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 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. Today's
episode is all about Starship going to the moon.
And there are certain things
that SpaceX has to do with Starship before they can
send the Starship to the lunar surface for the
Artemis missions. One of those things is a
propellant transfer in Earth orbit. Another
thing they have to do is IFT four, which is the
next flight of Starship. This
video is brought to you by current. It's
a great bank. I use it myself. And
I'll tell you more about that later on in the
video. And they're in the process
right now of readying Starship for the flight,
readying the booster for the flight, and the FAA
SpaceX are both working together to check off items
before they can actually send Starship to space
again. Now, IFT three went really well
according to SpaceX, and also according to NASA. A
NASA spokesperson said that SpaceX expects to launch
Starship super heavy test flight by the end of May.
That is incredible. If
this is a turn out, it's about a 1 .5 month
turnaround for a Starship launch. And
if this keeps happening, we could possibly see a new
Starship launch every single month. How
wild would that be? I'm all for it. Now,
we also have some more information about the lunar
journey for Starship. This is the huge one. Low
Earth orbit is big, but going to the moon is the
first step to going to Mars. Now,
they have to do a propellant transfer during a
flight in order to show NASA that they are capable
of sending a Starship to the moon. Now,
this is important here, because in the next year
by 2025, they want to be able to do this. So
it's 2024 now, almost midway. And
if they can do this by 2025, ship to ship
propellant transfer demo, they're going to launch two
Starships that will meet in low Earth orbit. And
then the rendezvous and dock two Starships, two
Starships will dock together, then they'll
transfer propellant between those two Starships. That's
what they need to do. But before they do that, that's
going to be in 2025. But before they do, let's roll
back to 2024. The tipping point propellant
transfer demo happened during flight three. This
is confirmed by NASA. Propellant
transfer demo flight system review in 2024, confirmed
and completed by SpaceX. And
it's confirmed by NASA. That
is an overview of the mission architecture, high
level Starship and hardware designs, key subsystems,
preliminary integration of models and analysis. Now,
the next thing they have to do is propellant
transfer hardware development, build, test and
integration of docking mechanisms. This
is for the two Starships that dock together and
transfer propellant relative navigation sensors. So
they have to be able to navigate near each other
and to each other from a launch, quick disconnect,
and also hot gas thrusters. So
when they're up there, they have to be able to move
around in space. That's what the hot gas thrusters
are for. So when they're close, they
have to, you know, those little ones that go, those
ones, that's what they're talking about. They
have to be able to navigate while they're in
space. They're virtually weightless. So
they need something to push them around when they're in
space. So the hot gas thrusters,
they're testing those in 2024. Now,
that may be in a future launch. IFT
four, which is coming up by the end of May, which
we were talking about before, they're going to do
a test of the landing of the booster in the Gulf of
Mexico. And also they're going to test
a Starship coming back into orbit at the highest
temperature that it can go. So
those are the next steps for IFT four. Now,
going back to the propellant demo, there will
be two Starships involved, two different Starships,
one's a Starship target. This
is a new thing. And then there's a Starship
chaser. And let's go over the target
Starship first, it launches first, then it receives
propellant during the transfer has active docking
mechanisms, has passive, relative navigation features,
and also performs a de orbit burn. So
when it's in orbit, it'll fly back down to Earth.
This is important, because IFT
four is testing those systems, the de orbit burn
is super important for this to work. Now
there's a second Starship that's going up, the
Starship chaser, which launches second, it chases
the target, target goes first, the chaser flies
after and catches it, the transfer is the propellant
to the target has passive docking mechanisms, the
other one had active and has active relative
navigation sensors, and performs de orbit burn as
well. So both of these Starships
will launch to orbit, and both will come back down
to Earth that alone is a huge deal for Starships
lunar ambitions. So the ship to ship propellant
transfer, let's go over it real quick, they're going
to launch two Starships, and then they can meet an
orbit, they're going to rendezvous dock together.
And then they're going to
transfer propellant between the two, and then return
to Earth and land on the Mechazilla at Starbase,
Texas. That's in 2025. Now,
after that, the Artemis missions will start the
lunar architecture system for Starship. Starship
and SpaceX have a 10 year lunar architecture capability
study, the Luna 10, that's just been released, lunar
surface innovation consortium LSIC was the first to
break this. Now we're going to go into
this a little bit, because there's a lot to cover
here. I want to give you guys $50.
Now, okay, hold on, hold on, I
want to give you 50 bucks. But
you have to do something. And
this you have to sign up for a current account. It's
current my bank. Okay, I've been with current for
years, they've treated me very well. And
it's all done through the current app. You
don't ever have to go to a bank. But
they are FDIC insured, and they are very, very secure.
There's checking accounts, saving
his accounts, teen accounts, you can buy crypto on
there, anything you want to do, like a normal bank,
but it's so much better than any bank interface
you're used to. It's just so much simpler.
