ISS R&D Conference

uh so it is my great honor to uh introduce a man who needs no introduction I'm not sure where he's at but I'm sure he's going to come in here somewhere where is he oh okay there you go um uh a gentleman who we can call Elon and everybody at least in this country I know exactly who you're talking about uh but Mr Elon Musk he's the uh CEO lead designer of SpaceX uh everyone I think knows this um SpaceX is an amazing um uh commercial company it's the first company to to launch uh commercial rocket into low earth orbit uh with their Falcon 1 launch uh then in 2008 they were one of the winners of a contract to uh bring services to the International Space Station they're the first commercial company to birth with the International Space Station bringing supplies

they're also the first commercial company to return a sizable return vehicle uh with the all the components still intact which is very important to us uh back to uh to the surface of the Earth and so it's an amazing company has done a great job um and continues to push the boundaries you you'll hear from Elon but his Interest really is not so much in low earth orbit as it is going Beyond low earth orbit and and making sure Humanity will continue to live uh by exploring beyond beyond Earth um Elon has a a varied uh history of things that he's been involved in this was this is one of the things that makes it so exciting to have this conversation with him today you he's not one-dimensional space guy he's involved in Tesla motors which he is a co-founder

and CEO uh and also a a major player in the design efforts and what they choose to go build and and how um of course he was a co-founder of PayPal and zip 2 uh he's deeply involved in uh a number of other Industries as well and so it's my great honor to welcome Elon Musk to the stage thanks for coming appreciate it okay well these are great chairs you guys look at those chairs you're in um let's see so Elon you've uh you and I were going to have a little chat this morning we said it was going to be a fireside chat so minus the Fireside I guess we're ready um again I've as you heard I've encouraged folks to ask a few questions along the way but I have a few uh a few questions I thought to get us started so the first one which is probably on everybody's

mind is perhaps you want to discuss a little bit about the the recent loss of the dragon and the in the Falcon 9 here on SpaceX 7 sure well I mean I think it's OB it's a huge um load to to SpaceX and um and or we take these missions incredibly seriously um the invest the everyone that can engage in the investigation at SpaceX is um very very focused on that and um in this case the the data does seem to be quite um difficult to interpret like whatever happened is is clearly not not a sort of simple straightforward thing um so we want to spend as much time as possible just reviewing the data obviously going over it with with NASA and with fa and with um number of other customers and just sort of seeing um what feedback everyone has based on their prior

experience um to see if we can get to what the uh most likely root cause is um look at look at both what we think most likely happened um and then anything that's a close call and try to address all of those things and maximize the probability of success for future missions any hints on where you think the problem lies you well I know the this there's media and the audience so they yeah so you have to be careful you're right I never really learned that but clearly that is a lesson now working on so so it's yeah I mean I um you know the I I think I think I think we'll be able to say something um more definitive towards the end of the week um at this point really the only thing that's really clear is that there was some kind of over pressure event in the

upper stage liquid oxygen tank um but the the exact cause and the sequence of events there's there's still no uh clear uh theory that fits with all the data um so we have to determine if some of the data is u a measurement error of some kind or whether uh there is actually a theory that matches the the sort of what what appear to be conflicting data points okay very good I I'll just make a comment the tweets you put out regularly uh particularly when events like this happen uh are really useful to everybody we really do appreciate it you you'd be amazed at how many folks quote what you said and and and how how glad they are that you just step right out and at least give some sign about what's going on and that you know we'll get through it things are

going well so we appreciate that absolutely and for sure um as soon as we we think we've got a clear line on on what what happened and we've sort of crosschecked it with as many experts as we can um and we certainly appreciate the the feedback from from NASA on this front very very much appreciated um the we'll certainly quite a put out that story my only reticence about saying something quite yet is I don't want to say something that subsequently turns out to be a Mis um misunderstanding of the situation oh yeah absolutely understand that so um one of the questions that I ask myself regularly is um at what point does all this government help hurt um so this event occurred and we have uh you have NASA folks uh there uh from from about three different

