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 Neurolink.
I'm your host Will Walden. SpaceX plans to launch a
Starship or numerous Starships to Mars orbit in 2026.
A SpaceX needs to complete orbital Starship flights before
attempting the Mars launch window.
SpaceX plans to launch a Starship or numerous Starships
to Mars orbit in 2026, but SpaceX needs to complete
numerous steps in order to get there.
They need to complete orbital Starship flights before
attempting the Mars launch window.
SpaceX also needs to demonstrate on orbit refueling to provide
enough propellant for the trip. And also SpaceX needs to resolve
heat shield durability for atmospheric entry at Mars speeds
if they do choose to enter the atmosphere Mars.
Now SpaceX has conducted 9 integrated Starship test flights
through mid 2025 and they reached space on the 9th flight,
but the Starship failed to stay under control in orbit.
SpaceX fired Raptor 3 prototype engines more than 300 times in
pre launch testing, and SpaceX also improved engine thrust and
cut engine mass in that development program.
The Raptor 3 prototypes. Now they must achieve full orbit
with booster recovery before targeting Mars.
SpaceX boosted its FAA approval toward permitting 25 Starship
flights per year, and SpaceX expects to fly the upgraded
version 3 Starship by around late 2025, early 2026.
The calls for the V3 craft to fly with Raptor 3 engines will
be what SpaceX will be using on those flights.
No, they need orbital refueling too.
It's a critical Mars precondition.
SpaceX must launch Taker Starships to refill a Mars bound
ship in orbit. They never performed A cryogenic
fuel transfer at scale in orbit. SpaceX needs to test docking and
fluid plumbing in zero gravity before resuming Mars missions.
They they face the extreme engineering challenges.
I've also landing on Mars. I don't think they're going to
do that in the first missions, but they're probably going to be
testing the systems while they're on the way to Mars and
also while they're in Mars orbit, little by little, piece
by piece. So the next few flights they can
send things or maybe some sort of cargo to the surface of Mars.
They'll need to manage high speed entry at 7.5 kilometers
per second and heat shield stress in atomic oxygen
conditions. They got to perform a propulsive
landing on a very thin atmosphere that provides minimal
drag, unlike Earth. And they also must gather entry
data during the 2026 uncrewed missions to improve their
systems. So if they actually do enter
Mars orbit and go into the atmosphere, they could dip into
the atmosphere and fly out possibly if I, I'm not 100% sure
about this, but they might test that.
What I'm what I'm assuming is they're going to go to Mars, do
a bunch of Mars orbits, and then either fling A Starship into
space with those orbits and maybe go someplace else or do
some orbits and then come back and maybe orbit Earth with that
Starship if they have enough. Maybe a gravity assist by Mars.
I'm not 100% sure because they haven't released that data yet,
but they have to manage Starship development alongside.
There are Artemis obligations too and that's very difficult.
They're doing 2 absolutely insane missions at the same
time. SpaceX needs to complete an
uncrewed lunar Starship demonstration under this NASA
contract and they have to refuel the Starship in orbit orbit
before it reaches the moon for the Artemis program.
And they have to launch Taker tankers to fill the HLS craft as
well as the Mars bound ships. So once they can figure out the
on orbit refueling, they'll be in a good position to go to the
moon and also to Mars. They have to make a lot of
starships too, so that you have to what I think it was Gwynn
Shotwell. So they have to do hundreds of
Starship test launches without humans on them in order to
launch humans in a Starship. Now, for these missions, they're
not going to be launching people with the Starship, but they will
be launching some cargo, maybe satellites for Mars as well.
Because if Starship can demonstrate that they can deploy
Starlink satellites in Earth orbit, there's no reason why
they couldn't do that in Mars orbit as well.
Because they want to have Mars link.
They're working on a star link system that will communicate
between the surface of Mars to the Mars link satellites in
orbit around Mars and then back to Earth.
And maybe there's going to be a relay station in the middle.
