SpaceX SES-10 Press Conference
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (1)
Transcript
0:25ModeratorWe have no microphone. One's up there, coming through. I need you to turn off your
0:30Elon Muskdevices and mute them.
0:32ModeratorWe're going to start in 30 seconds.
0:51Elon MuskIt's.
1:28Elon MuskPerfectly dropped off the second stage came back and landed on the garage ship right in the bullseye. It's an amazing day, I think for space this is going to be.
1:46ModeratorGood evening everyone. This is the post launch news conference for the SpaceX SES10 mission. Here tonight to give us the status of the launch and our mission is Elon Musk, CEO and lead designer SpaceX.
2:02ModeratorEd Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer SES. We'll start now.
2:09SES ExecutiveThanks.
2:09Elon MuskWell, I already gave some basic remarks on the webcast, but this represents the combination of continuous work at SpaceX to be able to refine a rock booster. The most expensive part of the whole, the whole mission from the mar standpoint is the boost stage.
2:32Elon MuskThat represents finish. I counted up to 70% of the cost of the plane. So being able to refly rock booster ultimately with the only thing changing between flights being propellant is that at least for that portion of the flight, the cost reduction potential is over 100, over a factor of 100.
2:55Elon MuskIn fact, all of the propellant costs for the flight is only 0.3. So even when you factor in maintenance and capitalization of the cost of the rocket, the potential is there, just as is with air flight or road travel or really anything is transport.
3:18Elon MuskThe potential is therefore over 100 fold reduction in access to space. Which means.
3:28Elon MuskIf we can achieve that, if SpaceX and I think others will also do the same, it means that humanity can become a space range civilization out there among the stars.
3:38Elon MuskThis is what we want for the future.
3:50SES ExecutiveMost calm, no problems whatsoever, absolutely smooth mission.
3:55Elon MuskSo it really couldn't come back.
3:56SES ExecutiveAnd we are huge, hugely excited by this, to be part of this. I think we made a little bit of history today, actually just opened the door into a whole new era of space flight.
4:08SES ExecutiveAnd to be part of that I feel very, very privileged and it's great thanks to Elon and all the people at SpaceX made this possible and just pushed us forward to the next stage.
4:19SES ExecutiveSo bring it on.
4:20Elon MuskFantastic. I just like to thank this is not the first time and I just really want to say thank you for having a thanks.
4:33SES ExecutiveActually some of the people ask me the other day, they said are you taking a big risk?
4:42SES ExecutiveI said to some of you guys here today, you've got to decouple the emotion from the engineering and that's the most important thing. And the engineering team that Elon has working is really second to none.
4:52SES ExecutiveAnd he asks very simple profound questions and he gets very good answers and he proof is in a pudding. Here we are. We did it.
5:01Elon MuskWe did it together. That was absolutely fantastic.
5:09ModeratorSo we're now going to take some questions here in the room. When you're recognized, please state your name and your affiliation. And I'd ask you that you also please wait until the microphone comes to you.
5:21ModeratorWe do have a limited amount of time this evening but I do want to lift that. But we'd like to begin now with Marshall Dunn.
5:34ReporterState of Christ for will you refly this booster and when's your next flight
5:41Moderatorof a used booster?
5:42ReporterWhether it's this one or in other
5:44Elon Muskwords, we actually have several reflights planned for later this year. If orbit go I think we may fly as many as six, maybe do as many as 60 flights for Falcon Heavy.
5:59Elon MuskTwo of the boosters, the two side boosters are re floating boosters. Spell will be two two course right there. In fact that'll be an exciting mission one way or another, hopefully in a good direction.
6:15Elon MuskWe're not going to plant anything on anything on on that. We'll probably fly something really silly on the first planet. It is quite a hyper. But in terms of things to look forward to later this year I think that'll be quite fun because the two side re will come back and do sort of synchronized aerial ballet and land two to the side.
6:37Elon MuskWe can land back the cape. So that'll be. That'll be pretty exciting to see two come into the case. And the center core will land down range on the bro if Paul goes full time.
6:52Elon MuskWell, we think this one sort of has some historic value. So we were thinking of seeing if perhaps the kids might like to have it as something to remember the moment.
7:07Elon MuskSo we're going to present it as a gift to kids.
7:16Elon MuskI got an email from a retired shuttle engineer who goes all the way back to Apollo and his email was simply saying make bragging if you do it. And what message do you think this issue gives to your competitors?