That's why I use them. Everything
else is easy. They actually have like a
payday, advanced thing to so if you need money
before your paycheck comes in, they'll loan you the
money until your check comes in. It's
wild. They're a great bank, great
institution. And they're sponsoring this
channel. Now, if you want $50, use my
link in the description and sign up for an account,
you get 50 bucks, I get an affiliate 50 bucks, I
got to make that clear to you that you make some
money, I get some money too, it's free to sign up.
And my link is in the
description. If you use my link, that's
the only way you can get the $50. So
let's get back to spaceflight news. SpaceX
designs, manufactures and launches the world's most
advanced rockets to enable Luna 10 and other
commercial partners, transportation, Starship,
it's affordable, it's huge, you can take anything you
want to on a Starship basically, it'll be
leveraged to enable Luna 10 and other commercial
partners. So Luna 10 is SpaceX's 10
year ambitious plan to go to the moon and start the
process of building on the moon to a surface platform.
We've never heard of this before.
This is brand new to everybody.
Post landing Starships are large
surface platforms. They can provide services and
host third party equipment. So
it can become something else once it lands. It's
not a Starship anymore, it becomes a platform. And
the SpaceX brains exact expertise and experience
operating a fleet of 6000 laser link star link
satellites to lunar operations. So
we know now it's been confirmed by SpaceX that
they're going to be use some sort of Starship and
Starlink capabilities together on the lunar
surface. And they go on to say that
Starship is the most powerful launch vehicle
right now, which is the truth, but they have a
framework in mind for this transit and mobility is the
Starship communications is the Starlink and third
party hosting and services. So
when the Starships landed on the moon, it can
provide power and communications to third
parties and possibly storage as well. So
they they want to be able to do this affordably. So
affordable mass transfer between Earth and moon is
foundational to enabling sustainable lunar presence.
Now Starship will recoup R &D
investments via a variety of other use cases,
including terrestrial satellite launches. Satellite
launches from the moon. Is that true? Could
they do that? Okay, three Starship landings
begin a robust lunar base. So
it only takes three to start a lunar colony
utility Starship says Starship one hub for power
communications, data and commodity storage. So
this will power everything that comes after it. This
is the hub, this is the utility. This
is the thing that everybody needs in order to survive
and thrive on the lunar surface. The
rolling stock Starship. These
are new Starships rovers construction equipment, ISRU
plants, and other spite site specific payloads. So
rovers could be possibly see some sort of hybrid
Starship and Tesla vehicle. Maybe
that would be great. Construction
equipment, things to make landing pads, possibly
things to make roads, and also to level the the
lunar regulates so they can build a colony up there.
Then habitation Starship is
number three speaking of colonies serves as a crew
habitat for the site. So they're going to land that
and then the crew will be able to use all of these
tools to build on the moon. Now
we're going to go to depth about the utility Starship,
then we're going to go into a little bit more
information, we're going to get some more information
about the actual mission here. Starship
lands, deploys cargo and services. Pretty
straightforward, provides backhaul between moon and
earth, which is great local connectivity through hosted
payloads Starship provides about 55 meters of height.
So they're going to use this
as communication as well. So
provides on the order of tens of kilowatts to hosted
payloads and surface users can provide 100 plus
kilowatts if configured. So that's the power the
Starship has probably some sort of solar panels in
this, I mean, there's there's going to be solar
on the Starship itself, but they're probably going to
build solar panels panels on the ground on the lunar
surface for the astronauts to use for future missions.
Post landing utility of lunar
cargo, delivery Starships Starship can deliver 100
plus tons of lunar cargo and remain as a surface
asset itself. Edit this out. It
could do numerous things, propellant and fluid
storage, empty prop tanks provide fluid storage space,
which could be other propellant could be maybe
water in the future if they empty it out. And
this can this might not be drinking water, this could
be for septic systems or things like that. Oxygen
tanks hold about 1000 tons of liquid oxygen, could use
tanks to store other liquid or gases. They
could use it for methane boil off available for
lunar surface users. So they're talking about people
going to the moon with Starship, it's going to be
they have a whole plan for this. We
know that they were planning on it, but we
didn't know what the plan was until right now. Now,
landing latest Starship surface platform provide
power, habitation, communications connectivity,
fluid and commodity storage components and materials,
it'll be a way for humans to go to the moon, use
rovers, use equipment, build on the moon's surface, and
then set up a colony there so they can learn how to
live in space. And then eventually, eventually,
SpaceX could send people to Mars. This
is how they test the Mars habitation, they do it on
the moon first. If this works within 10 years
from now, we could possibly see a lunar surface base
and also the beginnings of a Mars base. 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 slash
stage zero. And please take care of
yourselves and each other. And
I'll see you tomorrow.