programs that intend to use your services ISS being one of them you have the FAA that's uh that's involved um the range uh folks are there um without feeling like you're giving your customers a hard time how is that interaction and uh what what should we consider doing differently so that we in those areas where we can help we are helpful and in those those areas where we're really keeping you from getting your job done we we can modify ourselves yeah actually I think the interaction with NASA has been great thus far um the the the biggest challenge is there there are um a lot of inquiries coming in simultaneously so uh it's it's hard to sort of keep you know respond respond to everyone right away but but actually it seems to have gone fairly well the

the biggest thing that's needed in the in the sort of short term is the ability to sort of gather all the data um create create a very precise timeline so you know by by the millisecond we know what each sensor was reading um and we can um correlate that with ground video and actually like one of the biggest challenges is matching the the things to the exact time you know because when you're talking about you know a matter of milliseconds um you know being able to say what is the ground track video compared to the data as received by the um you know by by the station from the rocket and then taking into account for exact the the actual time taken to generate a packet of information um when was that sensor read when was it encoded into a packet and when

was that packet sent to the ground um when when you're dealing in in milliseconds that all that stuff actually makes quite a big difference yeah sure um so the that's the the the biggest sort of effort we've um been engaged in thus far is just putting together super detailed uh timeline um and then just making sure that they have the sequence of of events down as precisely as possible that's what we' working on and um but but actually certainly uh with with um the interaction we've had with with NASA and with us it's actually been quite good thus far um and we've explained that this is what we're doing and um and then we we very much welcome any uh feedback or input or review of the data that would lead us to a better understanding of the circumstances

I thought we had a very uh productive discussion back when we had the engine one anomaly and so I found it to be very useful uh but that's a perspective from from a NASA perspective so it's always interesting to know your perspective of that yeah it seems to be quite quite good actually right now yeah so um You're Building um in the last couple launches you've had Landing legs and you've uh been working on Landing um the first stage back uh eventually to shore can you talk a little bit about that and what your vision is for that and for SpaceX in general as you go forward sure well the the overarching uh goal of SpaceX is to try to advance the state of uh space transport um Advanced space transport technology to the point where um well it get as far along

the path as we can to to where uh space travel is hopefully common place at some point in the future and and where we can send large numbers of people cargo to other planets and you know it's like that's the sort of thing that that needs to happen for Humanity to have a great future in space so we want to keep pushing that and I think like key to uh to that future is reusability um so that's why we've worked quite hard on reusability unfortunately we we haven't um succeeded yet and in fact the last launch ironically was uh we we we actually had the best chance of Landing uh the vehicle on the on the this sort of drone ship that's keeping station in the Atlantic um so we're actually quite sort of geared up for for hopefully this would be a really great

launch and unfortunately ended up being the the opposite on my birthday of all things um a real Downer you'll remember it though definitely low Point um but um but but I do think in in the future launches that that we've got a decent chance of landing on on the ship and then bringing the Boost AG back to land um and then the next challenge of course is trying to figure out how to efficiently effectively reuse it um and it is designed for easy reuse in theory um but we got to see what the stage looks looks like when it comes back in one piece MH um we we have been able to over the last few years do a number of vertical takeoff and Landing tests um of uh Hardware that's essentially in the flight configuration so we know we can we can handle the the the

terminal phase if um you know if things go right we can take off the land no problem so it's just a question of uh completing all the the pieces and um hopefully later this year we'll be able to do that but that that that's key so but of course that doesn't address upper stage reuse but IT addresses boost age reuse which is sort of 70% to 80% of the of the of the cost um and um and but I think would be a great step towards uh uh lowering the the cost of space transport so you know if you look at your history uh I guess zip 2 payal these are um largely software type efforts now you've got Tesla electric uh cars uh you're building a battery plant um Solar City I guess you're involved in Solar City so why space this seems um space to me and just what I rate

