60 Minutes 18 mars 2012 Scott Pelley dresse le portrait de Musk et de SpaceX pour 60 Minutes (CBS), alors que l'entreprise s'apprête à ravitailler la Station spatiale. Musk est visiblement ému lorsqu'on l'interroge sur les critiques des héros d'Apollo Neil Armstrong et Gene Cernan à l'égard du vol spatial commercial.
Scott Pelley dresse le portrait de Musk et de SpaceX pour 60 Minutes (CBS), alors que l'entreprise s'apprête à ravitailler la Station spatiale. Musk est visiblement ému lorsqu'on l'interroge sur les critiques des héros d'Apollo Neil Armstrong et Gene Cernan à l'égard du vol spatial commercial.
Transcription 60 Minutes Correspondent
60 minutes. Rewind. In the history of space flight, only four entities have launched a space capsule into orbit and successfully brought it back to the Earth. The United States, Russia, China, and Elon Musk. Mr. Musk is a wealthy Internet entrepreneur who has vowed to revolutionize space exploration by bringing down the astronomical costs. And that can't happen fast enough for NASA, which retired the shuttle last summer and now has to pay its old rival Russia to fly American astronauts into space. Musk is one of the contenders vying for a NASA contract to build America's next manned spacecraft, a contest he believes he has the right stuff to win. When the final shuttle mission ended last July, for the first time in three decades, the United States had no way to launch astronauts into space. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another. Instead of NASA designing the next manned spacecraft, the White House decided that private industry should design, build and fly it, opening space to commercial development. One of the companies vying for that contract is Space X. Elon Musk is the founder and CEO. Is what we are experiencing at this moment in time the turning point in man's reach for space? Going from governments to private companies like yours?
Elon Musk
I think we're at the dawn of a new era and I think it's going to be very exciting. What we're hoping to do with SpaceX is to push the envelope and provide a reason for people to be excited and inspired to be human.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Musk is 40 years old, a naturalized American citizen, and reportedly worth nearly $2 billion. He isn't your typical corporate CEO. As a teenager, he wrote computer games in his native South Africa before immigrating to the US and to Silicon Valley, where he was one of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs. The the co founder of PayPal.
Elon Musk
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Elon Musk.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Despite a chorus of skeptics, Musk built a car company called Tesla that turns out 5,000 high end all electric cars a year. Another Musk company sells solar power systems. But his lifelong passion is space. And when eBay bought PayPal in 2002, Musk started looking for ways to launch his new fortune into orbit.
Elon Musk
I went to Russia to look at buying a refurbished icbm, which is a very trippy experience. It was very bizarre. And when I tell people that, like what?
60 Minutes Correspondent
Musk made three trips to Russia trying to buy an intercontinental ballistic missile called the Dnieper. His plan was bizarre. Put a greenhouse on the rocket, landed on Mars and beam back the pictures.
Elon Musk
It'll get people really excited and that would recharge human space exploration. That was my original idea.
60 Minutes Correspondent
You just wanted to get people interested in space again?
60 Minutes Correspondent
Capture the imagination.
Elon Musk
Yes, that was the idea.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Turns out the Dnieper was so expensive his idea never flew. So Musk decided that the only way to get an affordable rocket was to build it himself. And he started SpaceX.
Elon Musk
The odds, me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Why even begin?
Elon Musk
When something is important enough, you do it even if it's not in your favor.
60 Minutes Correspondent
How much of your personal fortune have you poured into this?
60 Minutes Correspondent
$100 million into something that you did not believe would work at the beginning?
60 Minutes Correspondent
Musk truly believes that low cost space exploration is essential to the survival of mankind.
Elon Musk
I think it's important that humanity become a multi planet species. I think most people would agree that a future where we are a space faring civilization is inspiring and exciting compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event. That's really why I started SpaceX.
