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Is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads, the shape,
SpaceX, Tesla X, the boring. Company and Neuralink and I'm
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SpaceX has two options for the upcoming catch of the Starship
booster at Starbase Texas Now. One of them is the current
launch tower that they're using for IFT 1, IFT 2 and IFT 3.
Now after this IFT 4, IFT 5, probably IFT 6, they're going to
continue to build Tower Two at the launch site in the
foreseeable future. So what does that mean?
That means that one the launch area that they're using
currently will be the launch and the catch tower, or #2.
They're building the second tower as primarily a catch
tower, as sort of a Pathfinder as a test, a beta and alpha if
you will. So they can learn how to catch
before they destroy any sort of systems if they do it on the
current tower. So they have a lot to lose if
they do it on the current tower. If something goes wrong,
shrapnel goes everywhere. The systems, the ground systems
could get damaged and it could take them months to fix them,
which would push them way behind schedule for the IFT 4 IFT 5
launch and then push them back even further for the Artemis 3,
even though that's been pushed back already.
So what I believe is going to happen is they're going to
continue building Tower Two at, I was going to say Boca Chica.
It's not really Boca Chica anymore.
They switched it to just Starbase.
Now to Starbase, they're going to keep building Tower Two at
Starbase. We're going to see something
very similar to what they have now.
But I think what's going to happen is that Tower Two is
going to be a catch tower and they're going to integrate some
systems there so they can catch the booster, but then also lower
it and then maybe use a crane to put it on a transport and then,
you know, move it to where they have to refurbish it, fix it up,
clean it up and get it ready for the next flight.
Now there's option two, though. So everything that they've
learned from the first tower, they're putting into the tower
at Kennedy Space Center as well, because they're building one
over at Kennedy Space Center at NASA.
And whatever they learned from the first tower, they're making
it better. They're making improvements to
the Kennedy Space Center tower. And anything they learn at
Kennedy Space Center, they're probably going to build the
better tower at the STAR Base facility, the launch facility.
So if that were the case and they divert all the plumbing
from what they have now, Tower One to Tower Two and then they
use Tower One to catch the booster from now on, that's not
out of the realm of possibility, but it's going to be a long time
before they get Tower Two Bill. It might actually be about a
year or so. It's taking them a while to get
Kennedy Space Center Tower even sort of functional.
So it could be about a year for Tower Two at Starbase.
So expect maybe 2025 for the first catch attempt at Starbase,
maybe first quarter, second quarter, May early second
quarter 2025. But it's going to take them a
lot of work to get that done. And their primary goal right now
isn't to get a new tower up, like they're not going to get a
ton of people down there at Starbase to build the second
tower. What they're doing is they're
working on I FT3, IFT 4, IFT 5. They have to hit these
benchmarks in order to get to the Artemis program.
Artemis 3, they don't even have to land the booster for Artemis
3, you know, that's that part of the contract.
All they have to do is get a ship up into orbit and then
refuel the ship and then get that ship to the moon.
So if they can do that and they can expend some boosters along
the way, they might just wait for a while to try to catch
boosters, because I guess that's option three at this point.
Because if they if they don't catch any boosters, that's OK
too. They're not wasting a lot of
money. They know that in the future
they're gonna make all this money back that they use on
expendable boosters, sort of like what they did with Falcon
One and Falcon Nine in the beginning.
They didn't land a Falcon 9 for a while, so it took them, took
the many flights for Falcon 9 before they actually landed 1
precisely. And even then they had mishaps
here and there where the booster would land, the Falcon 9 booster
would land and then tip over or would land and bounce.
And you know, we've all seen the videos like how not to land a a
rocket booster or whatever it was, and they explode.
So that could also happen at Starbase.
And that's not good because the Super heavy is built with
stainless steel. Stainless steel explodes.
It becomes shrapnel, Shrapnel like throwing knives everywhere.
I mean, they'll be ridiculous. The ground systems would get
exploded everywhere. I So I think they're going to
play it safe. They're going to land a bunch of
these in the Gulf of Mexico. They get very precise with this,
very, very precise. Make sure it works absolutely
perfect every time. Make sure they can guide it
perfectly. I think what they're going to do
is they're going to do three or four precision landings in the
Gulf of Mexico and then after that maybe think about landing
them on a tower. They have to make sure this
works perfectly though. They might even do a hover test.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
It seems ridiculous if they would do a hover test.
I don't think they would though. I don't think they would do a
hover test. I think they're going to do full
testing and then they're going to bring it back like they're
going to do a kick back, they're going to do the flip and then
they're going to bring it back. So I think that's what's going
to happen 2025, early 2025, maybe quarter 2/20/25.
We're going to see the steps put in place where maybe we're going
to see a catch of a booster. And another option could be that
SpaceX builds a whole new infrastructure for test catch
tower, whatever it is, #2 could they do all the infrastructure
and they root it through one or two, or do they do it to both?
I think they might do it for both.
I think it looks like the systems are in place for both.
But could they do a substantial amount for the tower two and
just use what they have now for tower one that's up in the air
2? Because they always change down
there and everything always changes at Starbase.
So like, we don't really know what's going on down there until
SpaceX does something. It's all kind of speculation
until SpaceX starts moving the pieces and the parts around, and
then we see what's actually happening at Starbase.
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