we with you seems to be more of a passion than the others or our businesses but I I I can't tell why space why are you why do you think it's important for us to be sure have quick access to L orbit well the uh I mean actually technically I mean with with the uh Tesla and Solar City they're about helping to solve the sustainable energy problem um and uh so we're trying to make progress on that front on the with those companies um with with SpaceX it's uh trying to help um solve the kind of space bearing problem um I mean I I think that a a future where we're space spring civilization um and a multiplet species is very exciting inspiring awesome future um and in order for that to happen um we've got to um dramatically improve the cost of space flight um

and uh and that's that's why why SpaceX exists is to try to try to lower the cost of space flight uh which we've made some progress in doing but still I would call a improvements thus far um evolutionary not revolutionary um and um but with with a lot of continued work I mean I think there's the potential for for um order of magnitude or greater improvements reusability being key to to all of that of course um and uh yeah and then hopefully you know we want to if if we can keep improving the the cost of space flight um then eventually if that trend is in the right direction it could be uh leading to a city on Mars and certainly along the way a lot of activity in lowth orbit and um the moon and you know lots of other exciting things so one of the things

we're trying to do with the International Space Station is um try to figure out which Industries will prosper from the use of low earth orbit to try to understand or or help grow the Eon an economy essentially in low earth orbit um and folks who are doing that are all taking risks today um our job is to try to reduce the risk as much as we can near term um so that they can get the information they need to really have a business case for the future but everyone's trying to to calculate a risk so is there an Elon Musk philosophy of risk vered benefit and when you when you think is the right time to jump in Ian what is your thought on on how to approach new Industries Innovative areas and when's the right time to jump in or not or do you just may is there

no crystal ball or is it a crystal ball or Ouija board I mean how do you how do you figure out what you should go after well definitely the Ouija board of quot um much more reliable than the crystal ball um so uh the yeah I mean I I don't really like risk for risk seek or or anything it's and and I do think that um lot the things are are very risky uh with a low chance of success but if you want to try to come up with an Innovative breakthrough um that's kind of that's going to be how it is um anything which is significantly Innovative is going to come with a significant risk of failure um and um but you know if you've got to take big chances in order for the potential for a big positive outcome um and um you know just and if I mean if the outcome is

exciting enough then then taking a big risk is worthwhile yeah it's really how I approach it but but then once executing down a path I actually do my absolute best to reduce uh risk you know because or or to improve the another way of saying to improve the probability of success because uh when you're trying to do something that is very um very risky uh that you you you have to spend a lot of effort trying to reduce that risk as you and walk down that path I mean when um when I saw basx the I thought the odds of success were very low um I thought we most likely fail um but I thought well we should give it a try nonetheless um and um then I'm not sure if you know what what what preceded SpaceX cuz the why I got into the space well I you I remember you

trying to purchase the a vehicle to from our Russian col you're talking about um well actually it was um the reason I got into space was to try to increase NASA's budget well God bless you then um the the and but so I'll tell you so the roundabout way I thought we that might be accomplished was um I thought well if if NASA's budget was more was larger than we could do more in space exploration and I thought well what work particularly if we could get the public excited about sending people to Mars and I thought well if I could do a small greenhouse and and send that to the surface of Mars with seeds and in um nutrient gel and you hydrate the gel and Landing you have a little miniature greenhouse and then you you'd have the public tends to get excited

about precedents and superlatives so be like the you know sort of first life on Mars the furthest life ever traveled and and get people sort of excited about well maybe we should send people there like the hell with plants we should people you know right right um and um and then um I thought well that could if if that could get the public really excited about sending fuel to Mars then that would translate into Congressional support for a bigger NASA budget that was the goal um and then I I didn't have enough money to buy uh and I thought that that outcome would have 100% chance of no no no commercial success so 100% chance of of losing all the money so um so compared to that SpaceX which I thought maybe had a 10 % chance of success that was an improvement

there you go well that makes that makes good sense so are you still thinking about that I do remember that conversation this was the idea where you used Martian reguli you send these self-contained habitats not habitats chamber kind of things and grow small yeah like a meter across or something but but just to prove the concept yeah just to get I mean the real goal was to get the public excited um you get some engineering data about what does it take to maintain a little habitat on Mars type of thing um but the main thing would be to get the public excited and you know get people to be you know the public to be in favor of a big an Assa budget that was the goal well again God Bless you that's a worthy goal I hope you don't stop so um commercial crew so

