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. I'm your host, Will Walden.
Elon Musk's social media platform X has introduced
private likes for all users, expanding a feature once
exclusive to X Premium subscribers.
This change aims to boost user privacy and genuine engagement
by concealing the identities of users who like posts Now.
The move was confirmed by X owner Elon Musk, showing the
desire to let users like content without fearing backlash.
Now the private likes feature is explained by XS Director of
Engineering is designed to protect users public image and
encourage engagement with diverse content without
judgment. Users will still see who liked
their posts and the total like count, but others will not see
this information for the moving away from public like counts as
a measure of social approval. Now, the update to private Likes
is part of a broader push by X to enhance user privacy and
foster a safer, more inclusive online environment, according to
X. And by removing the pressure to
conform to public opinion, X hopes to promote more authentic
interactions on the platform. This change will also see the
removal of the Likes tab from user profiles.
Now, X's engineering team announced the feature, stating
it would better protect users privacy.
Users will still be able to see their own liked posts, and the
author of a post can see who liked it.
Metrics such as like counts will continue to appear under
notifications. Maintaining a balance between
privacy and feedback on content popularity and the introduction
of private likes follows a recent policy update by X
concerning adult content. The platform now allows
consensually produced and distributed adult content,
provided it is properly labeled and not prominently displayed.
This policy reflects X's belief in the autonomy of adults to
engage with and create content reflecting their own sexual
beliefs and experiences. Now, however, X maintains strict
prohibitions against non consensual, exploitative or
harmful pornographic content and bans the use of adult content
for profile pictures, banners and other publicly visible
areas. These regulations aim to ensure
that while adult content is permitted, it does not
compromise user safety or violate community standards.
Now, as of Wednesday, private Likes feature has been
implemented with the Likes tab no longer visible when viewing
other users profiles. The change was announced through
an update on X and a pop up notification encouraging users
to engage more, suggesting that liking more posts will improve
their For You feed. Now, this privacy feature was
initially introduced for X Premium subscribers in
September, allowing users to hide their Likes tab.
This option provided users with greater control over their
activity visibility, aligning with the broader trend of
prioritizing user privacy on social media platforms.
And the removal of the Likes tab from public view addresses
privacy concerns, especially considering past incidents where
public figures liked content led to controversies.
For instance, in 2017, Ted Cruz, the senator from the US, liked a
sexually explicit tweet causing a public relations issues that
was later attributed to a staffer.
Sounds like a politician, doesn't it?
Let's blame it on somebody else. That's my thoughts on this one.
It's it's kind of funny though, if you ask me.
Now, by making likes, Private X aims to reduce some public
mishaps and the necessity for disclaimers like likes and
retweets aren't endorsements in user BIOS.
This measure ensures that users, especially public figures, can
interact with content without fearing unwanted scrutiny.
Now, the shift of private likes is part of a series of changes
introduced by Elon Musk since acquiring the platform in 2022.
These changes include the launch of a paid subscription tier,
offering features like more direct messages in the coveted
blue check mark. Musk's tenure has seen
significant policy adjustments aimed at refining user
experience on the platform. Now, the broader context of
these changes include a move towards enhancing user
engagement by reducing performative behaviors.
By making likes on X private, it encourages users to interact
with content they actually enjoy, free from external
judgement, which may contribute to a more positive and authentic
user experience. Now, the policy updates here and
the feature introductions are a concerted effort by X to balance
user privacy with engagement. And while users can still gauge
the popularity of their posts through likes counts, the
emphasis on privacy ensures that this feedback does not come at
the cost of personal exposure or public scrutiny.
The changes are also indicative of X's evolving approach to
content moderation and user interaction, seeking to create a
platform where users feel safe and comfortable expressing
themselves no matter how they want to do it.
This includes accommodating diverse forms of content while
maintaining strict guidelines to prevent abuse and exploitation.
Now the decision to allow adult content with stringent rules on
its display and distribution. It demonstrates XS commitment to
respecting user autonomy while safeguarding the own community.
It's a nuanced approach that seeks to support free expression
within a framework that prioritizes safety and
responsibility going forward. Today's episode revolves around
the $56 billion compensation package for Elon Musk as the CEO
of Tesla. Now, Tesla investors are poised
to vote on this pay package. This is the company's proposed
relocation from Delaware to Texas.
And at an important shareholder meeting this week, analysts warn
at the risk that Musk could leave Tesla to focus on other
ventures such as his AI startup XAI, social media platform X.
And that is if the pay package is rejected.
Remember, this is the largest pay package for any CEO anytime,
ever in the history of humanity. The voting on Musk's
controversial pay package is set to conclude on Thursday, with
major consequences for both Musk and Tesla.
And over recent weeks, Musk has actively campaigned to persuade
shareholders to reinstate his nearly $50 billion pay package,
which the Delaware judge who voided it described as the
largest ever observed in public markets.
