The Sean Hannity Show — Interviewed by Gov. Greg Abbott
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (3)
Transcript
0:00Greg AbbottWelcome back to the Sean Hannity Show. I am Texas Governor Greg Abbott and I am your guest host today and very excited that we have a first time caller to the Sean Hannity Show.
0:11Greg AbbottBut to set it up, I want to call for a cut 97
0:17SpaceX Webcast Hostbooster. Coming in hot for booster catch. Ignite 13 of those raptor engines. And this view is incredible. Right now. We're now down to three Raptor engines. We can see those.
0:38SpaceX Webcast HostHello.
0:39Greg AbbottWe've just witnessed history. Well, that was the world watching in amazement at the stunning accomplishment to catch a rocket that SpaceX had previously launched as it returned to Earth.
0:53Greg AbbottYou know, many Americans have seen the marvels of SpaceX but really don't know much about what SpaceX is actually doing in their lives right now. And there is nobody better in the world, world, I should say maybe in the universe to describe that than none other than Elon Musk.
1:11Greg AbbottElon, welcome to Sean Hannity Show.
1:14Elon MuskThank you for having me.
1:16Greg AbbottListen, you know, you and I have talked before about your vision and about what you're doing, and I, I know that you have visited with those who have invested in SpaceX about what you're doing, but the truth is, probably most of our Americans across the country really don't know much about what SpaceX is actually doing to affect their lives.
1:38Greg AbbottCan you give us a short explanation about what SpaceX actually is doing right now for the average American?
1:47Elon MuskYeah. So SpaceX launches satellites that provide communication, especially the Starlink Internet system. So Starlink provides global high bandwidth Internet connectivity. So throughout the world, if you're anywhere from Texas to the North Pole or the South Pole or in the middle of the ocean, you can get high bandwidth, low latency Internet connectivity.
2:16Elon MuskAnd it's the only such system that exists in the world. That's the main thing that we launch with SpaceX. Then SpaceX also is the main provider to NASA for transporting astronauts to and from the space station, as well as resupplying the space station with cargo and bringing scientific experiments to and from the space station.
2:37Elon MuskSo in fact, we're currently the only spacecraft, our Dragon spacecraft is the only spacecraft that is qualified by NASA to transport astronauts to and from the space station besides the Russian Soyuz system.
2:54Elon MuskSo we transport both US and international astronauts to and from the space station.
3:02Greg AbbottSo for those Starlink deployments, about how many launches do you have a year and about how many satellites do you have across the universe?
3:12Elon MuskYeah, so SpaceX right now delivers about 85% of all the payload to orbit of Earth. So of the remaining 15% most of that is China, and then I think they're probably about 8%, and then about roughly 7% is the rest of the world, including the rest of the US.
3:36Elon MuskSo SpaceX transports almost 10 times as many satellites to orbit as the rest of the world combined. Yeah.
3:46Greg AbbottSo after you move on from deploying satellites, as you cast your vision toward the next 10 years, which, by the way, every time I talk to you, it seems like you're constantly thinking 10 or even 20 or more years than that ahead.
4:03Greg AbbottBut what do you see SpaceX doing 10 years from now?
4:09Elon MuskWell, hopefully we've established a base on the moon, so. And not just a base with a small number of people, but in 10 years, hopefully we've enabled thousands, if not tens of thousands of people to go to the Moon, which makes it.
4:27Elon MuskWhich it's going to. It's going to seem like a pretty outrageous number given that, you know, there's only about a dozen or so people that have been to the Moon so far.
4:36Elon MuskBut our starship system is designed to carry ultimately tens of thousands of tons to the Moon to create effectively a city on the Moon and ultimately a city on Mars as well.
4:53Elon MuskAnd the overarching goal of SpaceX is to extend life and consciousness as we know it beyond Earth to the rest of the solar system and eventually to other star systems.
5:07Greg AbbottSo how many years from now would it take to actually build a city on the moon? What are we talking about? 5, 10 years? More or less?
5:17Elon MuskYeah. I think we'll have landed up first people on the Moon in less than five years. If things go well, we might be able to put the first astronauts on the moon in two to three years and then expand rapidly from there so that in, say, 10 years from now, there are thousands of people on the Moon.
5:43Elon MuskAnd let's just go ahead. We want to ultimately make it such that anyone who wants to go to the Moon, like any member of the public that wants to go to the moon, can go to the Moon and, and go to Mars.
5:56Greg AbbottSo a person who wants to go to the moon, you know, we see astronauts go up there and they stay there for a couple of days and come back, but you're talking about a city on the moon.
6:06Greg AbbottSo when you are talking 10 years from now, people are going to the Moon, will they be staying there for weeks, months, years? What would it be like?
6:15Elon MuskYes, I think it's up to the person. They may wish to go for a vacation on the Moon, or they may wish to move permanently to the Moon, depending on the individual.
6:26Elon MuskBut I think we want to, it would be very cool to have a full blown self sustaining city on the moon, like an actual metropolis on the moon. So the goal is, a way to think about it is we want to make the things that people see in science fiction, not fiction.
6:48Elon MuskWe want to make them real and become a true space faring civilization where we're out there among the stars. And I think that's a very inspiring future. That's one where I think people can really look forward to it.