60 Minutes Correspondent
SpaceX is housed in a sprawling factory near Los Angeles where fuselages for Boeing 747s used to be built. From its beginning 10 years ago, its goal has been revolutionary change in rocket and spacecraft manufacturing. Now tell me, what's that big piece right up there?
Elon Musk
That's the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Instead of multiple companies building parts all across the country, SpaceX builds most of its rockets and spacecraft in house, based on Musk's belief that it's more efficient and lowers costs. 1400 engineers and skilled technicians work here building engines, rockets, space capsules, creating mostly from scratch the thousands of components that are the guts of a rocket.
Elon Musk
So what that means is raw metal comes in and then we build the engines, the airframe, the electronics, and we integrate all of that together. And that's all done more or less under one roof.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Metal comes in one end of this factory, spaceships come out the other.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Final assembly takes place at the Cape Canaveral launch pad.
Elon Musk
If the margin is there and we don't then have margin to the fourth power, that's fine.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Musk has college degrees in business and physics, but SpaceX is his first venture in aerospace. He builds himself. And as chief designer and chief technology officer, how did you get the expertise to be the chief technology officer of a rocket ship company?
Elon Musk
Well, I do have a physics background that's helpful as a foundation. And then I read a lot of books and talked To a lot of
60 Minutes Correspondent
smart people, you're self taught.
Elon Musk
Yeah, well, self taught, yes, meaning I don't have an aerospace degree.
60 Minutes Correspondent
So how did you go about acquiring the knowledge?
Elon Musk
Well, I, like I said, I read a lot of books, talked to a lot of people and have a great team.
60 Minutes Correspondent
His team is a mixture. There are newcomers, mostly 30something engineers, some of them straight out of college. And then there are the skilled technicians and aerospace veterans. Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman spent three months aboard the space station and flew on one of the final shuttle missions. He was brought in to help oversee the company's manned space work. You know, I'm curious, you have so much background in engineering, you could have easily gotten a job at Boeing or at Lockheed, but you came here.
Elon Musk
If you had a chance to go back in time and work with Howard Hughes when he was creating twa, if you had a chance to be there at that moment when it was the dawn of a brand new era, wouldn't you want to do that? I mean, that's, that's why I'm here
60 Minutes Correspondent
and that's why most of the engineers we met are here. Building spaceships is the chance of a lifetime. If you reach the point of having a successful manned flight, what will you have proven?
Elon Musk
We're not doing it to prove anything, you know, we know it can be done.
60 Minutes Correspondent
We're just trying to do it a
Elon Musk
little bit differently, a little bit faster and to push the, push the fence a little bit farther out and then we can all go. I mean, I want to go into space. I assume most people here do as well.
60 Minutes Correspondent
How many want to ride? Okay, everybody wants to go.
Elon Musk
I'm not so sure.
60 Minutes Correspondent
First stage sequence initially, 3, 2, 1. Four years after starting, SpaceX rolled out its first rocket, an unmanned booster called the Falcon 1. Falcon has cleared the tower, but the first three test flights failed to reach orbit.
Elon Musk
We are hearing from the launch control center that there has been an anomaly on the vehicle.
60 Minutes Correspondent
When you had that third failure in a row, did you think, I need to pack this in?
60 Minutes Correspondent
Why not?
Elon Musk
I don't ever give up. I mean, I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.
60 Minutes Correspondent
It turned out that the third failure was caused by a two second glitch in the timing. Eight weeks later, Musk bet the company on another flight.
Elon Musk
We have liftoff.
60 Minutes Correspondent
And this time around, everything worked perfect.
Elon Musk
If that fourth launch hadn't worked, that would have been it. We would have not had the resources to mount a fifth.
60 Minutes Correspondent
You couldn't have gone on at that point?
Elon Musk
Yes, death Would have been, I think, inevitable because we did not have the resources to. To mount a fifth launch.
60 Minutes Correspondent
This is a tricky business.
Elon Musk
Yeah, the. Yeah, I wish it wasn't so hard.