you've been selected as one of the providers for the commercial crew can you tell us a little bit about um where that's headed for you as a company and perhaps maybe how it's affected your company if it has if it's changed anything and how you approach space um I think things seem to be going fairly well on the commercial Crew front um I mean the I mean overall I think I mean like there are small disagreements here and there but overall I like I think we very much agree with the way it's being done um and um yeah I think it's it's it's pretty pretty good I mean there are a few things where the like it seems like the amount of of sort of mass and volume reserved for poop is too high like sorry I don't know that's like but that's you know there like little

things like that we're like well are they really going to do that much poop but um it's it's quite it's quite a large volume really is um so um I could really they're pretty small uh disagreement so I think that it seems to be pretty pretty sensible um and um and then we did the the launch a board test earlier this year which at the cape which um actually went went uh pretty well um and uh yeah so things are going going along getting pretty exciting um and um yeah I think there's also some potential use for Dragon 2 as um uh as a science delivery platform uh you know going to sort of delivering uh payloads to to Mars or other places um we're in discussion uh with other parts of NASA about some of those ideas because the propulsive landing uh you know

it could really lower the cost of getting science instruments to various places in the solar system uh so it's kind of exciting so I'm going to come back to that in just a second but commercial the the crew vehicle versus the the dragon cargo vehicle clearly there are some significant differences um fairly Innovative approach I think to abort uh testing where traditionally you've seen the the jessen rocket on top that it's a puller versus The Pusher technique where you utilize fuel that you otherwise would use for the on orbit but of course you're not going in there so very Innovative approach are there other areas where you feel like you're um from an innovation standpoint you're making some significant strides with the crew vehicle yeah I think the

the the big items for well the the biggest item really for um Dragon 2 is the ability to do a propulsive landing um and it's basically H having heavy thrusters on board so those same heavy thrusters um can then do the abort but retain the the engines so instead of in a normal um sort of crude Mission like say take the soos for example they'd have a uh a tractor motor on the nose of the vehicle that would have to be basically a rocket engine on the nose that would have to be discarded on every flight um which is a potential reliability issue and it uh and then you have obviously unable to reuse the the the the abort system and um yeah and it adds you know adds bunch bunch of mass um but but then in addition those same thrusters can be used for propulsive

landing so you can achieve a precise pulsive Landing um which on on land or water um which is um I think a significant Improvement uh and um I mean it's sort of also it's sort of like really I think feels feels more like the future to to have that that capability um and then as I mentioned it for it can be extended to uh do payload delivery to to the moon or Mars or other places because of the the the generalized capability of propulsive Landing to to land land almost anywhere very good so uh let's go back to Dragon at one point you had a conversation talked a little bit about something I think was referred to as Dragon lab where you go to low earth orbit and do what I assumed was sorty kind of research and then and bring the vehicle back are you still

pursuing that or something like that is this an area where you think that there is a potential um I think that that there there is some potential for to essentially just take things to Lo orbit and then bring them bring them back you know after a few weeks or something like that um it's it's not a huge area of attention at at SpaceX but I think we might do a few missions like that um but uh yeah I mean dragon is is very much sort of its primary optim optimization is as a transport vehicle to in front the space station um and uh and so things like Dragon lab and then the science delivery platform I think are interesting extensions of that um and I think as as Dragon 2 um first flies and then gets into regular flight I think there'll probably will be some

you know more applications that that people can think of uh particularly since with Dragon 2 the reusability of the vehicle should be quite high so if we have reusability of the Dragon spacecraft and reusability of the the the the booster um and somebody's willing to sort of um do do a bunch of flights uh with with with the fully reused system there's the potential for for much lower cost uh access to space the the there is a bit of a chicken and egg challenge because like the there's a certain amount of fixed cost that have to be um carried no matter what so the the the marginal cost of launch or the cost of each subsequent launch can drop quite significantly so long as the launch rate per year is is High it stays up yeah of course that adds other challenges