I'm not 100% sure about that because SpaceX hasn't released
any of that information yet, but they need to have Starship crew
certified eventually because a lunar Starship for Artemis 3
needs to carry people from Mars orbit down to the surface of
Mars. And crew certified just means
people can live and work in the Starship or they can use the
Starship to transfer people. They don't need to bring people
back to Earth or to Mars in the Starship, but what they will do
is take people from Mars orbit to the surface of Mars in the
Starship, and it has to be certified for that.
They have to have a lot of launches too.
They have to have high cadence of launches in late 2026 to hit
this Mars window. They need to launch multiple
tankers and at least 2 Mars ships in rapid succession.
Now, if they do this and there's pad damage, or if there's
regulatory delays or any other major failure, it's no go.
SpaceX must maintain uninterrupted operations across
all of their launch sites, including Star Base in Texas and
the Cape in Florida. Now, these missions are placed
against Artemis scheduling. SpaceX will likely perform the
uncrewed lunar HLS demo in late 2026 or early 2027, and they
also may delay Mars if NASA requires full focus on crude
moon landing. SpaceX can't sacrifice Artemis
obligations without jeopardizing long term funding from NASA and
the taxpayers of the United States.
Now, SpaceX holds 50% odds of launching to Mars in 2026,
according to Elon Musk said we might, we might not.
It's about a 5050 thing right now.
We're going to work on it and we're going to get as close as
possible. But like I said before, the
Artemis program takes precedent over the Mars program.
The Mars program is an internal SpaceX program.
It's not a NASA program. This is all SpaceX funding this,
and they made this mission so Elon Musk can do his vision of
launching something to Mars eventually.
What do you originally wanted was to launch an ICBM missile
from Earth and take a plant to Mars.
That's it. Something very simple.
Nobody would send him, sell him an ICBM.
They kept changing the price and telling him they weren't going
to sell it to him. They thought he was a silly
businessman from America. He was a Russian ICBM he was
trying to buy. And eventually he just said, you
know what, I'm just going to make my own rocket company
instead. That makes more sense than
trying to buy an ICBM. I mean, you know, 20 years later
we have a mega rocket in Starship that will be launching
to Mars hopefully by the end of 2026.
But you know, if Artemis program takes precedent which NASA could
really put the brakes on Mars missions in a way.
But if and just say, you know what, Elon, SpaceX, we need your
full cooperation to get people to the lunar surface.
We need your help and we're going to send a Starship around.
They're going to orbit the moon first before they orbit Mars for
sure. Now they there's another window
coming up for Mars. It's 2028 and 2029 Mars window.
It could slip the 2028 window and they could continue with the
strategy. So Artemis would continue at
2026 with the HLS demo in late 2026 or early 2027.
Then the Mars window could slip the 2028.
And we're talking Elon time here.
So whenever Elon says they have a 5050 chance of something, more
than likely it's going to slip because remember how long we've
been waiting for full self driving, like 100% human
unassisted full self driving. It's been a decade and Elon has
always said, well next summer or later this year we're going to
have full self driving. Same thing.
Rockets are more difficult than full self driving.
Rocket to Mars, especially the size of a Starship is much more
complicated in a way than full self driving.
So if you need to launch a rocket to the moon for the
Artemis program, then you have to do that in order to continue
that funding from NASA so you can get the money so you can
launch your rocket to Mars. They can leverage lunar
refueling tests as progress towards Mars readiness too.
So when they go to the moon, they were going to be refueling
in Earth orbit. And then that makes sure that
they can do that for Mars as well.
They'll be Mars ready because they'll be able to refuel their
rocket in the in the orbit of the Earth.
You know, if there's critical milestones that need to be hit
for Artemis, SpaceX will definitely do that first because
they need that money from from for the Mars missions from NASA.
Now, we don't really know what is going to happen with
Starship. Right now at Starbase, they're
testing Starship for Flight 10 and Flight 10 will probably be
very similar to Flight 9 in a way.
They may be do. They may do a Starlink
demonstration where they open the Hatch and launch some dummy
Starlinks that have some some data relay equipment on them so
they can see how they function in space and see how the launch
goes or the deployment of the Starlinks.