Now, Tesla released a video featuring Optimus, which is Elon
Musk and Tesla's humanoid robot, instructing shareholders on how
to cast their ballots. Voters were offered a chance to
win a Musk escorted tour of Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin,
and Musk has been vocal on XS social media platform about the
vote, predicting a win and claiming the public sentiment in
is unequivocally supportive. Now, as the vote approaches, the
outcome remains uncertain. Major shareholders are divided
on whether Musk, often seen as a distracted leader, deserves such
a substantial reward. The final decision may rest on
individual investors, many of whom are drawn to Musk's public
persona as a genius. Now.
The vote has broad implications for Tesla, though, which has
faced challenges such as weak sales, global competition and
mass layoffs. And Musk has indicated he might
leave Tesla if the pay package is denied, potentially pursuing
advanced technology projects elsewhere.
He's threatening people. And if approved, Musk would gain
more control over Tesla's board through stock options.
Now, Tesla Chairperson Robin Denholm has urged investors to
support Musk, emphasizing his unique contributions to the
company. He said Elon's unique
contributions have built Tesla from a company that was in 2018
a loss making ambitious company with significant hurdles and
challenges to overcome into what it is today, a company that is
literally changing the world. However, critics like New York
City Comptroller Brad Lander argue that the package is
unreasonable given Tesla's struggles and Musk's divided
focus among various ventures. He said we need a full time CEO
who's focused on growing the company and producing great
shareholder returns, not allowing for a distraction or
chasing shiny new objects. Now.
In 2018, a majority of Tesla shareholders approved Musk
compensation package worth $56 billion in stock options instead
of a salary. This propelled Musk to become
the world's richest person, funding his ventures into space,
brain digitization and acquiring Twitter's de facto town square.
However, some shareholders sued, claiming the process was
improper. Now, earlier this year, a
Delaware judge invalidated the pay package, calling it an
unfathomable sum and noting that it was approved by a board
filled with Musk's friends and a former divorce lawyer.
The board now asked shareholders to restore the package, which
would increase Musk's voting power to nearly 25% and
authorized Tesla's corporate move to the state of Texas.
Now the votes outcome is uncertain, with some key
investors opposing the package and others remaining silent.
Major institutional investors like Vanguard Group, BlackRock
and State Street Corp holding about 17% of Tesla stock
collectively, have not publicly declared their positions.
None responded to our requests for comment at this point.
Now about 40% of Tesla stock is held by non institutional
investors, including individual retail investors.
And many are Musk supporters, such as billionaire Ron Baron,
who called Musk indispensable to Tesla and asserted that his
compensation should reflect that fact, He said Our answer is
clear, loud and unequivocable. Tesla is better with Elon.
Tesla is Elon. That's what Ron Baron said.
Yet some investors have become delusioned with Musk amid
Tesla's performance struggles. Leo Coogan, one of Tesla's
largest individual shareholders, stated the that he'd vote
against the proposal, saying enough is enough.
A coalition of seven large institutional investors,
including the New York City Comptroller and Amalgamated
Bank, has urged shareholders to reject the package, setting a
material governance failure. Now, proxy advisory firm ISS
criticized the package as excessive despite Tesla's
success, doubting it would increase Musk's focus at Tesla
at all. Marcy Frost, CEO of the
California Public Employees Retirement System, representing
2.2 million public workers, also plans to vote against the
package, as it did back in 2018 as well.
Now, Frost said that the decision wasn't personal, but
about ensuring returns for shareholders of Tesla.
Frost also said. It's really important then as a
shareholder that we get the return on the capital that were
allocated to these public companies.
James Park, who was a UCLA School of Law professor,
indicated a vote for the proposal would signal
shareholders desire from Musk's continued involvement, while a
Novo would reflect dissatisfaction within its
leadership. Now Denims later highlighted
Musk's role in Tesla's growth over the past six years and
stressed the importance of the pay package by retaining his
attention and motivation, she wrote.
If Tesla is to retain Elon's attention and motivate him to
continue to devote his time, energy, ambition and vision to
deliver comparable results in the future, he must stand by our
deal now. In January, Musk tweeted about
his need for more control over Tesla.
He said. I am uncomfortable growing Tesla
to be a leader in AI and robotics without having about
25% voting control. Enough to be influential but not
so much that I can't be overturned.
Both Musk and Tesla decided to decline for comment on this
matter to us today. Now this vote occurs as Tesla
grapples with a significant drop in stock value, having lost more
than 30% since the year's start. The company reported a 55%
plunge in first quarter profits in April due to slowing sales
and to ease investors worries, Musk promised to launch a fully
autonomous robo taxi by August, a timeline which is met with
skepticism considering full self driving isn't quite a thing yet
now. Park noted that the current
economic backdrop would influence voters decisions.
