Music Search for Elon Musk podcast Thank you so
much. Elon Musk and SpaceX have been
building Starship down at Starbase for the last few years.
This is the 4th flight coming up and it's possibly going to be
happening in the next few weeks. There are some things that Elon,
SpaceX has to do in order to make this flight successful.
Flight 1-2 and three were pretty successful in the whole grand
scheme of things. They have to do basically the
same thing as flight 3, clear the pad hot staging.
They have to do a boost back burn for the booster and they
have to possibly soft land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, Elon Musk just recently said that if Flight 4 goes well,
Flight 5, they're going to try to land the Starships booster
back at the Starbase launch facility.
You have to be kind of skeptical about what Elon says.
SpaceX is amazing, but you have to understand that some of the
expectations that Elon sets are way high compared to the
actuality of the situation. So if they do land soft land the
booster in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a possibility that
Flight 5 could see them landing it on land at the launch
facility at the tower. Think about that for a second.
What could happen if this goes wrong?
Boost back, burn, lip maneuver, everything goes great for the
booster. The ship is still flying through
to orbit and doing its thing, which is a whole other
conversation. But if the booster does make it
back to a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico, they're doing
basically a virtual landing with the booster and the catch arms
and the tower. So basically you have a landing
spot in the Gulf of Mexico that they've partitioned off, so to
say. That will be a tower and they'll
go through the maneuvers of the booster hovering in the catch
arms not physically closing. There's no catch arms out there
on the Gulf, but they will stay there for a certain amount of
time. They'll hover down, slow hover
down to the catch arms, and when the arms catch it, slowly
release the engines engine shut off.
And then from there the booster will fall into the Gulf of
Mexico. And that would be fantastic.
If they could do that, Flight 4, that would be fantastic.
But think about it like this. What happens if Flight 4 was an
anomaly? What happens if Flight 4 was
just, like, good luck? Like, of course engineering is
great. I love engineering, and I love
the engineers of SpaceX. I know a few of them and they're
great people. But what if this was one of
those things that they just got everything right this time and
maybe next time? It's not so perfect.
That's happened before with SpaceX.
They've done this before. They've had numerous boosters
land for Falcon Nine in a row and everything looked great.
All of a sudden a booster lands tips over, blows up, and same
thing could happen with Starship's booster.
Now mind you, the fuel that would have been spent on the
boost back, burn and flying back and hovering would basically
deplete most if not all of the fuel in the booster.
So the booster itself not really explosive, not as much as say, a
Falcon Nine. You also use different kind of
fuels. The fuel in the booster for
Starship is not as explosive or combustible as the Falcon 9.
So starship's booster probably not going to explode if it does
land on the catch arms and something happens to it.
But mind you, The thing is made out of basically a tube of
shrapnel. It's a 250 foot tall stainless
steel tube full of electronics, full of motors, wiring, things
like that. And you gotta think what would
happen if they did get it over land, if they got it over the
tower and something were to happen to it.
Shrapnel everywhere. And I'm, I don't like to say
things like that. I don't want that to happen.
What I want to happen is this thing to be completely
successful on flight 4 and then on flight 5 I want them to land
it perfectly at the catch arms at the tower.
Everything is great, but there is a possibility, a small
possibility. The four is anomaly and five
works. Elon is happy with flight 4 and
it landing in the Gulf and to go on to flight 5 and to land at
the tower. I'm totally fine with that, but
I don't see it happening for flight 5.
Elon said if this happens in Flight 4 too, By the way.
He said that in the latest Star Starship talk.
You see it on the channel, go check it out.
But if I don't know what do you think?
Let me know in the comments down below.
I wouldn't have a conversation about this because I don't
nobody really knows what's gonna happen for Flight 4 because
nobody really we know like the flight pattern.
It's gotta be similar to flight 3.
As far as we know. The only thing a few things that
are gonna be different but one of the major things is Elon
wants to make sure that the Starship is that basically burn
up temperature and land it in the Indian Ocean, possibly self
detonated over the Indian Ocean. They do have a bunch of flights
planned out and they do have combustion warnings over the
Indian Ocean. So is the possibility that they
do land the Starship and that's the big one, that's the big one.
They want to do the booster and landing in the Gulf of Mexico
also a big deal about this. So those two things are the huge
deals for the next Starship flight.
So if they can get Starship through the atmosphere so it
doesn't burn up, they have to get it to an extreme
temperature, the most extreme temperature of the Starship has
ever faced. And if they do that, this
mission will be a success. If they don't do the boost back
burn and the booster landing at the tower or at the imaginary
tower in the Gulf of Mexico, I think that's gonna be OK.
But Elon says, of course they want to do that.
They want to make sure that it all works out.
We'll see. I don't know.
Let me know down below because I'm torn here.
I don't think they should rush it.
I think they should do 5 perfect flights of the booster.
I know they only have up to 9 flights every year for the
Starship, so I guess they're going to go.
They got to go for it, right? It seems like they just have to
take some chances here. Now I want to go back to the
shrapnel part of it as well. The whole booster is stainless
steel. The whole thing is super sharp
if you think about it. If something goes arise,
something goes haywire and they explode the booster for some
reason. There's shrapnel everywhere.
There's pipes, there's tubes, there's wiring, there's
harnesses, there's vehicles. Whatever's around the Starship
launch facility could get extremely damaged.
Think about just imagine a shrapnel piece this large
ripping through part of a launch tower.
I know they have cladding on it, I know they have protection on
it, but some parts are not protected as well as others.
So there's a possibility, even if it's a slim possibility, then
some of the ground systems could get damaged if they try this on
flight 5. That's my real big concern is
the ground systems at Starbase and how fast would they be able
to rebuild them. They probably have other parts.
It seems like they would have other parts there, replacement
parts, or they can ship them in or build them or whatever.
But it seems like SpaceX may be taking this risk a little bit
too lightly. If Flight 4 is perfect again,
let me know in the comments down below.
I want to know what you think because I'm torn here.
I would love this to work. I would love for the spectacle,
the absolute spectacle of flight 5, to land on the tower, catch
arms, lower it down, refurbish the booster possibly, and fly it
again. That would be amazing.
I don't think the flying again is going to happen, but if they
catch it, they lower it down. That would be fantastic.
I would love it. I would absolutely love that,
that I think there's a possibility I but still I need
your comments, Please hit the like button too.
And also, if you like this kind of content, hit the subscribe
button, because not only will you get this channel and this
kind of commentary, but you'll get other people's channels on
YouTube that'll be in your feed. YouTube will see that you like
Spaceflight, SpaceX, NASA, and they're going to send you other
creators that are doing similar content to mine for Spaceflight,
NASA and SpaceX. And then you got to find new
stuff, which is great. You're going to find other
channels that you may be into. And what I get out of it, I get
you here. You're part of the community, so
please hit the subscribe button and the like button.
Leave a comment down below. And also, you know what?
Join the pod squad. Become a member of the channel.
Help me out. Continue build this channel up.
We're almost at 100,000 subscribers almost there, so
please join the pod squad. Become a member of the channel
so I can continue doing this every single week.
Thank you very much. Take care of yourselves and each
other, and I will see you in the next one, Hey.
Thank you so much for listening today.
I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
miss an episode and each episode is about. 10.
Minutes or less to get you caught up quickly.
And please, if you want to support the show even more, go
to patreon.com stage Zero, and please take care of yourselves
and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.
Oh.