But other than that, they're probably going to stick to the
same game plan. Launch a booster with a Starship
on top, return the booster to the launch site, and then the
Starship will get to, you know, get on orbit and then splash
down in the Indian Ocean somewhere.
And then if they can figure out the Starlink deployment, that
will be a huge technical hurdle that they have overcome.
But they have to prove orbital Starship flights, booster
recovery, docking, refueling, and Mars landing all in a whole
like one sequence. And they have to be competitive
with the resources, with themselves, because the Mars
campaign and the Artemis campaign are working side by
side in parallel. So we're at a critical juncture
right now. And they must meet this
aggressive schedule. So the timeline for a Mars
mission does not slip till 2028. It's OK if it slips a few years,
but once it goes past that, there's going to be a longer
delay because Earth and Mars won't be that close again for a
while. So there's complex key steps
coming up this next flight. Flight 10, really important.
Flight 11, Flight 12, Flight 13, also very, very important.
And if SpaceX does succeed in launching and perhaps landing a
Starship on Mars in 2026, it would mark the beginning of a
new era of interplanetary flight.
This is effectively a trial run for Musk's ultimate vision of a
bustling Mars colony with millions of people.
And if they're forced to delay until 2028, it would not be a
failure so much as a realistic adjustment, giving time to get
the technology right, getting these rockets right.
In either case, the next few years will be critical, and also
exciting. By 20252026, we'll know if
Starship can fly repeatedly or if more groundwork is needed for
it and Artemis and Mars are both on the horizon and SpaceX finds
itself at the crux between Earth and making life multiplanetary.
Now, considering all facts are factors, 2028 is a more
realistic time frame for the first Starship Mars attempt,
giving SpaceX a couple more years to mature the system.
No more explosions, even a two year slip would be unsurprising.
In fact, NASA's Inspector General and GAO reports have
projected Artemis 3 and the Starship's readiness likely
slipping to 2028 from moon landing, which indirectly
suggests the Starship won't be fully operational much before
then. And even Elon Musk has
implicitly acknowledged this possibility by saying if they
miss 2026, they will try in the next window.
Missing one window is not mission ending.
It took NASA's Apollo program several tries and failures
before the successful moon landing.
But Mars is a much, much tougher target.
SpaceX needs to accomplish so many things by late 2026, and
it's very ambitious. But can they make the 2026 date
Elon Musk had hoped? Now get this Musk had originally
hoped for an uncrewed Mars mission as early as 2018 and a
crude mission by 2024. And of course, we see that none
of that has happened. Now, 2026 is the new target.
And of course, there's always skepticism about this, about
whether the schedule can be met. Is it possible?
Yeah, of course, if testing goes extraordinarily well.
But it leaves virtually no slack for errors or setbacks.
If another rocket were to explode, it could be months of
delays, 2-3 months of delays. And we launch says they have
about two or three rockets almost ready as star base.
So, you know, but he also says it's a 5050 chance for the 2026
launch. They need to hit these
milestones though. Full orbital propellant transfer
test, likely setting up a Starship tanker to refuel
another Starship in Earth orbit proving this capability works
without a successful refueling demo.
By the time a Mars mission would have to be put on hold and they
have to figure this out. They also have to do a long
duration mission shakedown and by like mid 2026.
And this is going to be like SpaceX might attempt an uncrewed
loop around the moon or something, or a high orbit
endurance test with Starship to mimic some aspects of deep space
missions, testing communications, life support
systems, power over days or possibly weeks.
It's going to take months to get to Mars, so maybe they'll do it
for two months because two week test for a 6 to 9 month trip,
that's not a lot of data to to bring in for that type of trip.
Additionally, around the time SpaceX would need to launch the
HLS demo it, that's of course if we stick to the 2027 crude lunar
landing mission timeline. And that will actually involve
multiple tanker launches in a lunar landing attempt.
So if SpaceX can nail the lunar landing attempt and also nail
those tanker, you know, Phillips and launches, then there's a
really good chance the SpaceX could get to Mars after that.