60 Minutes Correspondent
The story will continue after this. In 2010, SpaceX tested a larger, more powerful nine engine rocket called the Falcon 9 and an unmanned cargo capsule known as Dragon. It was the first privately developed rocket designed to carry cargo and eventually astronauts to the space station.
Elon Musk
MVAC ignition confirmed 3.2 kilometers per second.
60 Minutes Correspondent
In its first test flight, the Dragon capsule performed flawlessly, orbiting the Earth twice before splashdown in the Pacific. The first time a private company had launched and recovered its own spacecraft. And this is a historic spacecraft.
60 Minutes Correspondent
We came across the Dragon capsule while Musk was showing us around. You know what I noticed about your cargo ship is that it has windows.
Elon Musk
Yeah, absolutely. The windows are there in case there's an astronaut on board who wants to look out.
60 Minutes Correspondent
But people don't put windows in cargo ships.
Elon Musk
That's right, exactly.
60 Minutes Correspondent
So what that tells me is that this was never intended to be only a cargo ship.
Elon Musk
No, no. The Dragon was always designed to carry astronauts.
60 Minutes Correspondent
Musk says a manned version of the Dragon capsule will be safer than the space shuttle and a lot cheaper. Engineers are already designing escape rockets, life support equipment and computer guidance systems. They were studying seating for seven when we were there. Do you believe that your rocket will be the next American rocket to take an astronaut into space?
Elon Musk
I believe that is the most likely outcome, yes.
60 Minutes Correspondent
That sort of confidence has not exactly endeared him to the space establishment or to his competitors. There are people who've been in the rocketry business for decades who say about you that you don't know what you don't know.
Elon Musk
Well, I suppose that's true of anyone. How can anyone know what they don't know?
60 Minutes Correspondent
But when critics say, you can't do this, your answer to them is, we've done it. He's done it in partnership with NASA, which has given SpaceX technical advice and a contract worth up to $1.6 billion, mostly for 12 cargo flights to the space station. But SpaceX's lack of experience bothers some NASA legends like Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan. They've testified to Congress that the Obama administration's drive to commercialize space could compromise safety and eventually cost the taxpayers. Now is the time to overrule this administration's pledge to mediocrity. You know, there are American heroes who don't like this idea. Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan have both testified against commercial space flight in the way that you're developing it. And I wonder what you think of that.
Elon Musk
I was very sad to see that because those guys are. Yeah, you know, those guys are heroes of mine. So it's really tough, you know, I wish they would come and visit and see the hardware that we're doing here and I think that would change their mind.
60 Minutes Correspondent
They inspired you to do this, didn't they?
60 Minutes Correspondent
And to see them casting stones in your direction,
60 Minutes Correspondent
Did you expect them to cheer you on?
Elon Musk
Certainly hoping they would.
60 Minutes Correspondent
What are you trying to prove to them?
Elon Musk
What I'm trying to do is to make a significant difference in spaceflight and help make spaceflight accessible to almost anyone. And I would hope for as much support in that direction as we, as we can receive.
60 Minutes Correspondent
President Obama made his support clear when he visited SpaceX's launch site just before Falcon 9's first test flight. As this animation shows, Elon Musk's next flight will be far more ambitious, carrying cargo all the way to the space station. It was scheduled to fly in February, but it's taken longer than expected to perfect the flight software. The flight will be a complicated rendezvous with a space station that is moving 17,000 miles an hour, 240 miles above the Earth. Okay, so it looks like our burn performance is nominal in the SpaceX mission control flight simulations are continuing, and if all goes well, SpaceX will begin routine space station cargo deliveries later this year. But the big prize is winning the NASA contract to build America's next manned spacecraft. And Elon Musk is facing stiff competition.
Elon Musk
I'm probably not the guy that most people would bet on who wins. It's like a little kid fighting a bunch of sumo wrestlers. Usually the sumo wrestlers win. We're a little scrappy company. Every now and again, little scrappy company wins. I think this will be one of those times.