to the system yeah trying to fly as often as you as you need to to make that yep well let's see I I don't want to bore everybody with all my questions and we had talked about if folks had any questions in the audience let's see this oh wow they're not bashful that's good so I don't know if we're going to need microphones but but I'll I'll start here and I would like to ask you a question which is I'm coming from the solar energy so my question because uh you are like a kind of mentor and of visionary and you give hope to a lot of people around the globe because when they see you they realize that they can realize their dreams but my question is different uh when you are a dreamer when you are uh when you are a dreamer when you are a Visionary of course

you have your vision but there are moments that sometimes maybe you stop believing in this Vision especially in the moments of um some problems or failure so could you tell me and could you tell also to thousands of people who maybe will be motivated by your answer what keeps you fighting for your vision what helps you to well I mean I I think I'm kind of constitutionally just geared to to just keep going I don't know um it's uh um yeah I mean it just I I I don't know I mean it certainly there are times when you know things don't go well and then uh that's quite despera for sure um and so then it's it's difficult to proceed with the same level of enthusiasm um but um but I do think like I do think the things that we're doing are are you know pretty important

to the Future um and if we don't succeed then you know there's well there's there's not it's not clear what other things would succeed um and if if we don't succeed then we will be certainly pointed to as a reason why people shouldn't even try for these things so uh I think it's important that we do whatever is necessary to keep going okay and uh last question last question you so in 2004 when you are going to Bary man with uh your cousin you were thinking there is a sun and let's make energy out of it yeah and I would like to ask you uh why uh do you believe uh so in solar energy and in and CLE Tech energies and also in sustainable energy and the last question I will not ask any more questions what will be the role of solar in the exploration of Mars

sure um I think solar energy is probably fairly significant uh for Mars um and what's going to be quite important is having um a very lightweight solar system um that um you know both volumetrically and gravimetrically dance um so actually you were sort of playing with different concepts like um you know that like thing that potty thing where you inflate it and it rolls out the thing like what one of the solid Concepts is is to have like a big roll that you just basically inflate and it rolls out um with with with like really thin uh solar panels on it um but but it's it's going to be pretty important because really you either got to do that or nuclear um and um you know nuclear has has its challenges but but for solar it's it's pretty straightforward

um so I think I think solo is very important to the Future exploration of Mars for sure so thank you and I wish you that your next birthday is very successful thank you so much okay let's go let's go okay go ahead valtin okay my name is Valentino I am from the United rocket and space corporation uh which uh shortly will become a part of uh State Corporation Ros Cosmos uh so uh I made this long quest to the West because I'd like to ask one question of Elon Musk what is his secret to become a successful businessman in space industry and then coming back to Russia to tell Russian businessmen there is a way to become a tycoon in space industry so uh serious seriously speaking I'd like to ask you uh when you started your business was the government your partner

was it useful in what areas and so there are always two sides of the coin sure uh as there uh there were times when you uh had to fight bureaucracy thank you sure uh well um well I should say with respect to starting a space business it's definitely not the easiest environment to start a business um I think if most people were to rank order what's the highest uh return on investment I I mean space would not be very good um I mean it's I I I'm very Pro space so it's like I you know but it's um uh I mean it's just true that like if you you know start a hedge fund or if if you're in like many other Industries then you it's much easier to make money than the space industry this is not the easiest one to make money in um it's yeah um car industry also quite

[Applause] difficult so um so the uh in fact I mean when starting SpaceX the the joke I I heard the joke this this joke so often it was ridiculous um the joke was how do you make a small fortune in the space industry and the punch line of course being start with a large [Applause] one yeah I I got I point i' heard the joke so many times that I would just get to the punchline and say like well I wanted to figure out how to turn a large Fortune into a small one that was my goal and they're like wow how did he know that um so um yeah that I mean I do think there's there is opportunity in space but but it is is it's it's a it's it's tough goinging I think if um but I think if if if SpaceX and other companies can can lower the cost of transport to to orbit