Now, if everything is done and late 2026 happens, and if all of
that is successful to prepare and launch the Mars bound
Starships during the narrow window at the end of 2026, it
could involve about 10 launches in a matter of weeks, launching
several tankers and a couple of Mars vehicles from Starbase and
Kennedy Space Center. Each Mars bound Starship would
likely require several tanker flights for refueling before
departure unless the payload is kept very small.
So they could, you know, they don't really need to take a
Rover or anything like that. They could take something small.
Ivan could in as a matter of fact, fulfill his obligation of
having a plant go to either a the surface of Mars or urban
orbit of Mars if they want to keep that payload very small.
That's, you know, very light payload.
But it's an intense campaign and that alone would be a huge feat,
especially with the high cadence launch depose maybe 10 depots,
Elon was saying, and some people in NASA were saying between 10
and 20. So I'm going to err on the side
of caution to say about 15 fuel depots in order for them to get
to Mars. But in the event one or more
Starships reach Mars, which they'd arrive in about mid 2027,
SpaceX would gather data from those Landers.
Now concurrently in 2027, focused shifts to Artemis 3
crude moon landing. Now this will be using the
experience from the uncrewed test, which is another mission
that must succeed to maintain credibility of the Starship
flight. Now, everything that they're
doing here is unprecedented, any number of things, a major launch
failure, a technical roadblock and refueling, regulatory
hurdles, environmental lawsuits, supply chain issues, it could
all slow down SpaceX and Artemis.
Spacex's strategy is to test as fast as possible and fail as
fast as possible to learn as fast as possible, which is why
they value having the FAA's blessing for so many Starship
watches. But some failures can be timely
or cost a lot of time. April 2023 cause months long
pause on SpaceX as it improved its launchpad and the FAA
assessed safety updates because they destroyed the launchpad.
Basically. A similar pause in 2025 or 2026
could absolutely derail the Mars schedule, especially if it's
like a six month delay. There's also the question of
regulatory in public perception. Launching humongous rockets 400
feet tall frequently carries the risks to the environment and
public safety. If Elon's rockets keep blowing
up, people are going to get worried and they're going to put
the kibosh on the whole thing. SpaceX already had to implement
mitigation measures after the early Starship tests.
Scattered debris a lot around the launch site.
If any accident were to have off site impacts, if there's some
debris that falls on an island where people live or hits a boat
or something like that, if there's any sort of catastrophic
explosion or some sort of red, it could prompt further reviews
or restrictions. And then they could have another
huge delay, six months to a year, depending on how
catastrophic this thing is. Now, as the company pushes
forward, they'll need to show that they can do it safely and
responsibly. But like I said before, 2028,
maybe a more realistic timeline for the Starship's first Mars
attempt. Now, this will give SpaceX some
time to figure out exactly why the upper stage of Starship
keeps blowing up. If it happens again on this
flight, that would be four in a row.
And that's not good for Starship, that's not good for
Elon Musk, and that's not good for a Mars mission, nor is it
good for an Artemis mission. Because if they, if they want to
launch people or I guess take people from orbit down to the
surface of the moon, they can't have any of that.
They can't have any sort of bad engineering going on with that.
So even if Starship can be launched, refueled, and sent on
a trans Mars trajectory, the challenge of landing on Mars is
absolutely enormous. No vehicle nearly as large or
heavy as Starship, which is about 50 meters tall and about
100 tons empty. And it'll be not completely
empty when it gets to Mars, but it's never nothing like that has
ever attempted to land on Mars. For comparison, NASA's heaviest
successful Lander so far, which is the Perseverance Rover in
2021, was about one metric ton. So this is 100 times that
weight. Starship is 2 orders of
magnitude heavier than that. Starship will rely on its
stainless steel heat shield tiles, a stainless steel body
and its heat shield tiles to protect it during the blistering
atmospheric entry. Now this is a phase that will
subject it to intense heating. SpaceX has tested Starships heat
shield materials and simulated Mars atmospheric conditions, and
acknowledged that higher levels of atomic oxygen on Mars will
create harsher conditions for the heat shield during entry.
But ensuring the heat shield can endure entry without excessive
damage, especially if Starship might be reused later, is a huge
risk. The company's experience with
Starship reentries on Earth is very limited.