7:30Elon MuskYou mentioned the space industry earlier, but it seems like. Well, I'll ask you, do you think other people are going to follow your
7:37Moderatorfootsteps or you think this is something they're going to be doing exclusively in nature?
7:40Elon MuskWell, I think hopefully this will inform the decisions of other space organizations. And really this has been thought to be either really too hard or not really feasible. And I think we've shown that during that somewhere between impossible or you just shouldn't do it to hey, it works.
8:09Elon MuskAnd then I think really in order to be competitive in launching classes I think it's going to be necessary for other war companies to do the same thing. Just as you can imagine that if we were an aircraft company selling aircraft that can be flown many times and everyone else was selling aircraft can be flown once.
8:29Elon MuskWell I mean you know that's not a very competitive position to be in. My future said like so you really want to have an aircraft that you flown like the times.
8:40Elon MuskAnd so I think that's, you know, once it's clear that something can be done and I think that that will encourage others in that direction because I think there should be, shouldn't just be SpaceX there should be many companies that succeed.
8:57ModeratorIrene,
9:01Reporterhi. Thanks for coming over and congratulations.
9:12ReporterYou have other customers that were not as tax free as Mr. Hollywell here.
9:22ReporterTell us a little bit about what you think about light limiting factor will be now in the first stage how many times be able to fly?
9:31Elon MuskSure. Well it's we're really I like to say NASA's been incredibly supportive I think in terms of pushing handle for new things. And then on the commercial side STS has been by far more supportive.
9:44Elon MuskChris couldn't say thank you enough. So yeah so the. So the next thing is to try to figure out how do we achieve very rapid reuse with minimal refurbishments and minimal without any sort of hybrid changes on the vehicle with this being the first reflect we were incredibly paranoid about everything.
10:10Elon MuskSo we sort of the core airframe remained the same, the engines remain the same but any sort of auxiliary components that we might be slightly questionable if we change that.
10:21Elon MuskSo now, now our operation will be zero hardware changes, reflight for 24 hours. The only thing that changes is when did we reload the valid. We might get there this year but I think if not this year I'm confident we'll get to next year.
10:40ReporterNo inspection.
10:48Elon MuskCertainly expected and there will be quite a lot of onboard health monitoring. So there's a lot of sensors on board to say whether things are good or good or not.
11:00Elon MuskSo the onboard health check system a lot of sensors that from the health of the market just like that.
11:12ModeratorI'd like to take a question for phone please
11:16Elon Muskfrom the Washington Post.
11:23ModeratorI guess I want to follow up on Bill Harwood's question. You just said this is a real significant moment not just for SpaceX but for the industry as a whole.
11:34ModeratorAnd others are obviously working on the usability Showed an artist rendering of a ship that looked really a Lot like your drone ship. And I wonder what your reaction to that was and to their plans, which.
11:51Elon MuskWell, it seems to be. I mean what's that saying about the best form of flattery?
11:58Elon MuskBut actually I think it's good, frankly. I think if a company shows that a path is working, then other companies should copy that. It would be silly not to.
12:11Elon MuskYou wouldn't want to arbitrarily not do the right things to do with some other company has. So I think it is the wise move to watch the rethink of large numbers we made.
12:24Elon MuskBut it is that rapid and complete reusability of rockets is really key to opening up space and becoming a space frame civilization among planet species and having the future being something that's probably exciting and inspiring that we'll look forward to.
12:47ModeratorAll right, one more question from the. The phone, please. It's Dave Hoer from Business Insight.
12:56Elon MuskOh, actually we've got one little bit of breaking news which. So we. The fairing, the big nose cone at the top of the rocket that actually successfully landed as well.
13:26Elon MuskSo we actually have a parachute that the fairing has its own thruster control system and a steerable parachute, its own little spacecraft. So the thrusters maintain its orientation as it comes in, as it reenters.
13:48Elon MuskAnd then we throw out a parachute and the parachute steers it to a particular location. And so just showing a picture of an intact fairing path floating in the ocean.
14:02Elon MuskYes, we have four,
14:07Elon MuskThe hop without the logo.
14:13Elon MuskBut yeah, that's really exciting because I mean just that Fairing is a 5 meter diameter. It's like you can put like a bus inside that bearing and it costs $6 million to make that bearing.
14:34Elon MuskAnd at one point we're like debating should we try to recover it or not. It's like guys, imagine you had $6 million in cash in a pallet flying through the air, smash into the ocean.
