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Hey everybody. 
Welcome back to the Elon Musk 

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Podcast. 
This is a show where we discuss 

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the critical crossroads that 
shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The 

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Boring Company, and Neurolink. 
I'm your host, Will Walden. 

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SpaceX sent its Starship rocket 
on its 10th test flight this 

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week and pulled off a rare kind 
of success. 

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Everything broke, but it broke 
exactly how it was supposed to. 

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Flight 10 launched from Starbase
early Tuesday morning and hit 

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every major milestone SpaceX was
aiming for. 

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Starship survivor re entry. the 
Super Heavy booster executed a 

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soft landing in the Gulf, and 
both vehicles completed 

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controlled descents that gave 
engineers exactly the data that 

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they were looking for. 
The mission didn't hurt 

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perfection, though it wasn't 
supposed to. 

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This time the goal was 
durability under stress, not 

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flawless execution of a normal 
mission. 

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Now SpaceX built Flight 10 as a 
stress test. 

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The company hardened the heat 
shield, added redundancy across 

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flight systems, and tweaked the 
booster for reusability rather 

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than single use performance. 
The results made that 

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engineering philosophy look 
smart. 

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Starship lost several heat 
shield tiles and even suffered 

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localized burn throughs, but it 
kept flying and landed safely. 

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That outcome is more valuable 
than a pristine flight because 

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it confirms the design can take 
damage and keep going safely. 

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And Super Heavy's return marked 
another major step. 

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For the first time, SpaceX lit a
subset of Raptor engines during 

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splashdown and attempt in a soft
landing on the water. 

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The maneuver was not only 
successful, but also matched the

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target time and location with 
tight precision. 

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Engineers will now examine the 
booster to determine how much of

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it survived and whether similar 
landings can lead to a rapid 

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reusability. 
Starship's re entry phase was 

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the most aggressive test yet. 
The vehicle hit Earth's 

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atmosphere at a high angle. 
It's higher than in previous 

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flights and endured heating 
levels far above anything it had

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seen before. 
Sensors captured how the new 

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heat shield design handled this 
thermal load in some parts 

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failed and controlled ways that 
match pre flight predictions. 

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The data will now feed into 
design changes for flight 

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11/12/13 and even into the Block
3 systems. 

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The flight also proved out 
several new backup systems. 

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SpaceX installed redundant 
avionics and control hardware in

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case of single point failures 
and during descent. 

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One of those backup pathways 
kicked in when a guidance system

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momentarily lost signal vehicle 
corrected itself in real time. 

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It continued on its course. 
That kind of fault tolerance is 

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critical for eventual crude 
missions to the moon and to 

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Mars. 
Now SpaceX stream the entire 

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flight publicly, of course, but 
the most useful parts happen 

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behind the scenes. 
The engineers received terabytes

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of high fidelity telemetry that 
will inform the next round of 

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structural, thermal and control 
updates. 

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This test was about building a 
rocket that survives even when 

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things go wrong. 
And a lot of things kind of were

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made to go wrong in this 
situation. 

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One reason this flight is 
important more than the previous

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ones is its timing. 
SpaceX is still targeting 2027 

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for a crude lunar landing as 
part of the Artemis program for 

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NASA. 
It hit that date. 

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Starship has to prove it can 
fly. 

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It has to land and it has to fly
again with little to no 

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refurbishment. 
Flight 10 didn't get Starship 

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all the way there, but it made 
real progress toward that kind 

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of resilience and that kind of 
flight. 

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And this mission also gave NASA 
and other stakeholders something

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they needed evidence. 
And that's proof that SpaceX can

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identify failure modes and 
control them. 

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Starships past test flights have
ended an explosion. 

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So last three they lost signals 
or they had uncontrolled 

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landings. 
Now this one delivered a stable 

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flight rofile, contained damage 
within the systems, and lanned 

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system handoffs that all worked 
as designed. 

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SpaceX has started testing 
ground systems for rapid turn 

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around, too. 
New cryogenic propellant loading

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rigs, water deluge pads, and 
robotic tile inspection systems 

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are ready, being installed as 
Star Base. 

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Next phase of testing will focus
not just on flight performance, 

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but on how quickly the team can 
prep Starship for another 

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flight. 
Flight 10 didn't just advance 

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the rocket, though. 
It validated a specific mindset.

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SpaceX is betting that 
controlled failure builds better

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hardware than cautious. 
Success. 

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Strategy only works when the 
systems are designed to handle 

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those failures without 
catastrophic consequences. 

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And this time, they handled it 
with ease. 

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Now Flight 11 is already in its 
stacking prep. 

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It'll carry the next generation 
of heat tiles, a tweak booster 

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layout, and more aggressive 
return profiles. 

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And if Starship keeps surviving 
increasingly hard conditions, 

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the next big milestone may not 
be a test flight at all, and may

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be the first one SpaceX tries to
fly again. 

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Now. 
This flight made the risk feel 

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calculated. 
That's what matters right now. 

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But in the next flights, they 
will launch possibly actual 

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Starlink satellites. 
So with every flight of 

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Starship, SpaceX will be making 
money and possibly making their 

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money back every time they fly. 
Now, flight 10, they did some 

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dummy Starlinks and those went 
very well. 

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If they could do that every 
flight, they could pay for each 

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one of these flights, one of 
these test flights with just 

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deploying these Starlinks. 
That is a huge, gigantic step 

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forward with Spacex's Starlink 
system and the Starship cargo 

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system for Starlink launches. 
Hey, thank you so much for 

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listening today. 
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support. 
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appreciate it. 
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tremendously and you'll never 
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And each episode is about 10 
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please take care of yourselves 
and each other and I'll see you 

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tomorrow.