He suggested that some retail investors dedicated to Musk
might overlook recent events and vote in favor of the package,
while others might be disillusioned by Tesla's recent
performance. Analyst Adam Jonas warned that
rejecting Musk's pay package could slow down Tesla's AI
efforts. Some investors are willing to
take that risk. Nell Minow, vice chair of Value
Edge Advisors, donated most of her Tesla stock to charity after
voting against the pay package. She criticized Tesla's corporate
governance, saying there's no way you can consider this board
independent. If he doesn't have enough of an
incentive from his current holdings, then I don't know if
this gigantic amount of money would make a difference.
Kevin Smith, who's and software engineer with a few Tesla
shares, was frustrated and he said it seems to be a symbolic
gesture against the court. So my symbolic vote is no.
This vote will determine Musk's future role at Tesla and could
influence the company's direction amid ongoing
challenges. Though investors must weigh
Musk's potential departure against his leadership
contributions and Tesla's needs. The decision will shape Tesla's
path forward in the competitive EV market and AI in the future.
Like as we have noticed from Elon lately, he has been stating
that if you think Tesla is a car company, you've got it all
wrong. Tesla's a technology company
that just so happens to build the best car and they're making
AI, they're making robots, solar roofs, power everything.
So without Elon at the helm to lead things, where would the
company go? That's where I'm going to give
my thoughts on this now. I'm a person that doesn't like
corporate green. I don't like billionaires that
don't give back. Elon has given back numerous
times. He pays his taxes, things like
that. He's doing OK.
Well in that regard. In my opinion, he's doing all
right now. I'm a big fan of SpaceX.
If you haven't noticed, I love talking about SpaceX and
Starship. It's one of the things that I
really enjoy doing. I know he focuses a lot of time
at SpaceX due to the Starship program, but he did put some
people in place there to take over when he's not available.
So Gwynn Shotwell, of course, and Kathy Leaders, like Kathy
Leaders is one of the people that used to run the human Space
Flight for NASA and now she runs the Starship factory down in
Texas. So he put some leaders in place
to take over the things that he used to do.
He basically helped build that factory from the ground up down
in South Texas. Now, Elon does have people at
Tesla that work really closely with him and do jobs that he
doesn't do, but he's the visionary.
So think about that. I'm I'm a big supporter of the
things that Elon wants to get done.
Build robots, build a rocket, then go to Mars.
The Boring Company is very cool. I think it's a really cool idea
to have tunnels where there's congested traffic or where you
just need to go a couple miles and you don't want to sit at red
lights for a while or you don't want to get an Uber or whatever.
Just go into the tunnel. That's really neat.
The cyber truck's pretty cool. I really enjoy all the Tesla
vehicles. They're very fun to drive.
I've driven them, driven them Model S and a few others.
But if, if it seems like in this regard, and I want to know about
this in the comments, it seems like Elon is threatening
shareholders almost. I wouldn't say blackmailing
them, but he he said that if he doesn't have 25% of the company,
his heart's not in it anymore. He just can't get up in the
morning to go to work. He expressed that there were,
you know, if he doesn't have 25% voting control, He said, I'm
uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI and robotics
without having 25% voting control, enough to be
influential, but not so much that I can't be overturned.
So 25% of Tesla is going to make him a lot of money in the future
and he made the company so it could be controlled by the
shareholders. And if he has 25% control, they
could overturn him if enough people vote against him.
And it's just like his pay package.
Now, do I think that the pay package is legit 2018?
Now, you got to remember the board of directors at that time
were basically Elon's friends. You know, I'm just going to put
it straight out there. His brother, his friends, people
he was very close with were on the board at that point.
In 2018, they came up with this package.
So Elon would stay the visionary and he would stay with the
company. And at that point, it seemed
like a great idea because SpaceX was growing, Tesla was growing,
other companies were growing. And at this point, he needed to
have control over Tesla. He needed to make money.
And since he wanted to make some more money, he wanted us more
control in the future. Billions of dollars, 10s of
billions of dollars in the future.
It makes sense, $56 billion is a lot of money.
But they didn't know it was going to grow to this point.
And he did everything he needed to do in order to get that pay
package. And if the board of directors
said that it was OK and the other members thought it was all
right, I don't see why he shouldn't have the money.
So some people have commented on this channel about that.
I'm something I got. I got this crazy comment the
other day from somebody and say that I said that I'm a left wing
Democrat shill or something with the mind virus or something.
Dude, I'm going to say this straight up to you, whoever read
the account. I read it and I laughed at you.
You're spitting out this rhetoric.
That's weird. I just tell you how it's going.
What's going on, by the way? I'm being honest with you guys.
I know I'm like, if you, if you listen to this podcast, I don't
usually go off on tangents like this.
I usually read the news to you and I tell you what's going on
and then I log off. And then we can go out about our
days, right? About 10 minutes of Elon Musk
news. But the fact is you have to look
at all points of data for things like this, and I skewed towards
both sides on this one. It's a really tough decision
because the guy did everything he was supposed to do.