14:46Elon MuskWould you try to recover that? Yes, yes you would. So surrounded up, smash into tiny pieces, which it looks quite promising. So the. Yeah, so like what we'll have is kind of like a bouncy castle for it to land on and then into reuse the fairing as well.
15:09Elon MuskAnd then the lift is the upper stage which we didn't originally intend for 9, 10 reason off the stage. But it might be fun to try like a Hail Mary and you know, I mean, what's the worst that can happen if it blows up?
15:22Elon MuskYou know, it blows up.
15:23SES ExecutiveAnyway, we need to discuss.
15:31ModeratorYour questions.
15:32Elon MuskI want to make sure you got your question. You answered part Nine questions. That's the second stage. But I want to know like how, how this fits in now the cost return to Mars actually maybe 10,000 fold and reusability is absolutely fundamental to that goal.
15:49Elon MuskSo this I think is a very helpful proof point that it's possible and I hope people start to think of it as a real goal to which we should aspire to establish a civilization on Mars.
16:09Elon MuskIt's really this is not just about humanity. It's about all the life that we care about.
16:18ModeratorI'd like to go back to the room for questions. Stephen Clark please.
16:29Elon MuskHi everyone. Stephen Clark on the space by now. Thanks for coming by.
16:33ModeratorCouple of questions. First of all
16:37Elon Muskdo you have customers
16:39Moderatorwho signed up for the.
16:42Elon MuskWe have more sitting right here.
16:49Elon MuskYeah there's currently excluding Falcon 9, excluding the Falcon Heavy flight which is just basically on SpaceX's dime that nobody's paying us about because it's a demonstration flight, essentially a test flight.
17:08Elon MuskThat's two of the reused boosters. There are I think three or four others that have signed up on a contingency basis like this one works then. Sure. And so I think probably we'll see more of those customers being willing to do automate actually use the right technology.
17:31Elon MuskFlex Life proven. That's right, Life proven.
17:39ModeratorCan you update us on where Falcon Heavy is? I know you're testing things in the radar right now.
17:44ReporterSure.
17:45ModeratorWhere are you at with qualification hardware and what.
17:49Elon MuskWhat's driving the launch date and what expected to do here? Sure. Falcon Heavy is one of those things that sounds versus Saudis. Well just take two first stages and use them to scrap off briefly like actually no this is crazy hard and required redesigned center for and kind of additional hardware.
18:09Elon MuskIt was actually shockingly difficult to go from a single core to vehicle and but we're now done with the testing and the cores are in final publication. I think they.
18:26Elon MuskI think they finished in about two or three months so our expectation is probably a late summer launch of problematic.
18:40Elon MuskI just want to say like our priority is launching our since we have. We have a backlog because of the we have you know a whole gap of time as we recovered from the issue that we had last year.
18:52Elon MuskOur priorities of course making sure that we launch our customers so Falcon Heavy necessarily is a second priority to make sure that our customers needs to met
19:05Moderatorextremely Elon, how confident were you going
19:09Elon Muskinto the countdown and through that first
19:13SES Executiveand then just regarding the usability.
19:16ModeratorOne of the
19:19Elon Muskconcerns I guess is about the flight rate you'll need to make it pay off even those who
19:24Moderatorare for it, you know say well
19:26Elon Muskyou gotta launch you know this many times. So for you, you know what you can use today the day to celebrate maybe years from earthly Friday.
19:45Elon MuskIt's only true that I if you just say how much effort has SpaceX put into dropping reusability and and nobody was paying us for usability so this was it had to be on our own dime.
19:59Elon MuskWas probably at least a billion dollars that we spent developing this. It'll take us a while and then we need to get really efficient with the reduce of boosters and with can variant.
20:16Elon MuskSo I would expect the economics to start becoming sensible next year. So it's pretty close and we expect the boosters to I mean with no refurbishment be capable of 10 flights and with moderate refurbishment be capable of 100 flights.
20:39Elon MuskSo you can imagine that the cost of the rocket is $60 million. Really we're not reusing the whole thing but with the fairing assuming the fairing reuse works out and as we optimize the cost booster you're really looking at maybe three quarters of the rocket cost dropping by in order of magnitude and maybe more.
21:15Elon MuskWell you know I didn't have like two boxes of Xanax.
