Kind: captions
Language: en
and the nozzle so as you're saying
there's a bunch of different design
options but it's a critical part of this
how you do that conversion basically
like how much can you convert is really
like the ultimate game how much pressure
and heat can we convert into thrust like
that's really at the end of the day
that's what a rocket engine
is the following is a conversation with
Tim Dodd host of the everyday astronaut
YouTube channel where he educates and
inspires
all of us with detailed but accessible
explanations of Rocket engines and all
things space travel this is Alex
Freedman podcast to support it please
check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Tim DOD can you give a brief history of
SpaceX Rockets so we got Falcon 1 Falcon
9 there's different versions of those
Falcon heavy and Starship and also the
the dragon capsules and so on well uh
yeah Falcon 1 is where it all started
the original intent and the original
idea of of SpaceX was Elon wanted to try
to get something to Mars you know um he
saw that NASA didn't have a current Mars
plan and he wanted to go to Mars so he
decided how do I best do this um he
literally wanted to at first purchase a
rocket from from Russia uh then on the
after a foiled attempt at doing that he
decided to he was going to try to
develop his own rocket and the Falcon
one is what came out of that process and
he developed a pretty incredible team
like I don't know how exactly he
stumbled upon the team that he stumbled
upon that quickly but the people that he
assembled were amazing and they built
the Falcon 1 which was a single Merlin
engine followed by an upper stage engine
called the krol engine um pretty small
compared to the things they're working
on today but that Merlin engine
continued to evolve uh into being the
power plant for the Falcon 9 they went
from a small lift launch vehicle up into
the medium class launch vehicle so they
could provide services for NASA um
that's one of the big things they first
kind of hung their hat up was they got
the opportunity to fly cargo to the
International Space Station under um
originally was called the cots program
the commercial orbital transportation
services uh for NASA which evolved into
the commercial resupply contracts and
that's when SpaceX developed both their
Dragon capsule which is a uh uncrewed at
first uh spacecraft that can dock to the
ISS and the Falcon 9 rocket that can
take it to the International Space
Station and then dragon rides on it's a
thing up top that rides on the big
booster thing that uh that launches it
into orbit exactly yep the Falcon 99's
the the semi- TR the dragon capsules the
payload you know it's the thing being
dropped off basically at its destination
in this case the destination is the
International Space Station um and uh
yeah so they developed those relatively
quickly and uh became a commercial
success before for you know it they're
now the number one launch provider in
the world launching more mass to pay to
orbit than anybody else launching more
frequently than um countries like the
entire country of China who's going
crazy right now with launches granted
China beat them by two launches this
last in 20122 but prior uh prior year
SpaceX beat the entire country of China
I mean it's it's nuts what and just like
you said SpaceX still beats China even
this year in terms of the amount of
payload those so the yeah the mass to
orbit right that uh China had like 60
something a couple more uh launches but
the there was just like small cubes that
type of launches exactly some of them
were literally like 100 kogs or
something you know like not not large
payloads and so SpaceX customers are
different different so whoever wants to
send payloads up into space yes but
right now their biggest customer is
actually themselves with starlink with
one of the biggest reasons they've
launched so much mass to orbit is
because starlink is designed around the
payload Fairing and the payload
capabilities of the falcon9 rocket so
you know because they're vertically
integrated because they build their own
satellites because they're building
their own rocket they can literally
design a system that's you know another
manufacturer might have made a more
Square satellite that was heavier or
something but SpaceX looked at it from a
blank slate and said here's our
constraints our payload Mass constraints
or volume constraints and they made a
funky looking satellite things like the
size of a you know it's like a table
folded up which isn't anything I've you
know really ever seen before so but it's
purpose built to fit as efficiently as
possible inside their Fairing and inside
the capabilities of that rocket so
therefore because they're launching
those like an insane amount you know a
dozen you know 40 50 times a year or
whatever um they're uh they're just
putting up insane amounts of mass like
we've never seen before what about the
different versions of Falcon 9 so we can
Linger on them what are some interesting
memories to you of the different
developments in Falcon 9 the very first
Falcon 9s had a a square array of
engines it had like a 3x3x3 grid of
their Merlin one engines the 1DS and um
I think it only lasted I don't remember
if it was two or four flights before
they went into this OCTA configuration
where um there's eight like a ring of
eight engines with a center engine in
the middle um still in the same diameter
that the rocket was the fuselage was
more or less the same 3.7 M wide
diameter but the the actual thrust
structure changed and one of the big
efficiency gains was you no longer have
you know a corner engine and then like a
edge engine and then another Corner
engine you can just make eight of the