He hit all the numbers he was supposed to hit.
And if you don't pay the guy for doing his job, then what kind of
message does that send? I don't know.
Do you think he's worth $56 billion?
Is that is that too much money for one person to have?
And also if he's saying that he has, if he the 25% influence on
Tesla and if he doesn't get it, well, I can't, I can't keep
doing my job. That seems kind of weird to me.
I want to know what you think in the comments.
If you're on Spotify, please hit the follow button and leave a
comment down below. Or any other podcast platform
that you can leave comments on, including YouTube.
Please let me know what you think about this because this is
a weird, it's a, it's a tough one.
And we're going to know on Thursday what's happening to
Elon and his control. And if he doesn't get the 25%
control and if they don't give him the pay package and if they
don't move to Texas, he's going to flip out 100%.
Elon's going to flip out. We'll hear about it on X.
He's going to throw a tantrum sometimes.
Elon goes a little bit wild. He's a genius.
He's an absolute genius and I will never take that away from
him. He's done incredible work so far
and he has incredible ideas. But I believe if he doesn't get
what he wants, it's kind of going to be like a spoiled brat,
you know? And I wouldn't understand why if
he doesn't have 25% voting control of his company that he
was, he helped start and helped grow to what it is now.
I can understand where he's coming from.
I can understand why if he doesn't get his money, I can
understand where he's coming from because don't mess with
somebody's money and don't mess with somebody's company or their
family. And those two things, the
company and the money, everyone's messing with him
right now. So if he doesn't get his 25%, I
think we're going to hear about it pretty, pretty legit on X
after this. So again, let me know in the
comments. I appreciate everybody sticking
with me on this one. I'm going to do more of these
podcasts where I speak my mind a little bit more.
I think it's important that we all have a conversation here and
then we're all part of this together, this whole show.
So I'm going to continue doing the news for you.
I won't be slanted with it. I lean middle, I'm right in the
middle. I look at all the data.
Sometimes some of these things are, you know, some of the news
is a little bit off. You know, it's it try to do it
right down the middle and sometimes it's a little bit
left, sometimes a little right, whatever.
Try to do it as center as possible.
But I thought it was funny that somebody said I have a mind
virus like that's that's a weird thing to say a mind virus.
Oh my God. Anyway, thank you.
The guy who said this a mind virus.
I know you still listen so you know who you are and I'm not
laughing at you, but maybe you're the one with the mind
virus. I'm just joking.
I really, I really do wish you the best and I'll catch you guys
in the next one. Take care of yourselves and each
other and make sure to subscribe to the show if you haven't
already on whatever podcast platform you're on right now.
And on this episode, we're going to be talking about Starship,
IFT 4, IFT 5, possibly IFT 6, but mainly we're going to be
talking about an environmental group that's going to be
possibly contesting Starbase down in Texas.
Could they be canceling Starship launches in Texas?
We're gonna take a look at that in a second.
But let's first talk about IFT 4 and IFT 5.
IFT 4 went off without a hitch, almost.
There's a little bit of a hitch. The landing of the booster was
great. The way that the ship came back
into the atmosphere looked great, but there were some heat
tile adjustments that need to be made for IFT 5.
And Elon Musk has talked about this a little bit.
He said that the new heat tiles for IFT 5 will be a little bit
better, be able to reduce the friction, reduce the heat on the
ship. And also they're going to be
putting like a secondary layer, like a secondary skin underneath
those tiles. So if there's any sort of
leakage from the plasma that goes through those tiles and
hits the actual ship, there can be another material there that
will hopefully stop it from rupturing the stainless steel
construction of the ship fuselage.
Not only that, they're going to take a look at the hinges, where
the wings and the hinges of the ship itself connect, and they're
going to be making some adjustments to those.
Because as you can see from the footage from IFT 4, when it
comes back into the atmosphere, that's kind of where things went
bad, but it made it, so it's OK, right?
But they're trying to get this perfect.
So when they put people in this, it's going to be a whole
complete safe ship. And they need to put Starship in
this category of safe for people because they need to send it to
the moon for the Artemis program, Artemis 3 in
particular. And of course, SpaceX thinks
they're going to be able to do it in a few years.
But experts around the globe have said numerous times it's
probably going to be 20-30. And not just because of
Starship, but because of NASA and also Axiom putting
everything together and making sure that all the Is are dotted,
all the TS are crossed before they actually launch to the
moon. It's a big undertaking.
You can't just stick somebody in a rocket and hope it works.
You have to make sure that it's completely safe.
And if it's not completely safe, they have to not do it.
So there, there was a little margin for error, but this is
going to be a margin that SpaceX doesn't want to deal with.
So they're going to get this right in the next few flights
for the ship. Now, Elon also mentioned
something about landing the booster back at Starbase instead
of in the Gulf of Mexico. Did they get enough data?