and perhaps Beyond um then there's a lot of potential for entrepreneurship at the destination I mean you can think of it like the like the Union Pacific Railway you know uh before there was the UN Pacific Railway was real hard to have commerce between the west coast and the East Coast um if go buy a wagon or a really long sailing Journey uh but once there was the transport then there were huge opportunities and now look at sort of you know California and Washington State and and and all the industries that have been created in Silicon Valley and Hollywood um but you you got to have that fundamental transport element otherwise there's just it's really tricky um so we're trying to establish that transport element um make it easier to get to lowth orbit

um and hopefully in the future make it easier to get to the moon or Mars um and I I do have this long-term vision of like if if there was affordable transport to to a place like Mars I think the entrepreneurial opportunities would be phenomenal you know because there'd be people that would want to create everything from the first pizza joint to the first Iron or factory to be like just a enormous amount of opportunity for people to create things on Mars and there' be different things on some of the things on Mars would be different that we don't even imagine uh on Earth um be very exciting um so I think that's that's really key to um making things happen in space is you got to have some place you got to have some place to go and some place and some way

to get there so yeah so so along those lines did you you read Andy wear's book The the Martian yeah yeah it was good what did you think um I thought it was it was pretty excellent certainly one of the most realistic books on Mars that um that I've read I mean like there were a few things like the wind force on Mars is not really that high well there um it's not going to knock you over or anything um it's high obviously High Velocity but low Force um but overall um I thought it was pretty cool and apparently it's been made into a movie and everything so um you don't you don't have a cameo on that one too I don't have a cameo on that one I'm I'm a little worried that it might not make people too keen on going to Mars U was like this is looks really hard

I think we need a show about AAS is awesome and it's like the wild west and you got the Gunslingers and like the cool Cowboys and that kind of thing all all right maybe you got to write a book too let's see there's a question over here go ahead hi there my name is Anita goell I'm here at uh out of Harvard MIT run a company called nanobio Sim so uh in your vision and dream to achieve lowcost space travel how do you allocate your Investments between engineering and essentially driving down the cost of existing technology versus investing in new breakthrough physics uh things like Breakthrough propulsion physics anti-gravity what's your vision in the bifurcation of those two kinds of portfolios well we don't spend a ton of time on U physics um I the I think

with with current physics there the huge potential um so rather than rely on a breakthrough which we you know really it's difficult to Invision what that breakthrough would exactly be um or even inexactly be um the I'm quite confident that with what we know of current physics sort of just going with kind of you know where the standard model of physics is today that there are dramatic improvements possible in space light um and I think with the you know certainly with with Falcon 9 I think we can make improvements and then with our next Generation rocket system which is still you know many years away that'll be um a deep cryo methalox system um I think I think we can achieve full reusability um and that that's really that's a that's a huge potential for

um you know like maybe a two order of magnitude reduction in the cost of space flight um so um as far as R&D is concerned like we we we we we hire grade Engineers as fast as we can find them um so it's like the it's not that easy to find I should say great Engine with the sort of like the right mindset and everything um we we hire at at the at the maximum rate that we can find people that we think would would really be an asset to the team so there's no limitation on that okay over here hi my name is Zachary malt I'm a student from uh Babson College I just want to say it's an honor to be here um I read Ashley V's biography about you one thing that really was intriguing to me was the um super Draco engine for the dragon V2 that was um used printed out

of a 3D technology do you envision using that technology more in the future and um when you first SP exploration and do you think that'll um how will that affect the costs in terms of getting to Mars everything like that yeah Absol absolutely so um as you alluded to we we um we actually print the super Draco engines um so they they're printed out of titanum inel um and um and that actually allows us to uh reduce the cost of those engines quite a bit uh in particular because we can print integral cooling channels so when you've got an hour glass chamber um and you've got cooling channels in in the wall of the chamber where the whole wall can consist of cooling channels um it's normally quite difficult to create that uh thrust chamber or nozzle um because