21:24Elon MuskSo you know I was oddly. I felt calmer than I should but I said why do I should really feel I was actually oddly enough I was nervous that I wasn't nervous enough sort of nested.
21:47Elon MuskThat's the level of their nested for but I hope so other comp and
21:57Moderatoryeah
22:00Elon Muskworked out as well as what we expected. It's really credit to the spacing team for doing amazing.
22:13Elon MuskAnd how that will work into a
22:14Reportertraditional concept of the rocket. And if we're addressing
22:21Elon Muskrobot that we've
22:22Reporterseen on the drone ship lately.
22:31Elon MuskWe have a revotion facility. Most of the revotion will be done at the launch site itself. About space at 39A and bulb space at 40 and then there's also a whole separate sort of rocket hangar actually for the rocket rocket's getting kind of big so maybe it's sort of like a forest of rocket boosters.
22:57Elon MuskWe've got another 20 fight or something this year. Something in that order. If most of the succeed we're going to need quite a big hangout and that's yeah so yeah the facility's flat and the robot thing is in order to secure the rocket remotely because we can't put we can't people on board if the rocket's sliding around is too dangerous.
23:34Elon MuskSo those little droids that People have seen are in order to remotely secure the legs of the rocket. And so the rocket is stabilized to move around. And even in high seas we still have a crew board ship and safe to run.
23:59Elon MuskActually it might be or certainly within the next few months,
24:03SES Executivelike, but today
24:04Elon Muskwas fine because the seas are so calm. The rocker's not moving around. And so it's not really any droids, but it's kind of more in like the heavy seas situation.
24:14Elon MuskWe had that one where it was quite stormy and the rooster was like sliding from one side of the drone ship to the other. It's like the only thing stopped it from going overboard was there's like a lip on the edge.
24:28Elon MuskThere's like Bangalore.
24:38ModeratorCan you give us an update on the development of the aeroplanetary transport system and what's next in terms of what's the next component of these testing following the carbon fuel tank.
24:55ModeratorYeah.
24:55Elon MuskSo I will provide an update on the design of the interplanetary transport system that in flight transport system also includes the propellant depot on Mars. That's why it's sort of.
25:10Elon MuskI actually don't use blackboards system. But we can't call it a rocket if it includes a cartel depot. So the modest transporter or modest transporter Transporter. We've come up with a number of designer pride events and we'll probably be ready to put that on the website within a month or so.
25:40Elon MuskYeah.
25:41ModeratorJust want to follow up. The time frame has kind of shifted since Guadalajara. I was wondering if you guys had
25:47Elon Muskany updated time frame of when do
25:49Moderatoryou think that first. That first mission will be launched. And if I'm correct, the first one is uncrewed.
25:54Elon MuskCorrect. Yeah. The first ones will be uncrewed. I don't want to steal thunder from that announcement. I think it's. I'm free. Excited about the updated strategies since Guadalhara. I think it makes lot more sense and it's.
26:11Elon MuskAnd we have to not just get it done technically, but figure out how to get this done without going bankrupt. So it's like our goal is to get people on Mars before we're dead.
26:24Elon MuskAnd the company isn't dead. So like neither one will die because we don't want to be so. So, you know, take so long that it's over then by the time it happens.
26:34Elon MuskAnd we don't want to kill the company's process. So we have to figure out not just solve the technical issues, but the economic issues. And I think the new approach is going to be able to do that.
26:45ModeratorHopefully I'd like to get back and take some more questions on the phone. I think next on the line is Alex N. Of course. Go head out. Hi Evelyn, thanks for taking my call.
26:58ModeratorI have to ask. Well, I gotta ask the first question. What's the pricing discount on a flight proven launch option versus a standard auction?
27:11Elon MuskActually we're trying to figure that out but it will be a meaningful discount. We do have to pay off. We'll figure out some way to pay off the development costs of the usability so the prices won't be as the prices count, won't be as much as the cost savings because we need to kind of repay the massive development cost obviously and will be farther than any other rocket in the world.
27:44ModeratorThank you. The next question is also on the phone. It's by Carrie Sheridan from Regional Response.
27:52ReporterHi, could you just repeat for me? I'm not sure if I heard you correctly about this. How many times might you be able to reuse one of the boosters both for one that's been reworked a lot
28:05Moderatorat this point and one that has undergone minimal refurbishment?
28:09Elon MuskSurely the design intent is that the rocket can be reflown with zero hardware changes. The only thing that changes is you reload propellant 10 times and then with moderate refurbishment that doesn't have a significant effect on the cost.