same you know kind of part of the OCTA
web it's called uh you know the same
shape and then the your
interchangeability and your
manufacturability becomes a lot simpler
so that was kind of one of the bigger
upgrades at first and they kept
stretching it every time they like touch
this thing it got longer and like or
taller and taller technically um and
then the next big feature that you saw
uh in 2014 would have been they add
added Landing legs to a Falcon 9 rocket
which was I was at that was the first
launch I ever went to was actually to
see um it was CRS 3 so commercial
resupply Mission 3 it was probably their
God I don't remember what that was like
their 14th or 15th launch or something
like pretty early on um and people were
literally laughing at the idea of them
putting Landing legs on it they just
thought it was stupid they're like why
are they wasting why is this billionaire
Elon mus guy wasting his time trying to
land a rocket it's not going to work so
you said the Mars planet was there in
the beginning
uh what about the re reusability of
rockets was that there in the beginning
uh I think reusability definitely you
know it's it's a necessary part of
making any kind of
interplanetary mission you know in order
to actually do that just financially you
have to start reusing these things in
terms of the development of the Falcon 1
and Falcon
9 how early on did the uh goal of
reusing the rocket having the rocket
actually land
how how early did that goal creep in I I
can't speak for Elon and and SpaceX but
it was pretty you know immediate they
wanted to try to recover and as a matter
of fact I think the very first two
Falcon 9 rockets and Falcon 1 I think
they even wanted to try to recover uh
using parachutes to recover the first
stage um and now fast forward you know
almost 20 years later and Rocket lab is
actually doing a concept like that where
they're uh pulling a parachute after the
first stage is re-entering and they
actually are trying to recover cover it
with a helicopter he's going to try to
snatch it out of the air they've
actually done it they've actually done
it successfully once how does the
helicopter grab the the rocket with this
giant like drag line in a hook oh W and
literally just like grabs snags onto the
parachute wow and it's pretty amazing
and but this is a small rocket their
Rocket's only about a metric ton the the
booster is empty so the rocket releases
parachutes yep like really high up I'd
love to see this yeah it's an
interesting idea there's so many
interesting ideas and possibilities like
SpaceX basically just
innovated a lot of different weird ideas
just in in the pursuit of making things
more efficient reusable um all that so
basically thinking from first principles
how to solve this problem and so what
you find is like you'll get all these
kind of crazy kind of solutions and with
SpaceX they weren't even getting to the
point of the booster surviving re-entry
long enough to be able to pull the
parachutes yeah you know their Mass
fractions you know and that varies every
single Rocket's different you know all
the you know for instance rocket lab
uses carbon composite fuselage and tanks
um or you know same thing and that's
very very lightweight has really good
Mass fractions and therefore their drag
coefficients and things like that they
were able to survive re-entry of the
first age which is something that SpaceX
wasn't able to do at the time um what's
what the kind of the big I think
breakthrough for SpaceX with reusing the
booster is they uh they realized we have
to basically slow down before we hit the
atmosphere so they actually do what they
used to call a re-entry burn which I
still think is the correct term because
it is re-entering the atmosphere but now
they call it the entry burn and they
light up three of the nine Merlin
engines uh not only to slow it down but
actually even while those engines are
firing it creates like a a literal like
force field as it's falling through the
through the atmosphere interesting and
uh but it also decreases the velocity by
almost half or around half and then that
therefore decreases the amount of you
know the biggest thing with the
atmosphere is that it as it gets
compressed against um the the front of
any anything flying through the
atmosphere uh the compressed atoms just
get hot and they can get so hot they
turn into a plasma and they get so hot
they can just absolutely destroy
anything um so they slow down enough
that the air molecules don't end up you
know destroying the vehicle on re-entry
and then they then they realize I think
at some point it's probably a similar
crossover they're like well if we're
lighting the engines already to slow
down in the atmosphere we can just use
that same engine to land MH and so like
well what if we just stuck Landing legs
on it and
just landed the thing vertically and
next thing you know is December 21st
2015 they did exactly that for the first
time they landed so you were there
before that then right yeah in 2014 yep
early 2014 so that and for me like that
was so fun watching you know that was
like the peak of me just becoming
obsessed with uh with this idea I'm
watching with like and back in the day
it was like months between launches you
know so a launch was like a big idea I'd
wake up at 3:00 a.m. to watch this
Landing attempt or whatever you know and
every you know there's crs4 um almost
almost landed crs5 almost landed CRS 6
CRS 7 blew up I was watching that on I
think it was like a Saturday morning or
maybe a Sunday morning and I remember
watching that and watched it blow up and
I'm like oh my God now what you know and
it blew up on a scent it was their first
failure um so it was their 18th flight I