you got to create an inner jacket outer jacket kind of machine the the inner jacket it's and then bra the whole thing together it's real pain um and you got a bunch of joints in there to make it all work so with printing you can print something that you can't make by any other means so it's actually ends up being lighter and cheaper than if we built it by traditional methods um for our next Generation engine which we call the the Raptor which which as I mentioned is sort of a um it's it's a it's a deep cryome methyls so what I mean by that is the the methane and oxygen are cooled to close to their freezing points so not not far from the freezing point as opposed to close to their boiling point um which is more which is normally the case uh the uh you

know with that engine uh we're trying to print as much as possible it's it's a bit the biggest limitation on 3D printing right now is the the size envelope so there's a limit on how big we can print something um but we're able to print the the turbo pump components and much of the injector not the whole thing but but many of the critical parts we can print um so that actually helps us in speeding up the development so instead of waiting for castings to be developed which can take several months um and then if the cast is wrong you've got to iterate on the casting and each iteration can take several months um with printing we can those iterations can be reduced to a matter of weeks or months so that that actually helps with the the speed of development

as well see over here hi uh I'm Ross Spong rock with a company called high orbit I wondered if you give could give us a little bit of an update on uh what's going on with the hyperloop and is there any over between the worker Doom with SpaceX and hyperloop Technology yeah SpaceX is not neither I nor SpaceX are doing anything to try to commercialize the hyper Loop um there are I think at least two maybe more than two companies that have formed that are completely independent of me or SpaceX that are working towards commercializing the hyperloop um techn or hyperloop idea or design um what what SpaceX is doing is we're we're we're going to just create a little uh Student Competition uh for for h Loop ideas so kind of like around the the way that Formula

SAE Works where students um come up with a design and compete against each other to design the best pod so what what SpaceX will do is just construct about a mile long um uh uh low pressure tube near nearly vacuum tube basically um in which students can kind kind of race their pods um so we're it's just basically to support uh get get students excited about uh engineering that's the that's the only involvement to space Tex myself with the hyperloop at this point okay over here hello I'm paa castano I'm a sociologist and I'm writing a book about the International Space Station um how would you describe the scientific value of the International Space Station and where would you draw the line between luxury and need when it comes to space exploration well

I mean I for space I mean I really spend all of my time thinking about just how to get to the space station um to be honest I I um I actually hadn't even really seen a proper movie of the inside of the space station until I went to see the a preview of the new IMX thing that's coming out and it's amazing like when that space station IMAX movie comes out people are going it blown away it's awesome um I actually brought my whole team at at SpaceX to go uh go see the preview of the of the IMX movie um and um I mean it it's like it is a very unique uh Laboratory um because this the only thing that's in sort of microgravity um that's above the Earth's atmosphere um um and you can learn a lot about basically human physiology uh and do experiments that you can't

really do any any other lab um and um you know and you can have bring scientists up and they can actually work in this incredibly unique lab so I think that there's a lot to to to be gained there um and um and I think it just you can't sort of you know ignore the coolness factor of it like that's like people think it's pretty cool so I think it's pretty cool um and you know the the public want to have something going on in space that that involves people and um yeah and it's it's just um I don't know it's the coolest thing going on in space so like there's a lot of value to that you know we try to um to who um sell's the wrong word it's the word we use but sell's really the wrong word we're trying to get people to recognize that there's a platform in

low earth orbit and that uh this is important What's Done In Low Earth orbit has benefit to to uh those of us on Earth that will never actually go to space but in doing that you're trying to get their interest level and part of their interest level is the cool factor that you talked about and um and I've always kind of struggled with that being sort of a black and white I I understand the purpose in my head that's why I joined NASA right but um over the years this is one of the things that I've started to recognize as important so my question to you is um did we I've heard a rumor that for the suits for commercial crew that you wanted to play a role in that um and so is that true and and is there some reason behind the design of the suit that you want

to personally be involved in other than crew safety yeah I think we' actually spent um a lot of effort on the space suit design um on the both the functionality and the Aesthetics but I I think just just getting um it's actually really hard because if you just sort of optimize functionality it's one thing if you optimize for Aesthetics it doesn't work like you know those things that you see movies they don't work so uh the the so so it's like okay how do we make something that looks cool and works um and um with with a key uh goal here of being being that um you know when people see that uh space suit they they we want them to think yeah I want to wear that thing one day yeah that looks awesome um so that that's uh that's the reason for it very good let's