7:01Elon MuskAnd there need to be things in life that are not just about solving one miserable problem after another. We need to solve the problems of Earth, of course, but, but we also need things that inspire us about the future and make us glad to be alive.
7:17Greg AbbottAnd you know, I think it'd be a heck of a honeymoon trip to take a trip to the moon. Honey, let's not go to Singapore, let's go to the moon this year.
7:27Greg AbbottThat's something in the future. So another thing that I've heard you talk about is building data centers in space. Is that something that's going to be a reality and if so, when?
7:40Elon MuskYeah, I think the way to expand compute is really in space. There's a lot of room in space and if you look at the size of Earth relative to the sun or relative to the solar system, you realize just how tiny Earth is.
7:57Elon MuskWe're very, very tiny. We only receive about half a billionth of the sun's energy. So you can really think about this being like a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness.
8:12Elon MuskSo the way to expand compute without using up all the land on Earth is to do so in space. And then you can do it without using space for power and water on Earth.
8:29Elon MuskYou can just do it in space. So I think we'll probably be launching our first AI satellites next year and then we'll be able to do that, I think at large scale in about two years.
8:48Greg AbbottThat's just incredible. Well, listen, you know, you're such an aspiring individual and you have accomplished so much and you still have so much ahead of you, but you know, you inspired different people in different ways.
9:02Greg AbbottAnd one of which is what happened in the aftermath of SpaceX becoming a public company where people could go to the stock Exchange and buy SpaceX stock. And when that happened, it suddenly made fortunes for long standing SpaceX employees.
9:20Greg AbbottAnd there, there was a story that I'm sure you've heard about, know about very well and that is it was about a welder who I think began working for SpaceX in 2015, making about $28 an hour.
9:32Greg AbbottWho, when SpaceX became a public company, they became a millionaire. What do you think it means to the American dream that welders at SpaceX can work hard and then become independently wealthy because they work for such a remarkable business like SpaceX?
9:54Elon MuskYeah, well, I've always had the philosophy that everyone at the company should receive stock in the company so that they can participate in the upside of the company. And it's great for aligning incentives as well.
10:06Elon MuskSo as the company prospers, then the people at the company, the employees also prosper. So that's just been, you know, my philosophy from day one is make sure everyone gets stuck in the company.
10:20Elon MuskSo there are, I think, several thousand people who've been made. It's not just one welder, it's, it's several thousand people who were, you know, working on the production line.
10:32Elon MuskAnd if they started at the company relatively early, then, then probably their stock is, is worth over a million dollars at this point.
10:43Greg AbbottJust astonishing. Listen, you've been fabulous. I got two more quick questions for you. What you mentioned Mars earlier. What does the Mars timeline look like with regard to what you want to accomplish there?
10:55Greg AbbottWe're talking more than 10 years, 20 years. Give us an approximation.
11:01Elon MuskYeah, so Mars is much harder to get to than the Moon. And you can only travel to Mars roughly every two years. So the Earth and Mars, the planets align such that you can travel to Mars only once every 26 months.
11:21Elon MuskSo that's that. That makes it a lot harder than the Moon where you can go to the Moon pretty much, pretty much any time. And, and it only takes a few days to get to the Moon, whereas it takes about six months to get to Mars.
11:36Elon MuskSo, so that, that's why we can do the Moon faster than we can do Mars. But I think probably, if things go well, we can, we can probably send the first people to Mars in a, in about five years and then rapidly increase the cadence of sending people to Mars thereafter.
11:58Elon MuskSo every, every two years we would dramatically increase the number of ships going to Mars. And you know, hopefully in the 10 or 12 year time frame, we've, we've sent thousands of people to Mars.
12:13Greg AbbottJust astonishing. Well, listen, you've been a great guest and a great Texan, I must add, and we're proud that you are in Texas. We're proud that SpaceX is headquartered in Texas.
12:26Greg AbbottWe're proud. I'm going to quote you here about something you said at the announcement of Tarifab, that all of your exes live in Texas. And of course, Starbase Texas is in the Lone Star State and will be known not just around the world, but pursuant to your aspirations, it's going to be known around the universe.
12:46Greg AbbottAnd so I got a really tough question for you, and that is, now that you have all these Texas connections, can we finally get a Texas emoji flag on your platform X?
13:02Elon MuskSure. I will ask the team to make. And you know, we've got a giant Texas flag. I'm here at the Giga Texas factory right now. We've got a big Texas flag, you know, American flag and a Texas flag.
13:18Elon MuskJust right outside the bullying and yeah, certainly I'd like to thank, thank you and everyone for all the support we've gotten in Texas. It's a great state to do business in.
13:29Elon MuskIt's super supportive and I think really emblematic of American values. So, you know, I love being here and love being in Texan.
13:42Greg AbbottWell, thank you. We're very proud of you. Keep up your great work and maybe we'll see you on the moon one day.
13:47Elon MuskAll right, sounds good.
13:49Greg AbbottTake care, Elon. What a guest. What a man. He's the leading visionary of our time. Thomas Edison. Just like that, maybe even bigger. Dreaming for the stars and actually reaching the stars, unlike anybody in the history of mankind, the one and only Elon Musk.
14:11Greg AbbottListen, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back again to the Sean Hannity Show.