28:35Elon MuskIt can be reflowed least 100 times
28:39Moderatoractually.
28:39Elon MuskReally? I mean we can make it a thousand but it's probably vehicle the booster is designed will be designed for a
28:48Moderatorthousand plans for long. Let's go back into the room. Ken Kramer please. Hi, thanks.
28:57Elon MuskKen Kramer today. Thanks for doing this and congratulations on. So how my question is about refurbishment. What are the lessons that you've learned? You got eight cores back and you got one today.
29:08Elon MuskThere has to be some things that are used more that are more prone to failure.
29:14ModeratorSo what are the things that keep
29:15Elon Muskyou off at night? What are the lessons you've learned and implemented? And the second question would be for your moonshot, are you going to have a vigorous science program, any science program and can you tell us about it?
29:27ReporterSure.
29:27Elon MuskWell, I. I want to make sure we don't widen the press conference into the old things because today is really about the fact that rock booster was rebuilding and succeeded.
29:40Elon MuskI don't want to contain things to that because there's lots of other exciting things in the future. But to be a great optional element that most tricky I think for reuse is the base heat shield of the rocket.
30:01Elon MuskThe Gridmans you saw on the webcast, we addressed that The Gridmans were lighting a fire. So we actually have a new design for the gridfun which is quite a bit more advanced than the current one.
30:18Elon MuskI believe it will be the largest, largest titanium forging in the world. So it's a special alloy of titanium that's very good at high heat flux. Whereas this Griffin is made of aluminum but it's covered in thermal protection so it's.
30:41Elon MuskBut it gets so hot so when it's on fire bit it's not great for reuse. But the new grid guns will be should be capable of taking a scorching and being fine.
30:55Elon MuskAnd they'll also have to have significant more control authority. So that should improve the reusability of the rockets. We'll actually improve the payload's orbits by being able to plant it at a higher angle mechanic and use the aerodynamic element into the rocket to effectively glide on the fixed limit.
31:13Elon MuskLike it actually does have a.
31:20Elon MuskL of roughly 1 at the angle of the path. But you need to control authority particularly control authority that's highly recurrent enough to achieve that. So two gripens basic shield.
31:38Elon MuskPaint. I guess paint can get a little toasty so maybe having more thermal barrier coating instead of paint. There's a million little things but I think we've got the base issue of being addressed.
31:56Elon MuskWe've got the good type of grip and there's like bunch of little things like the. But overall we've got a plan to achieve the 24 hour zero hydro change usability.
32:18ModeratorYeah. Thanks for taking my question with that said with those challenges I know it's
32:23Elon Muskstill a little bit early with the
32:25Moderatordata that you're getting back in the two year is there anything that stands out in your mind that you're worried about or how's this booster doing? How do you know?
32:34Elon MuskI mean I was looking at the telemetry all the way up and down. Everything looks great. It looks. Looks really good. I mean just kind of eyeballing it. I think that the other things that we need to be address on this reason to reply would be to replace thermal protection on the grid Bruins and on JC2 and to repaint areas that are where the paint bubble.
33:06Elon MuskI'm not aware of anything else that
33:07Reporterwe need to do.
33:09Elon MuskYeah absolutely. And verify for those
33:14Reportermore questions in the room.
33:16ModeratorHow about 10 frame holes?
33:18Elon MuskAgain just to elaborate on that one that's not sort of well understood about spaceflight is that altitude is really not the thing that matters. It's velocity. It's a little count because people see a rocket pointing up and it goes straight up.
33:35Elon MuskAnd you think well okay, the way rockets go to space is they go straight up and then suddenly gravity stops at some point. And that's how you get, that's not at all how it works.
33:47Elon MuskSo we have the word orbit. The way that things develop this layout is they zoom around the earth so fast that the outward acceleration, outward radial acceleration is equal to the inward acceleration of gravity.
33:58Elon MuskThey null out and that's why you don't fall down. And the thing that really is incredibly difficult to deal with is the, the heat of re entry. Now apparently this is a good thing.
34:16Elon MuskIt means that we aren't able to tunnel 5 meters all the time because they get burned up in the upper atmosphere. So it's good. But then if you want to make a rocket come back and not also be vaporized, that's hard.
34:28Elon MuskAnd, and, and you have to have this really heavy heat shield for going to get any payload towards. So the trick is to figure out just the right level of armor in just the right places with advanced materials and best analytical techniques so that it's, you can have all the thermal protection that you need.