Elon mentioned this in a in a post that he had on X the other
day. He did a live stream and he was
watching some games, watching some stuff and he just talked
started talking about Starship. Basically.
He talked about will they be catching IFT 5 and he said they
don't quite have enough data yet to see if they're going to catch
this thing, but there's a possibility that they still
will. So what Elon was saying, he got
excited after IFT 4 landed, after everything looked great.
He's like we're going to try to lot.
We're trying to catch it in IFT 5.
Everybody blew up. I went nuts.
I was like, no, this can't happen.
Like you're going to ruin everything.
Can't do it. I freaked out.
So I have T5 Elon's like if we have enough data that supports
that we can actually land this thing, we're going to do it.
So on the way back to the landing, the, the explosive
mechanism that destroys the booster on its way back down to
Earth gets saved, right? So at some time during the
flight, it gets saved. So will they be able to change
that? Will the FAA be able to change
that before this next flight? Will they have to make, they
have to make sure that they destroy the the booster if they
get enough data that says it might not make it back or they
might do a landing in the Gulf of Mexico again.
So we're going to see that's where we're at right now.
We're going to see if we're going to wait and see what Elon
and SpaceX say. But Elon said they're gonna try
to launch this thing in July. How could they launch this in
July? Like within a month?
The turn around could be pretty quick if I mean, if that's the
case, if he thinks, but he's also said that in the past,
right? So Elon has said that in the
past that they're going to launch this thing in a month,
which of course they they've never done before.
So could this be the first time that they do a one month turn
around for Starship? That's another thing we have to
think about. One month turn around for
Starship would be incredible. They have other boosters ready,
they have a ship ready. They've done some testing
already, but they haven't done final testing.
They haven't done a final stack, they haven't done AD stack, they
haven't checked all the ground systems again, they're just
getting over IFT 4. They haven't even moved
everything to the pad yet and it's been a few days.
So what's happening? You know, if it were going to be
in a month, they would have that stuff down there already and
starting the testing out. So I don't think they're going
to make it in the month. I think they're going to be
close. If they, if they can figure it
out really quick. They have to pour through a
bunch of data. They have to talk to the FAA to
get another license. You know, the, the incident
report for IFT 3 was kind of it was pushed aside for the flight.
Why are they going to be doing that for FT42 probably and IFT 5
as well? So we're going to see what
happens with that. Right now it's a waiting game.
As much as everybody's excited about a July flight, I don't
think it's going to happen. I think we're going to be
getting like, you know, maybe, you know, maybe not an early
July flight, but maybe like a late July flight.
I think that might happen. So not quite a month, a little
bit over a month, I should say. So like a month and three weeks
or something like that. Could be the next flight of
Starship or a little bit longer. It could be two months, they
might have a lot of work to do and they might have to change
some things. So not only do they have the
hardware right, So we see the hardware testing on the outside,
we see the booster blast for the for the tests.
We also see the ship blast for the test.
You know, they check all the engines, make sure everything
works, make sure the ground systems work.
They cryogenically cool it, they make sure all of that hardware
works. But when you are inside of the
ship, there's electronics. And within those electronics
there's code. You know, the code that runs it.
It's important. And if something is a little bit
off, they might have to recode a bunch of stuff.
And sure, code is a little bit faster than building a rocket,
of course, but they got a debug code.
You have to test it, you have to QA it.
There's all sorts of steps that you have to do in order to make
sure that the code works properly every single time.
So you don't get spaghetti code, which is kind of a, it's a code
word for just a bunch of garbage code in there that nobody really
wants or uses anymore. Yeah, I got to have clean code.
So every single flight they probably look at the code and
go, how can we improve? You know, if they're not doing
that, then I don't see, you know, why did they, why they,
why wouldn't they do that? They have to do that every
flight. How can we make the code better
to make things more efficient? We don't want to use as many
lines of code, you know, we want to use as few lines of code as
possible. The best part is no part, right?
So IFT 5, possibly late July, that's what I'm guessing.
Let me know in the comments what you think, what you think about
that. I think late July, good estimate
for IFT 5 flight, maybe early July too, or early August.
So that'll be a hot one. That'll be really hot 1.
So I also want to talk to you about this.
There's another thing. Starship launch damage, shore
bird nests, environmental survey finds.
OK, so we've had some stuff like this before, right?
Environmentalists love to hate on Starship and the surrounding
area because it's a protected environmental zone.
It's a protected beach. It's a, they're in a protected
area, this giant rocket factory and giant rockets are in a
protected area. So wildlife here is very
precious. Now piping plovers and turtles
and things like that are protected species.