There's subscale tests that happened for SM8SM-9 back in
2020 and that demonstrated the belly flop in the flip maneuver
for landing from high altitude, but those are much lower speeds
than an interplanetary return. There's a non trivial chance for
Starships to arrive at Mars could absolutely fail and blow
up during entry or touchdown, which SpaceX knows and they
readily admit this. The whole point of the 2026
missions is to do what they're doing on Earth, and that's to
learn and iterate, fail fast, fail often, and fix things as
fast as possible. And when Starship reaches the
lower atmosphere of Mars, it'll fire its engines to perform a
propulsive landing. And the lower Martian gravity,
it's about 38% of Earth's gravity, works in Starship's
favor. Vehicle weighs less on Mars, but
the thin air means almost all the deceleration must come from
engines and the drag of the hull.
And this is because it's not going to use parachutes.
SpaceX will try to land very gently, but we should not be
surprised if the first attempt ends in a crash or they lose
signal and there's a rapid unscheduled disassembly or a
rut. Now, even unsuccessful landings
would provide data on how the vehicle behaves in Mars
conditions. Musk has even floated the idea
that they might do multiple uncrewed landings with robots
first and only attempt a crude landing on the second or third
wave of missions after gaining confidence.
So in short, developing a reliable Mars landing system is
a huge hurdle that will likely take several iterations.
That's why Spacex's 2026 missions are going to be on
crew. And then they'll probably have a
few Optimus robots in there, to be honest with you.
I mean, they can walk now, they can navigate.
But I mean, if you strap them down in a rocket, they can
provide valuable data of what's going to happen to people when
they do these missions. And SpaceX expects a huge
learning curve with all of these missions.
And Artemis will learn from this.
The Artemis program will learn from this.
And the optimist robots will probably learn from this, too.
The willingness to risk failure is just part of Starships
strategy, SpaceX strategy for this.
Musk has openly said he promises more risky launches in order to
accelerate the development. But as we know, SpaceX and
Starship are running parallel to the Artemis program, the HLS
program. NASA has selected a variant of
Starship to land astronauts on the moon for Artemis 3 and
beyond, meaning SpaceX must absolutely demonstrate Starships
capability and lunar orbit and landing before that crude
mission takes place at all. This introduces schedule
pressure and could force SpaceX to prioritize certain tests or
missions that support Artemis, potentially at the expense of a
Mars expedition in the same time frame.
Now, NASA's current schedule, 2025, maybe late 2020.
Yeah. 2025 for Artemis 2. That's crude flight around the
moon. Late 2026 for Artemis 3.
First crude landing, the Artemis program.
Recently the schedule was slipped and NASA officials
indicated Artemis 3 is likely to occur in 2027.
So this gives Elon Musk and SpaceX a little bit of time
before they have to have their crew Starship ready.
They've acknowledges the development delays with Starship
and HLS and all the other systems too, which is the space
suits landing, you know a protocols etcetera and some of
the ground systems at NASA 2026 is when Starship is needed for
the moon landing, which is a massive funded high priority
mission. Now, before Artemis 3 can
happen, SpaceX must one, land an uncrewed demonstration of
Starship HLS to lunar orbit and possibly to the lunar surface,
providing it can dock with Orion and land safely, and two,
perfect the orbital refueling process.
Since the lunar Starship will need to be refueled in Earth
orbit to have several propellants, enough propellant
to reach the Moon surface and return to lunar orbit, NASA's
contract with SpaceX requires a successful uncrewed landing test
prior to a crude landing. SpaceX may do a few Starship
attempts on the Moon, maybe some crashes on the Moon as well like
we talked about with Mars. This implies that in 2026,
SpaceX will likely be conducting A dedicated moon landing test
with Starship. SpaceX plans to use a modified
Starship without the heat shield or flaps optimized for the
vacuum of space and lunar surface.
Now for Artemis, which must be launched and refueled multiple
times in Earth orbit to fill its tanks for a moon journey.