see we'll do a couple more questions and then uh let's let's can we get back into in the back here or do we have somebody else here already with the microphone all right go ahead thank you and we'll do one more after that I'm Alex Pearlman um I'm with Boston magazine and I'm writing for vice today I was hoping uh that you could give us a little bit of an update on the most recent news with the idea of putting satellites um to provide internet to um developing countries and unconnected people thanks uh sure so we're still at the early stages of um sort of a big Leo constellation communication idea um and we're hopeful hopefully going to launch I get a test satellite next year um and but but I I I think the long-term potential of it is is pretty pretty

great but I don't want to uh overplay or overstate you know things quite you know this you know or any stage of the game really but the the the the long-term goal is to to create a comprehensive Global Communication System um that's that provides high bandwidth low latency connectivity anywhere in the world um and provides cross links through the satellites so that you can uh have um improved long distance internet uh one of the things that um sort of you realize when you look at this is that um you can actually have a a more direct path uh through space and you can and photons move faster I mean depending upon what fiberoptic material they're running through uh photons actually move about 40 to 50% faster in in vacuum than they do in fiber optic cables

um and if you look at the the way that the fiberoptic cagles go they trace the outlines of the continents and they go through many repeaters and routers and everything so if you want to say communicate from a server in California to one in South Africa it's a very very long route and sort of very roundabout path um and it's high latency low photonic speed um and you could actually have that communication be quite a bit faster if it's in space um so I think there's there's the potential for for doing a fair bit of longdistance uh internet activity as well as providing um bandwidth broadly um but it's also withth saying that a lot of companies have uh tried this and kind of broken their pick on it um and I think we we want to be really careful about how

we deliberate about trying to make this thing work um and not not overextend ourselves so we're being we're being you know fairly careful about it but I I'm I do think this is something that should be built and would be quite good to have are you well in our case the the communications technology would be substantially more advanced um in the past with say um attempts like tadic uh the the the electronics of the day were um very low bandwidth I mean they're really analog or barely digital um and they weren't very high bandwidth so so it really didn't compete with say with terrestrial phones in the case of t they were looking to compete with or or to address cellular needs the system we're talking about would not attempt to compete with sell needs so for

example it wouldn't compete directly with say aridium which is which which can talk directly to a handset our system would seem to would seek to talk to a small uh user terminal that's about the size of a pizza box um or or much like uh you know current um dishes that I satellite dishes but but it will be flat cuz we have phased Ray antenna that's tracking the satellites um but you could mount it in a window or just anywhere outside as long as you can see the sky it would work see back here we'll take our last question back here hey Elon thanks for coming out um I would like to show you we brought a virtual reality camera here to record for the first time um we have a small startup in San Francisco called space VR and we believe that virtual reality is

the future of space exploration because you can put people on the very cutting the very front of every um every exploration mission is that something that you've given much thought or have any opinions on well I've I've gone I've received the virtual reality demos at uh Oculus and at valve um and it's pretty impressive um you can sort of imagine if that's extrapolated into the future it's really going to Super feel like you're there um and I wonder if some people are never going to want to take that off honestly um it's like it's pretty I mean it's pretty entrancing um but I I I do think it be quite exciting to do that for a space as well yeah uh do you have a setup here yeah okay it's right there wow okay um cool you have time launch the last one so

you want to come see okay um where are you based in where you based San Francisco okay um I think maybe today is going to be tricky but uh but but maybe uh since you're based in California uh I could we could arrange something um in you know in the coming weeks all right let's see Elon we'll uh we'll call it a a conference I wanted to first uh thank you very much you've been very generous with your time and we um you know from the moment I called you you were all in and uh it's really this open conversation and your your thoughts on uh on the on what's in front of us that uh really excites us all in this room so thank you very much for your time we really appreciate it yeah thank you thanks for having me all right right thanks again appreciate see you

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