Now here, I'm going to zoom in a little bit for you so you can
see some of this text said last week, launch of Starship from
South Texas damaged or destroyed numerous shore bird nests in the
area surrounding the private space company's launch
facilities, according to a new report that also noted other
environmental damages. The nonprofit Coastal Band Bays
and Estuaries Program said its survey found that each of nine
nests it monitored South of the launchpad had missing and broken
eggs after Thursday morning's launch.
OK, ongoing here. What's they say down here?
Ongoing and annual monitoring. A Boca Chigari has documented
shifts and overall reductions in shore bird nesting activity in
recent years since rocket testing and launch activity
began. OK, so they do surveys around
the Texas Parks and Wildlife Area where SpaceX is planted,
where they where they have all of their facilities.
This is what the environmentalists and the
environmental studies are going to be looking to do possibly in
the future. So if they can show enough
evidence that SpaceX is damaging endangered species under the
Endangered Species Act, some populations of snow plovers are
considered a near threatened species.
The Texas population is not among them, but the Snowy and
Wilson's plovers are, however, considered species of greatest
conservation need under the state Wild Wildlife Action Plan
monitored by the Texas Park and Wildlife Department.
OK, So what does that mean? It means there's really
endangered species near Starbase.
And if SpaceX destroys any of their habitats, they could be at
fault and environmental groups could sue them.
They could go to court for this. Could they possibly halt
Starship operations and launches from Starbase until SpaceX
figures this out? And how to protect these
animals? The answer is probably they've
done it before. Remember when they had the
environmental study a little while ago and it took them
months and months to figure this out?
So Elon and company, along with the government, came to a
conclusion that they didn't really damage anything
environmentally, so they had to put in some measures to protect
it so they didn't damage it in the future.
And that's kind of where we're at with these in their
environmental or endangered species.
Here is if they can prove enough that SpaceX is destroying these
species of birds and becoming a detriment to them, they could
possibly halt production of Starships and halt launches of
Starbase while there's another environmental review.
Could this happen if there's enough evidence?
I believe it could. I believe it could because if
and they already did an environmental review.
But it's not unheard of to do numerous environmental reviews
if there's more evidence shown. It's not.
It's not like court. You don't go to court and, you
know, say if you did a crime, they're like, Oh yeah, you, you
got off, you know, like, cool, you're not guilty.
OK, so then you then you're free, right?
The court said you're free, but there's more evidence because
this is an ongoing thing. So they said at the time SpaceX
had altered a wild or a habitat on a Wildlife Refuge.
So if they're building a case here with, if they can do
hundreds of, if they could show hundreds of pieces of evidence
for this, could they halt Starbase for a little while?
SpaceX, as you can see, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in
Texas. Parks and Wildlife Department
did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Of course they wouldn't. This could be a big deal.
Could be a big deal if they, if they're shown to destroy some
endangered species, either A, they would just pay a fine,
which is probably going to be the case.
Probably going to pay a fine to be like, oh man, we didn't know.
We didn't know this was going to happen.
Or if they do it enough, they pay a bunch of fines, which you
know, they should pay for what they did wrong.
Of course, everybody should. That's the right thing to do.
But if they really destroy some stuff and then these habitats
and these birds never come back and SpaceX is at fault.
Look, I'm with you. I understand we need to go to
Mars, right? We need to go to Mars.
And I, I want us to go to Mars, but we only live on Earth,
right? We live on Earth.
We should protect it and take care of it.
This is our home. We don't live on Mars yet.
So at least protect this stuff. And I, I think what was what
would actually happen is the Department of Wildlife in the
Texas Parks Wildlife Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service and
SpaceX. But I'll come to a conclusion of
how to protect these, these species and what can SpaceX do
even more than they've already done to protect these species.
And I think that's the case. What would happen here as
opposed to them shutting down operations unless it's really
bad. If it's really bad, then SpaceX
could do something. You know, it could be, could be
something really bad. So we'll see.
We'll see in the, that's pretty much where we're at right now.
We'll see what happens, see if there's any sort of if there's
any sort of Wildlife Conservation department and
these environmentalist groups, if they talk to each other and
if there's a lawsuit, we'll see. But I'm excited for IFT 5
because it's not going to happen before IFT 5.
I'm excited for IFT 5I. I would love for them to catch
the booster, but I don't think it's going to happen.
I don't think it's, I don't think it's worth it.
It's not worth it for SpaceX to do that.
So I don't think IFT 5 is going to be a catch.
I think IFT 6 is going to be a catch.
Maybe after seven, maybe they're going to wait a little bit,
which they probably should. 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. Let's talk about Starship.
Let's talk about New Glenn, and let's talk about ula as well for
a national security space launch phase three launch services
program. OK, that's a lot.
Wow. OK.
So we know that SpaceX works with the Department of Defense,
and we also know the Blue Origin hasn't launched New Glen yet.
So those are the two things we have to think about today.
SpaceX works with the Department of Defense, with Falcon 9,
Falcon Heavy, and they also work with NASA and other firms around
the world. Blue Origin sends people to
space to do what some would call a carnival ride.