Now SpaceX will be very busy with Artemis related Starship
missions in 2025 through 2027. The company will have to juggle
the demands of NASA, which is providing billions of dollars in
HLS alongside its Mars aspirations.
And NASA has made it clear that crew safety and mission success
for Artemis are top priorities. The Artemis 3 schedule has been
adjusted to allow teams to work through challenges associated
with first time developments, operations and integration,
which gives SpaceX and Axiom, which is the spacesuit partner,
additional time for testing new capabilities.
This includes the refueling and docking techniques Starship
needs. And NASA will not rush a crude
moon landing if Starship isn't ready.
They're not going to risk people's lives in order for them
just to do a mission. Stands to reason that if a
choice must be made, SpaceX would prioritize fulfilling the
Artemis program milestones over a speculative 2026 Mars launch.
NASA's mission is has hard deadlines and international
significance, whereas a private Mars demo, while it's pretty
exciting for all of us, can be postponed, it can be pushed back
a little bit now. There's also the practical
considerations of resource allocation.
Can SpaceX build enough Starships to do everything at
once? Single Mars attempt might
involve 5 Starships to Mars as Musk has said, plus perhaps 5 to
8 tanker Starships to fuel them simultaneously with the Starship
HLS vehicles and tankers needed for the Artemis 3 uncrewed and
crude missions that could easily require on the order of 10 to 15
Starship upper stages and a similar number of super heavy
boosters all in a short period. Now SpaceX is rapidly expanding
production, but this would be an unprecedented manufacturing
feat. They're constructing additional
launchpad when a Kennedy Space Center pad 39A in addition to
the star pad star based pad 2IN Texas to support higher launch
frequency. Now.
Even so, the fall 2026 window might conflict directly with
Artemis preparations. For instance, if Artemis 3 slips
to mid 2027, the uncrewed HLS demo might take place in late
2026. That's the same time the Mars
window opens. Might be unwise to attempt both
simultaneously as a major failure in one could impact the
other. So if Elon is sending Mars tests
to Earth orbit and something happens, they'll slow down the
whole program and the Artemis program.
And everybody at NASA and all of their partners would be slowed
down because they're trying to do the Mars program instead of
focusing on the Artemis program. And an explosion on the pad
during a Mars launch attempt could knock a launch site out of
Commission and delay the whole HLS launch.
NASA and SpaceX will have to coordinate carefully to avoid
this from happening. Now there's a strategic aspect
too. NASA views the Artemis program
as a stepping stone to Mars, The plans to leverage lunar
experience for a human Mars mission in the twenty 30s.
Musk is easier to push directly to Mars sooner.
But as a contractor, SpaceX cannot jeopardize the Artemis
program. They have a huge amount of money
coming in from NASA. They cannot ruin the goodwill of
NASA and the taxpayers. Now I expect that if Starship is
not completely ready by late 2026, SpaceX will scrub or defer
the Mars mission and concentrate on getting Starship working for
the Moon mission first. Good news is that most of the
technologies needed for Artemis orbital refueling, long duration
life support for the crew, Starships reliability are the
same ones needed for Mars. So when they build the Artemis
rocket, it'll be very close to what they'll need for Mars.
So progress towards 1 is progress towards the other.
The difference is in mission profile.
The Mars mission requires surviving an atmospheric re
entry and a long cruise for months, whereas the lunar
mission requires a different landing approach, no atmosphere
on the moon, and the capability to launch back off the moon.
But both demand refueling in a fully functional Starship.
Now. The forecasts say 5050 chance
for Starship to make it to Mars 2026.
By 20252026, we'll know if Starship can soar or if more
work is needed here on Earth for Starship to fly.
Artemis and Mars are both on the horizon.
And SpaceX finds itself at the Nexus of humanity's multi world
future. Now Elon has said before
progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a
self-sustaining civilization on Mars, and whether it happens at
26 or a bit later, SpaceX is aggressively pushing towards it.
Now, will SpaceX have a fiery demise on the surface of Mars,
or will they continue pushing through and just wait a little
bit longer until their Starships are completely ready for this
amazing mission? Hey, thank you so much for
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