believe CRS 7 the upper stage um had a
uh one of the bot there's bottles inside
the tanks that are filled with helium
and one of those bottles broke off on a
scent mhm and actually just completely
overpressured this the upper stage the
upper stage blew up and the whole rocket
went Kaboom uh in an uncontrolled
Manner and so uh so then they came back
with vengeance when they came back the
first mission back is the first time
that they landed a rocket which was
awesome so they return to flight after
the anomaly was was uh yeah was was
Landing a rocket stuck The Landing yep
well actually the first time so the
first time you were there what was that
like what do you remember from that from
that day just I was surprised at how
much bigger the rocket was than I
imagined I was I originally when I was
going down to Kennedy Space Center I was
disappointed that I wasn't seeing like a
you know I didn't know a ton about
Rockets I knew enough to like know what
a space shuttle was what like the Saturn
5 was you know but that was probably
about the end of my knowledge I just
remember being disappointed that I
wasn't seeing a big quote unquote NASA
rocket flying you know I was thinking in
my head like oh I'm going to see this
launch it's probably going to be like
you know three stories tall or something
you know just some little skinny little
stick and some little firecracker and
yay you know and I think I'd almost been
pitched that too I think the the people
that I was working for at the time I
think they kind of were downplaying it
as like well it's not a big rocket here
it's not going to be that exciting you
know but we get out there to the pad and
I'm like this thing's huge this is not a
small rocket like this is It's you know
it's 70 M tall 220 feet tall it's huge
um and I think people forget like the
scale of that you know it might look
skinny and tall and and all this stuff
but is still a very very large piece of
machinery it's physically about as as
large as you can ship the booster is
about as big as you can ship across the
country period without like completely
shutting down highways you know it is
made within those exact specifications
of of like having you know Lane
Privileges and bridges and everything
it's you know 12 feet wide 3.7 meters
wide and it's 45 MERS long so it's like
exactly what you can fit uh with a
pretty standard you know like before you
start getting into crazy amounts of of
problems shipping the rocket and it's
huge it's huge and people just don't
understand that and so when I saw with
my own eyes I remember just being like
this is so much cooler than I thought is
it hard to believe that that thing is
going to have to lift off the ground and
launch up into the air maybe that's the
most humbling aspect of it that
something that size humans have come up
with a way to take something that size
and launching launch it up into the air
yeah there's certainly a very humbling
aspect when you watch it actually leave
was was there a sound to it was there
like a feeling what what were the
different experiences that you first
remember well ironically I didn't end up
getting to see that one fly oh I went
home my camera saw it I left my camera
out there like a remote triggered camera
uh my first images as a launch
photographer at the time was was CRS 3
but I went home it it scrubbed too many
times this is back in the day they were
scrubbing like often and it'd be like a
threed day five day 7even day you just
never knew so I go home and I watched
the live stream of it so I didn't even
get an experience my first launch and
any anyone that's ever tried to you know
go to a launch is can probably empathize
because yeah scrubs are very common in
the space flight world so that one I
didn't get a see uh but since then
obviously I've been able to um attend
very many launches uh how much do you
understand the control involved in the
landing how difficult is that problem I
couldn't tell you a single thing about
like the code and like the avionics
behind it but I can tell you all the
hardware that makes it happen if that
helps well that I mean to me it seems
like whenever I talk to people they they
say it's not that big of a deal in terms
of the the level of intelligence and the
control but to me it's just like when
you observe it it seems is incredible
cuz all the variables involved all the
uncertainties involved all
the um because there's aerodynamics I
mean like there's different temperatures
there's so so much going on with the
fuel the burning the the combustion just
everything that's going on to be able to
do perform control at such high stakes
effectively like you know I that code is
probably not written in JavaScript I
guess is what I'm saying actually no I
don't it it if I remember I again this
is well outside of my domain um but um
I'm they they code in a Common Language
it's is it's probably it's probably
going to be c yeah yeah I'm pretty sure
it is and that was one of the things
that was weird is that Elon when he you
know started SpaceX was like we're just
going to code in the most common
language so that we don't have to like
have people learn this archaic you know
weird thing and we can just literally
pull people off the streets and be like
here write it you know and yeah it's
probably C++ I mean it'd be epic if it
was like python or something but I don't
I I think like reliable systems have to
be written in cc++ probably which is a
common language which is something uh I
imagine like NASA Engineers would
probably have to use some kind of
proprietary language in uh in the olden
days for for security for privacy all
that kind of stuff um well in the olden
old old days like they're inventing code
and language from scratch uh for sure