You go up, you come back down. I think it's pretty cool though.
Right now the the Blue Origin launcher that sends people to
space sent Captain Kirk to space.
I mean, come on, you can't just be a hater on that.
That's pretty cool. But New Glen, their giant
massive rocket, hasn't launched yet.
Why did they get these contracts?
How do they get this contract, and what does this mean for
SpaceX in the overall scheme of things?
This contract is coming up $5.6 billion / 5 years from fiscal
year 2025 to 2029. They'll compete for at least 30
NSSL Lane One missions, which launch up to two years in
advance. So let's talk about Blue Origin
first. Blue Origin, who is founded by
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon guy, is selected for the first time to
launch national security satellites under the NSSL
program. The only rocket that they have
that can do this is New Glen, which hasn't launched yet.
We they haven't even test fired the thing.
Now heavy lift reusable rocket is expected to attempt its first
orbital flight later this year. Could this be possible?
Could we see a New Glen flight? I think it would be freaking
awesome if we saw a New Glen flight.
Let me go down to the comments. If you support Blue Origin and
their gigantic massive New Glen rocket, it's not as big a
Starship. Mind you not, I don't think it's
as cool as Starship. But because it's all hidden in
secret, we don't really know what's going on with New Glen
until Blue Origin releases something.
It's not like SpaceX where you can drive down Hwy. 4, literally
parking the side of the road, like across the road from it,
take a couple pictures or like to stand there and hang out and
notice how huge this thing is. You can't do that with New Glen.
It's all in secret. But they receive $5 million for
initial capabilities assessment and nearly $18 million for early
integration studies for New Glen, their initial capabilities
assessment. What can it do?
What can the blue origin rocket do?
How much can it hold early integration studies for new
glance? So they get 50 or 5,5,000,000
and 18,000,000 for both of those things.
Just it's kind of like a study like, hey, early integration
studies like how can this how does this thing work?
How will it work for the Department of Defense?
Like that's a bunch of money. And then phase three, this is
how the program structure and lay details.
I'm going to read this off to you because it's hard for me to
remember all this stuff. It's divided into two lanes.
Lane one is for less demanding low earth orbit launches and
lane 2 for heavy lift rockets capable of delivering payloads
to 9 reference orbits. So SpaceX has Falcon Heavy, it's
their heavy lift rocket. And then Jeff Bezos with New
Glen, that's their heavy lift rocket.
Lane one contracts are confirmed for Blue Origin, SpaceX and ula
with no other launch providers meeting the criteria.
Lane two providers will be selected later this year with up
to three contracts awarded for high performance launch systems.
So lane 2 heavy lift rockets, SpaceX is more than likely going
to get it with Falcon Heavy. Not quite Starship yet because I
don't know if the, I don't know if the Department of Defense
really is into, I know they're into Starship, but I don't know
if they're ready for a Starship launch yet.
And Joey Roulette, we're going to talk about that in a minute
too. Joey Roulette had some
information about this on X as well.
I'll talk about that in a little bit.
Now the competition. Space Force aims to increase
competition and drive down launch costs, which is a great
thing for SpaceX while maintaining assured access to
space through redundant capabilities.
Do it through ula do it through Blue Origin, do it through
SpaceX. You have three different things.
You can launch with three different launch providers.
So it's going to be redundant. They can always get something to
orbit or beyond on wrap. Opportunities will be available
early year to allow new providers and systems to enter
the competition. So if anybody else out there has
a heavy lift rocket or rocket that can suffice what the
Department of Defense needs, sure, throw your hat in the
ring. Go for it early year every year
to allow new providers to and systems to enter the
competition. Potential new entrance for lane
one include Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly
Aerospace and they're all, they all have like medium lift
rockets right now or they're developing them.
So the task orders, task order number one in phase three, lane
1 includes 7 launches for the Space Development Agency and one
for National Reconnaissance Office.
SpaceX and ula as incumbent phase two providers will each
receive 1.5 million. It's not that much money for
these mega mega corporations. Only launch providers who have
completed a successful orbital launch prior to the proposal due
date can be in for task orders. So why are they using Starship
right now? They don't really need to.
They have fucking heavy. Starship isn't proven yet.
Could they do? Could they do it by then?
Yeah, of course. And also, if they do it with
Falcon Heavy this year, they could always bid for the
Starship on next year's program. So Blue Origin looks like they
have the confidence of the Department of Defense, which is
great because we need competition.
Not only do does Blue Origin compete with Starship, but
they're going to be competing with these giant contracts, with
these giant contracts. SpaceX wants that money.
So they're going to make Starship better, faster, a
bigger, cheaper also ula going to do the same thing actually
ula is kind of old space, right? So Ula does things the old way
where they have a fixed way of doing things.
And the rocket doesn't change until later.