34:50Elon MuskBut it's not so much that you've got to repayable. That's really the trick of it. And actually missions like the one we just did are the hardest missions because anything going to geosynchronous transfer orbit means it's a high velocity mission.
35:09Elon MuskAnd that means the booster is coming in really hot, it's coming in fast, which means it's coming really hot. The peak heating is at the Cuba velocity which is really naughty to think about.
35:23Elon MuskIt means like to say the heating difference between Mach 1 and Mach 8 is 500 roughly this crazy heating difference. And then of course once you pass the melting point of metals then all your thing melts input.
35:43ReporterSo
35:45Elon Muskthat's really the, it's dealing with that velocity.
35:52ModeratorHi gentlemen. I wanted to ask you something.
35:57Elon MuskYou said earlier. You said you had to separate the
36:02SES Executiveemotions from the engineering.
36:04Elon MuskWhat emotions are you talking about? Is that about SpaceX or about innovation in the Arab space?
36:10SES ExecutiveNo, it was really referring to the comments that we had over the last couple of days when we spoke to the press and spoke to the people may have a little press conference and such.
36:18SES ExecutiveLike a lot of people came back and said you're taking inordinate risk here. You have extremely expensive spacecraft. There's a very important mission doing Latin America. Aren't you taking a huge chance here?
36:29SES ExecutiveWhat I was trying to react to there is to say actually I don't think we are because we actually work through this problem. We work very, very closely together with SpaceX and that's really probably why we've done more of these type of missions with SpaceX than anybody else.
36:45SES ExecutiveWe've been the first on broton, all this type of stuff. But with SpaceX we have a certain transparency and we have a certain depth of relationship and also access to engineering specifics for our US citizens that allow us to be able to have that confidence in the fact that the engineering is good and that we can go ahead with such a mission and make that investment and in happy that this hugely expensive spacecraft can fly on this particular booster.
37:14SES ExecutiveSo that's really where I'm coming from. You've got to get away from the idea that it's secondhand, you know,
37:23SES ExecutiveYou know, it may make you may not, you know, that doesn't interest us whatsoever. You actually have to go into this really with a sangfoi. You have to go into this really cold blooded and just work through the various different issues, understand the testing, understand the engineering associated with this and then you make your decision.
37:39SES ExecutiveThat's exactly what we did. We have three more flights this year. The SpaceX on two of those flights we're considering now moving them to.
37:57Elon MuskShow presentation of a very early days
38:01Moderatorof SpaceX with a mariachi band.
38:03Elon MuskAnd 12 people are always right from mariachi band to here. You know, since that time you mentioned
38:10Moderator15 years it's been a lot of work.
38:12Elon MuskYeah. I'm just curious, is this a day of personal satisfaction for you? Do you feel vindicated in this mission to lower space access? Yeah, this is a huge thing.
38:23Elon MuskMy mind's blown. I mean frankly. Yeah, I, I was really quite speechless after it all happened. It's combination of transp work by a very talent team. I can't, can't credit credit to the agency production team SpaceX enough for coming to that.
38:48SES ExecutiveI think after open the SES8 which was the first commercial GTO mission of the SpaceX, I made the comment that the industry will be shaking its boots.
38:58Elon MuskOh, I think it's shaking now. I really do. Feels good paint but better.
39:04SES ExecutiveHey, that's good.
39:07ModeratorAnother question in the room. How about Marco Santana from Orlando South? I was going a little bit off
39:15SES Executiveof what he just said.
39:15Elon MuskHe kind of puts us in perspective.
39:17ModeratorI mean you've had a successful career, obviously successes and failure as an entrepreneur but can you put us in perspective on where this fits in with all that? The second question I wanted to ask briefly is why are you Keeping the
39:31Elon Muskrock as a cave well actually going through a line building up the space
39:48Moderatoryeah so what should this been in your health career
39:54Elon MuskDefinitely one of the best things ever that's 15 years like
40:02SES Executivea lot of a lot of
40:06Reporterquestions.
40:11Elon MuskHi Cesari with the youth of and
40:14Moderatorthere's been a lot of history there's been quite a lot of history made
40:18Elon Muskfrom LC for 39 yeah I mean it's it's like time square I mean it's the I mean when NASA said that they were leasing to us announcements to use that pad it was an incredible honor and that's that's obviously where they follow that and reminding that where they work yeah cool coolest watch location I like it yeah and was this was this part of your design to lease this pad or is no I mean it's sort of it came up and and NASA asked us if we had had interest we might tell.