but still it's just still incredible
that it's able to do that like just the
feat of engineering involved is just is
truly it's like one of the Marvels to
observe about these Rockets coming back
to Earth uh that they're able to land
like the drama of it is just incredible
to see yeah well the the one of the fun
things to remember too with specifically
with the Falcon 9 and the falcon or
Falcon heavy boosters I mean it's the
same thing basically um they shut down
all but one of the nine engines and even
with that one engine at its minimum
throttle setting it's still too much
thrust to hover so as this Rocket's
coming down if they start a little bit
too early if they light that engine too
early it will actually stop above the
ground and will not be able to lower
itself it will literally stop like say I
stay say it stop 200 feet above the
ground their only option is to kill the
engine and then it's just going to fall
those 200 feet so they it's what we call
like a suicide burn or a hover slam kind
of interchangeable terms because your
thrust to weight ratio is never below
one so they have to actually literally
be riding the throttle so what you do is
you kind of start ideally you know you
kind of start like in the middle of your
window of of throttle range so let's
pretend your engine can Throttle Down to
40% of its maximum rated thrust you
might start at like 70% of thrust in the
middle of that like window of where it
could burn so that so if all of a sudden
it's kind of coming in too hot you have
room to throttle up if you're coming in
you actually you know a little too early
you throttle it down you have a little
bit of wiggle room it's just amazing how
smoothly and how perfectly they're able
to still control that thing even though
they're down to one engine out of the
nine and they're still riding like the
finest margin of what's possible and
they're they're continually playing with
that to try to get it because every
every bit of fuel they're using and
proponent they're using to land is
proponent they weren't using to put
something into space yeah so they want
that to be as efficient as possible so
they're really like watching them hone
that in and and just continue to evolve
and edit that and and just get it to be
the Workhorse we're coming up on a 100
consecutive Landings perfect Landings
100 I think they've done like 150
something Landings all together 160
altogether but we're talking like in a
row without blowing up which at the you
know 5 years ago was completely
experimental and insane and now we're
coming up to the point where we're 100
in a row it's like this is becoming more
reliable in the landing which is not the
primary Mission this is purely for
spacex's like gain is to recover the
booster it has nothing to do with the
effect of getting the payon on orbit you
know most of the time and uh the landing
is really only for their their benefit
and their gain long-term gain like it's
a long-term investment in in uh being
able to recover the the the boosters
can you believe all this was done in
basically 10 years so we've seen this
development over a period of 10 years oh
man so like where we started uh
commercial space
flight at scale to today where it's
almost uh almost starting to be mundane
yeah what FC is able to do yeah uh I I
can't really believe it I mean obviously
even just in the I I think I'm a fairly
fair weather fan really didn't start
paying attention till like 2014 yeah and
just seeing what it was like back then
to what it's like like I don't watch
every launch at all anymore like I'll
catch the big ones yeah I'll stream some
of the really big ones but like back in
the day I like I said would wake up in
the middle of the night to catch these
streams or you know catch these launches
and watch them because they were such a
big deal and there's maybe only five of
them a year you know and so it's a
really big deal nowadays it's like oh
yeah there's literally like two a week
on average now it's insane from SpaceX
alone let alone you know United launch
Alliance rocket lab any of the Chinese
missions you know I mean all of there's
countless it's it's insane it's hard to
really really really hard to keep up
with I wonder at which point in the
future the number of uh launches to
orbit will exceed the number of launches
of
airplanes like on the surface of Earth
see I have to admit I kind of have a
hard time extrapolating out that far you
know there's a lot of people that are
like big futurists and really do think
about like interplanetary stuff and
think about colonizing Mars and stuff I
have a hard time predicting like when
starship's going to fly the orbital
launch you know and that's like imminent
is like month or two scale time frame
and yet I'm still like I can't tell you
when that's gonna I can't tell you
anything about like when we're going to
land on Mars or what that's what that
economy and what that you know the scale
of launch operations is going to look
like in order to do that because it's
just so hard to I wouldn't have
predicted where we're at today five
years ago you know it's it's insane it's
so hard to predict and yeah but it's
it's funny because there's so many like
new companies starting up trying to
predict that and it's a really exciting
you know startup culture right now I
think uh when you make certain
engineering decisions and hiring
decisions and like what you focus on in
terms of both business and Engineering
it's good to think on the scale of 10 20
50 100 years that's one of the things
that Elon is exceptionally good at which
is asking uh the question okay this
might seem impossible right now but
what's the obvious way to do this if we
look out 20 years and then you start to
make decisions you start to make