I mean, it will change later on. They will have their blocks for
this rocket, but it's not clear exactly when that'll happen.
Also, it's not really clear when Starship will make it to orbit
and complete a full orbit, but I'm hoping it's by the end of
this year. That would be great.
I'm assuming that it will be by the end of this year.
They'll they'll complete a full orbit and they'll possibly get
some Starlinks into into orbit while they're up there and
hopefully they'll catch a booster.
And I don't think, I don't think, you know, IFT 5's going
to be the booster catch. I think IFT 6 or 7's going to be
the booster catch. I'm still optimistic.
You know, I'm not a pessimist about this thing.
I'm just being realistic. So I think somebody left a
comment in on the last video that I was pessimistic about
this stuff. I'm, I'm just being realistic,
man. You know, with the, with the
booster catch for Starship, it's just a little bit dangerous, you
know, and I'm optimistic about Starship.
I want it to work very well. I want it to work perfectly.
But sometimes you got to be realist, you know, IFT 5, if
everything looks great, go for it.
Go for it. But you know, it seems like the
Department of Defense really likes Blue Origin in this case.
And Space Force plans to select lane two providers this fall.
And it they said the government intends to award up to three
contracts for the NSSL phase three lane two launch launch
service procurement lane two providers this fall.
Could that be Starship possibly, possibly.
That's a heavy lift 1. So it's either going to be
Falcon Heavy or Starship. If they can show that they can
get to orbit, SpaceX has to make some sort of some sort of door,
some sort of hatch for their satellites to come out because I
don't think they're ready for they're not ready for the
clamshell quite yet. You know, how want the, the
clamshell with the, the nose of the Starship opening up like
this and then the, the satellites come out.
I don't think they're ready for that yet.
They could do a hatch of some sort.
They did the the Starlink hatch, which seemed to be OK, seemed to
work all right. As far as we know is that they
said it was a successful test. So yes, it was successful.
Was a little bit janky and little, you know, and, you know,
probably a couple seconds worth of closing the doors little
janky, but you know, it's their first try and it's a Starship so
it's huge. It's massive.
So The thing is, Starship may get this contract.
Falcon Heavy more than likely like that's reliable.
It's proven. If SpaceX wants to go the proven
route for this one, I would say just get the contract, take that
money. Because if you can demonstrate
for the Department of Defense that you can do these things
again and again with Falcon Heavy, of course, use that as a
heavy lift rocket. It's not a super heavy lift
rocket like Starship. And I don't think they're going
to need a Starship for what the Department of Defense, US Space
Force needs for this launch. So why would you use the
Starship if you don't need it? Let me know in the comments down
below what you think they're gonna do.
Joey Roulette, I'm gonna read you some of his tweets.
So he just goes over Space Force awarded Blue Origin 5 million to
conduct da, da, da. And then so he says, Joey says
SpaceX pitch Starship, Blue Origin pitch New Glen Ula pitch
Vulcan. Then he goes on to say, I've
asked SSE if Starship was admitted to lane one.
They said yes. But I don't think that's
correct. SpaceX got 1.5 million for a
well understood system, which obviously wouldn't be Starship,
it would be Falcon. And it's highly doubtful
Starship would be operational by December.
So fully operational by December.
He said it's highly doubtful. I think there's a possibility
it's possible SpaceX pitch Starship for lane one
independent of Falcon because why not?
And SSC only chose its Falcon bid, but that's not confirmed.
I don't know waiting SSC to clarify, but it certainly seems
obvious Falcon is the one. And then Nick Proxima said, hey,
hi Joey. Where exactly does it say what
each vehicle was pitched? Just trying to phrase this the
best of my ability. Thank you.
And then Joey said Space Force confirmed to him, as did the
company's execs exec SpaceX. And then he said, I don't think
it's Starship. So interesting that it's not
Starship when New Glen is launching too.
So Joey's very reputable about this stuff.
So it's it's kind of a little bit weird, but also you got to
understand it. This is a business like they
don't do this to show off Starship.
They do this to win contracts. They do this for billions of
dollars. So if they have a rocket that
can already do that, use the rocket that's already there.
Use the Falcon Heavy for now until you get your Starship
ready. And then when starship's ready,
start launching. It's not like they lost a race
or anything like that. They're here to win money and
they're winning money with Falcon Heavy because they have a
reliable rocket that already works.
Unlike Blue Origin who has, you know, their has their tourism
rocket, which takes people up to space.
They float back down. It's all good.
It's fun. It's pretty cool.
It's actually it's actually really cool.
I like that the rocket idea for Blue Origin.
I would love to do it someday. So there you have it.
That's what we know so far. Starship isn't going to be
launching these as far as we know.
If anything changes, I'll let you know.
So leave a comment down below and please hit the like button
and the subscribe button because if you like SpaceX and NASA and
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Not just from me, but other creators out there that do
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So thank you so much everybody for watching today.
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.