41:24ReporterTo the International Space Station so today's achievement how could open the door to many new year goals in space
41:34Elon MuskWell
41:35ModeratorI think the
41:37Elon Muskkey is going to be reduction of the cost access to space I think over time the current architecture of F9 I think we'll certainly allow for dramatic reduction in contacts in space but then looking ahead to our next generation vehicle.
42:05Elon MuskThe big rocket the colonel's codename of EFR Big Falcon rocket.
42:21Elon MuskThat vehicle I think is really taking all of what we've learned and creates which is fully reusable and it really the primary booster has been assigned to read life within less than an hour you could fly one per hour with prime booster and I'm really confident that that architecture with a high flight rate which I think will occur can achieve hundredfold reduction in the cost for your mast or really anywhere so I think what today really what the significance of today is I think proving that it's possible to do that at least in the final booster and we'll proximate the upstate as well and that at this point I'm highly confident that it is possible to achieve that reduction in fossil space transport and maybe more maybe better than that so it means for the same budget.
43:48ModeratorNext question from Greg.
43:59ModeratorCongratulations Greg Columbus 13 was wondering with your kids here is this an example of recycling the environment recycling boosters teaching them about the environment personal dad thing
44:16Elon Muskpotential for historic moments so.
44:23Elon MuskSee correctly and they had a good time.
44:36ModeratorMore questions than I please how about
44:38Elon MuskI just take a couple more questions
44:43Reporterhi we're you is going to be now an option how will you decide which nations will using as flight proven rockets versus first time or is it solely based on customer requests?
44:54ModeratorWell it's.
44:54Elon MuskIt's customers that are willing to take a flight driven booster or some will still want to see a lot more flights before they. They're comfortable with the what we call flight driven booster they may use.
45:11Elon MuskBut yeah so but it does seem as though we may do maybe half a dozen or more flights of a refund booster this year and then next year probably double that.
45:31Elon MuskAnd I would suspect that yeah for the Falcon architecture I would say I'm fully three quarters of our missions or more are done.
45:44SES ExecutiveMaybe as a, as an operator I could add my belief is within 24 months people like SpaceX or SpaceX specifically will offer a service to orbit and it'll be irrelevant.
45:57Elon MuskIt'll be irrelevant to this news. That's what this means for. Yeah. And that always to make this normal. This is normal. Like.
46:14ModeratorWe have time for one more question I think. How about Chris Geard with NASA Spaceplay. In terms of more short term reusability
46:26Elon Muskefforts how does this sort of conform to the Block 5 upgrade? Top nine for the Falcon Heavy side
46:33Moderatorboosters is late summer.
46:36Elon MuskAlso in the third 40 will be back since we heard that Falcon Heavy would go from 39 before he gets back up. Wow, you really understand the detail. You're really in the details there.
46:48Elon MuskYes, that's all approximately correct. So we need to get to 40 out and running game so that we can start doing single stick flights from 140 which allows us to do the heavy flights from 3980 so that necessarily 40 would have to be reactivated before 3980 is in use for clock heavy.
47:13Elon MuskThe F heavy I really want to emphasize is a high risk. That's a high risk. Flight 27 engines are lighting smart flood engines. I mean technically I should call the cellphone 27 we called that would sound too scary.
47:32Elon MuskSo.
47:37Elon MuskYeah so certainly we wouldn't want to take a look at you know something going on with that pad and then having a bad on that's good. And then.
47:53Elon MuskAnd Block 5 the notification I think is I think we probably are not using the right no placer because it's more like a point bonus than it's block I rule like version 2.5 or 12.9 is probably the most accurate and the most important part of Block 5 would be operating the engines at their full thrust capability which is about 7 or 8% almost 10% more than what they currently run.
48:32Elon MuskA number of other improvements to have used for for centanium grid. So that'll bring in a number of factors. Flood fiber, flood firewall argument to five rules, so incorporate number of elements that are important to NASA for space.
49:00Elon MuskAll right.
49:02ModeratorWith that, we'll conclude our first launch news conference for the SpaceX SES10 mission. For more information, you can go to SpaceX.com or ses.com follow us both on social media.
49:30ModeratorCare for the leg it.
49:38Elon MuskYounger and younger.