decisions about robotics about brain
computer interfaces about uh space
travel that are that make a lot of sense
when you look at the scale of 10 20 50
100 years and don't make any sense if
you if you look at the scale of of just
months so but of course the actual work
of day-to-day is focused on the next few
months because there's deadlines there's
missions they have to accomplish anyway
we uh we're turning back to the brief
history of SpaceX
Rockets the Falcon heavy so what what
else is there so we talked about Falcon
9 and the rapid development there what
other flavors of of Falcon is there and
how does that take us to Starship yeah
realistically the Falcon N9 evolved more
or less kind of like just got more
powerful and a little bit longer and
more capable but nowadays they fly
What's called the block five even though
it's like the eighth or ninth iteration
of the the Falcon but they call it block
five it's the one that has the black
Landing legs the black in stage they
have a fleet of roughly 10 or so that
are doing the majority of the leg work
these days and they're flying you know
up to 15 times I think right now is the
current booster leader they're also
recovering the fairings so the nose cone
of the Rockets are frequently if not
every time being recovered um same with
yeah same with the booster for the most
part and the only thing being expended
is the upper stage and that's kind of
where the Falcon 9 is ending it's really
doesn't make sense to develop that
infrastructure any longer so they went
with the next step which is go even
bigger physically so they have more
margin for upper stage reusability and
that's what we see with Starship and
super heavy so the super heavy booster
uh the whole system is confusing the
whole system's kind of considered
Starship but it technically the Starship
is just the upper stage which is also
like the spaceship which is also the
upper stage and then the booster itself
is considered the super heavy booster
and that's what they've been working on
uh publicly it came out in 2016 as the
uh at the time it was the its the
interplanetary transportation system uh
later in I think about 20 by the end of
that year 2017 it kind of became known
as the bfr the big uh Falcon rocket yes
yeah um and then I think it was about
end of 2018 they started calling it
Starship but that is the that is where
we're at today and that's what they're
uh working full steam ahead on and uh
what about Dragon we mention Dragon uh
crew Dragon cargo Dragon yeah so they
went from the cargo version of dragon
that flew uh about 20 times uh
successfully to the AAL space station
except for that one CRS 7 where the
rocket blew up in the capsule obviously
didn't make it to the ISS um then they
went into the dragon TR Dragon 2 which
has two variants it has a crew variant
so we just call it crew crew dragon and
then there's the cargo version of of
Dragon 2 um and that's just an updated
sleeker sexier version of dragon and
it's ironically it's heavier altogether
so it uh you'll never see those those
cool return to launch site Landing the
boosters coming back to land for CRS
missions anymore like like we used to
but they landed on the Drone ship anyway
and um and yeah that's been flying
successfully that's kind of the so
there's yeah starlink Dragon falcon9
Falcon heavy and Starship system is kind
of the whole the whole SpaceX world
really in ter in terms of the the the
spaceships involved what do you are some
of the major milestones in that history
we kind of mentioned a a few stick in
the landing is is there something that
kind of stands out yeah I would say
definitely um the big ones obviously
like any of the first the first flight
of Falcon 1 First Flight of Falcon 9
first time they went to the
International Space Station um the first
time they landed a booster um the first
time they reuse a booster which is I
think about six months after no oh it
was a year after it was
scs1 um
2017 was the first time they they reused
one of those boosters you know and that
was a big milestone like can we even
yeah we recovered one we we caught one
you know it's like we got one now what
um that was the first time they refle
one um yeah then flying humans was a
huge one dm to Bob and Doug um for NASA
Bob and Doug yeah Bob and Doug that was
incredible you know that was that was a
huge huge step I think for SpaceX was
flying people so it's it's first major
commercial launching of humans out into
space yeah and not just into space
because you know there's been people
that have done you know space flights
with you know like suborbital hops but
going into orbit and especially docking
and roning with the International Space
Station is a it's a big deal it's a
whole it until you really understand the
physics involved and the scale involved
of like just crossing the Cara line
going straight up versus going into
orbit like they're just completely
different things almost what about uh
Starship are we are we in a place where
we can talk about Milestones with
Starship has there been or has it just
been an Epic Journey of failure and
successes of testing and and so on was
there like yeah what would you classify
at this point as a as a milestone a
Starship or be a whatever the name is
was able to achieve well so far the
Milestones we've seen I'd say the first
one would be the Hop of they call it
starhopper and it's basically a very
rudimentary rocket but it was the first
time they they utilized their new Raptor
engine to produce thrust to to fly
something it first flew like literally
like 3 MERS off the ground or something
like Tethered to the ground then it flew
like 15 and then finally it flew 150 m m
um and that was in
2019 and that was the first big
milestone of of Starship then after that
we saw uh sn5 sn6 kind of do the similar
like 150 M hops with a little bit more
elegant systems you know proving out
more of their their tank building
proving out more their you know a lot of
just subsystems and then the big ones
physically were in uh and end of 2020
and early 2021 when they flew the uh SN
8 9 10 11 and 15 what does the n stand
for an SN I think just serial number or
number these are just names numbers
numerical representations of the
different testing efforts they ski some
numbers right if they if they scratch a
test yeah and lots of times it'd be like
literally they're building you know CU
at Star base and what SpaceX is working
on like the one foot is always in front
of someone else's foot and like the arm
is not knowing what the leg is doing
sometimes yeah they they will have
someone working on you know they'll just
be like hurry up and build 40 of these
tank sections and you build the bulkhead
and you build the downcomer and you
build the header tank blah blah blah and
all of a sudden like oh we actually
evolved that we don't use that header
tank now so it's going to go on to this
one so they'll have like parts of
certain Rockets built like ah literally
scrap it like not scrap it like in the
you know joke term but like literally
just go scrap it and they uh so yeah
they just evolve and iterate so quickly
there were some epic
explosions um I think Starship something
about it uh probably just the amount of
fuel just leads to some epic epic
failures oh yeah probably would you say
Starship is the source of the most epic
failures in terms of size of explosion
so you can literally measure in like a
yield of explosive power you know like
like you could TNT like you can take a
look at uh how much propellent is left
over at the at the time of the exposion
and you know Starship what what's flown
so far even though it's physically one
of the largest flying objects ever uh
just with the upper stage alone they've
not filled it more than like 10 or 20%
full of propellant yeah and so it
actually hasn't been the the failures
have been really epic looking uh big
visual ual Fireballs but in terms of
space fight they're still pretty small
explosions believe it or not they could
still go bigger oh yeah a lot a lot and
of course the test payload of a Tesla
rooster was launched um I forget what
year that was yeah that 2018 that that
was quite epic would you put that on a
milestone oh yeah yeah Falcon heavy demo
was like definitely a a big big big
milestone yeah is that funny to you that
there's a Roop floating out there do we
know the location of that Roadster at
this point oh yeah where is roadster.com
yeah oh yeah where's is it orbiting
something yeah it's orbiting the Sun so
it's it's orbiting the Sun and its orbit
is basically between the Earth's orbit
and Beyond Mars so I think up like 2.5
Au if I remember right so it's it's
beyond Mars's orbit at its highest point
and it's back at Earth kind of in its
lowest point I wonder if there's a
mission where you're going to somehow
connect with it once again and like
Place extra things into it I wonder how
challenging that is technically oh yeah
it could it could absolutely be done um
you know the the hard thing at this
point because it's on an eccentric orbit
would be Rend deing with it because you
kind of have to be in alignment with its
orbit to really line up well with it
yeah um but yeah I mean someday I don't
see any reason why we couldn't at least
and for sure an uncrewed you know Elon
wanted to just fly a a robot out there
to check up on it and photograph it or
something like we could that could be
well within the realm of things and get
an Optimus uh robot up
there uh so that was a story uh
brilliantly told by you of the Rockets
uh for SpaceX what about through the
lens of engines uh can you give a brief
history of the SpaceX rocket engines
that were uh used that we haven't
covered you mentioned it all started
with the Merlin engine and a cust engine
what um yeah through that that lens yeah
what's there the engines are relatively
small number which is which is easy for
us there's yeah the Merlin Merlin's
evolved throughout time to be from like
the Merlin to the Merlin 1C to the
Merlin 1D to the Merlin full thrust and
all these other kind of tweaks of the
same architecture uh krol ended with
Falcon 1 um they also have the Morlin
vacuum engine which is the upper stage
engine for Falcon 9 same relative uh
system but just optimized for vacuum so
it has a much larger Bell nozzle there's
the Draco thrusters which you know you
kind of consider engines well they are
rocket engines but they're just small
they're not like the orbital engines
there's the super Draco engines which
are the abort thrusters on on crew
Dragon capsule and then nowadays they
have the Raptor engine and the Raptor
vacuum variant um but they've already
had two versions of raptor we've already
seen kind of the Raptor development
engine um we've kind of seen like a
raptor 1.5 where is kind of taking hints
of the future Raptor but now we're well
within the well within what you know
you'd consider a Raptor 2 variant and
that's really it yeah for the uh the
Raptor maybe I'll ask you that
separately but I like in general and
people who doesn't know whoever
astronaut is but if you don't somehow
know go go go check his your YouTube
channel out you're an incredible
educator about the the super technical
and uh the more sort of even the the
philosophical the actual like the the
actual space travel so you go down to
the raw details of it and there's just
great videos on the Raptor engine um I
think you have one on Merlin uh and and
also actual tours with Elon where he
discusses some of those things on one of
the tours he said says uh he's full of
good lines that guy uh he says something
about uh the number of fiddly bits and
he's uh the number of fiddly bits was
decreased between Raptor 2 and Raptor 1
yeah and I I think that's actually a
really beautiful representation of um
the engineering efforts there which is
constantly trying to simplify oh yeah uh
increase the efficiency of the engines
but
also uh simplify the design so you can
manufacture it and in general
simplification leads to better
performance and testing you know and
everything so the number of fiddly bits
I'm sure there's a Wikipedia page on
that now as an index is actually a
really good one well and when you think
about it I I don't know of any other
company prior that had kind of tried to
measure their performance of their
engine not in like thrust to weight
ratio or like how efficient it is like
in specific impulse but literally in
like dollar to thrust ratio like how
much does this engine cost how much
thrust can it produce and like using
that is a trade study instead of just
like pure metrics of you know because at
the end of the day like okay if it's if
it's cheaper and does you know x amount
of work even if it's less efficient it
can actually be better long term and so
I guess another way it's not even just
thrust I don't know if that metric is
used but basically the cost of getting
one
kilogram of thing up into space yeah
that's basically what they're trying to
minimize especially yeah at the end of
the day that is definitely the ultimate
metric is how much does one kilogram
cost to orbit eventually you know and
but there's it's so funny cuz space FL
is just the ultimate you know it's the
ultimate compromise every little thing
any variable can just change everything
else so you can tweak so many different
things to get to different numbers and
conclusions you know but even things
like on your first stage when you're
when you're the Rocket's pointing
straight up and the engines are pointing
straight down you're dealing more with
the thrust to weight ratio of the rocket
so how much thrust is it producing
versus how much is gravity pulling down
on it is actually a more important than
how raw efficient the engine is so it's
funny then in space it's kind of the
opposite thrust to weight ratio doesn't
really matter uh what really matters is
the actual the specific impulse it's
called or like the the nozzle escape
velocity of the or the injection
velocity of the how fast is the the gas
moving is like the more important number
on orbit but it's it's just so crazy
because there's all these like I would
just love to see the trade studies you
know when you're like trying to figure
out like is this more important than
this or this or this and it's like you
change this one little thing and all a
sudden
you know like all the everything changes
it's just even the profile like the the
launch profile the trajectory of it the
I mean
everything everything I I wonder what
that trade-off discussions are like cuz
you can't really perfectly plan
everything so and you always have to
have some spare
leway you know especially as you're
testing new vehicles like Starship yeah
margins are important yeah having having
a margin given all the uncertainty
that's there that's really interesting
like how they do those kinds of
tradeoffs cuz they're all rapidly
designing and redesigning and
re-engineering and uh the ultimately you
want to give yourself the freedom to
constantly innovate but then through the
process of testing you solidify the
thing that can be relied upon especially
if it's a crude Mission yeah that that
how to do that in a rapid cycle I I
remember at some point that NASA as
they're leading up to Flying humans for
the first time for NASA um you know
there's some talk that like we're going
to do a design freeze because SpaceX
does evolve and iterate so quickly you
know they were saying that it was
leading because especially at the time
it was a mission called Amos 6 and they
lost a rocket they've only lost two
rockets like ever really as far as um
you know trying to get something to
space for the Falcon 9 sorry um and the
second one Amos 6 I mean that was back
in 2016 so it's it's been a long time
and uh but at the time you know they're
looking at flying humans in in the near
future and it's like if you guys keep
tweaking this thing every time you take
it out to the pad there's going to be a
problem you know and so there is some
pressure from NASA to kind of slow down
on that iterative process and uh but
that is also why they were able to
evolve the Falcon 9 to be what it is
today is because they did just evolve it
so quickly literally like one after
another was never really the same and
we're definitely seeing that with
Starship now like it's evolved so
quickly that you just can't even keep up
with it you know so there's a
fascinating culture uh Clash there have
you just in observing and interacting
with NASA folks seen them sort of grow
and change and evolve themselves sort of
inspired by this new developments in
commercial space flight oh yeah yeah
there's a lot of especially like around
dm2 there's a lot of talks and the press
conferences and stuff where you'd hear
people say you know this was a big this
is well outside of our comfort zone to
work with SpaceX in this manner because
we're we take this approach to things
we're X Y and Z in this in this way the
way normally certify things and we're
not used to SpaceX like well let's just
try it you know like and and do
something you know to a point and so
they they said it ended up being
fantastic they loved working that way
because it was just less paperwork
almost and more just do and um and but
at the same time SpaceX I think even
expressed I I don't remember if it was
Hans cigman or someone in a press
conference said well we really liked
having someone just double check us so
that we're not doing something super
stupid right before we test something
you know um so there was a cool
collaboration because it is uh two very
different philosophies of uh of
development and managing you know space
programs I wanted to talk to you a lot
about engines uh and maybe about
Starship and maybe about your own
becoming an actual astronaut but like
let let's just go there uh before all
that and and and talk about the actual
culture of SpaceX and uh your
conversations with uh Elon you've tour
SpaceX facilities with him you've
interviewed him you've interacted with
them uh what have you learned about
Rockets about propulsion about
engineering about design about life from
those interactions um he's pretty
transparent open human being as an
engineer as a as a leader as a
person I would definitely say the
biggest takeaway I've had from my times
with Elon at SpaceX is really like the
the idea of questioning your constraints
he says that a lot but he also does it a
lot like he there'll you know there'll
be times where like you'll see him
change on a dime because he's like
rethinking of something in a in a new or
different way and for me you know I I I
think we all put constraints on
ourselves we we think about our own
limits you know on on things that we can
or cannot do and I think it's made me
kind of question like well why am I why
did I say no I can't do that or you know
you know just off the top of my head it
a good example uh I so in Iowa I live in
Iowa or half the time or whatever uh
there's a a bike ride across the state
of Iowa called ragb and every year you
just you know like thousands of people
get together and they they ride across
Iowa and it was last summer uh I met up
with some friends and like hey you want
to go on ragb this year I'm like it's
like a week away they're like yeah you
want to go I'm like yeah and so I did
without and it was one of those moments
where I was proud of myself because like
I it's easy to just be like no you know
I'm not ready or this is my constraint
is like I'm not in shape MH but like
just question that you know and and so I
think when it comes down to questioning
your own constraints it's yes even to
that level of like why do you question
yourself on what you can and cannot do
so that's for your personal life is
really powerful but a little bit more
intuitive I think what's really hard is
the question of constraints in a place
like Aeronautics or or robotics or
autonomous vehicles or Vehicles because
there's people there's experts
everywhere that have done it for decades
and everyone admires those experts and
respects those experts and for you to
step into a room knowing not much more
than just uh what's in a Wikipedia
article yeah and to just use your
intuition and first principal thinking
to disagree with the experts that takes
uh that takes some uh guts I think well
you can't have everyone doing that
either you know like there has to be
some humility of knowing that something
is a hardened concept and a hardened you
know like especially I I'm not an
engineer I don't I don't do this stuff
you know but I can imagine you sitting
there having spent six years on a type
of valve that perfectly managed as crowd
Jun propellants or whatever and someone
walks in and says why don't you just put
a heater element in there you know or
something that's you know something
you're like be because we you know we've
done that 40 times or whatever whatever
you know like I'm sure there are things
like that that are very frustrating but
but see the I don't know what that's
like you know the thing is with the
experts they're always going to be
frustrated when the Newbie comes in with
their first principles thinking but
sometimes that frustration is Justified
and sometimes it's not sometimes it's
just stubbornness for failing to
acknowledge a better way and I've seen
it both directions which is really
interesting so you need you need both
but that tension is always going to be
there and there has to be almost like a
dictatorial uh imperative that breaks
through the the expertise of the way
things have been done in the past to
push forward like a new way of doing it
and elon's done that um I've seen a lot
of great Engineers uh do that in the
Machining machine learning world because
it's been so much Development I've seen
that happen usually when there's like
rapid development that starts to come
into play yeah um and yeah and I've seen
that autonomous vehicle space um brain
computer interfaces that Elana's evolved
with all of it it's kind of fascinating
to watch um what about the actual design
and Engineering of the engine since
you've learned about so many different
kinds of engines over the past few years
just like what stands out to you about
the way that engineering is done at
SpaceX or that Elon does
engineering the hardest thing
to kind of remember is like how much
stuff was developed in the 50s and 60s
you know the the concepts finally being
utilized today were already literally
done in the 60s yeah you know so a lot
of the things that SpaceX is doing isn't
a novel concept per se you know they're
like for instance the Raptor engine
utilizes the full flow stage combustion
cycle engine and that was already
developed by the Soviets in the 60s um
for an engine called the Rd 270 and it's
makes sense like on paper 100% it makes
sense because you're basically
extracting the absolute
maximum potential of the chemical energy
in both propellants and you know at the
at the end of the day like you have to
be dumb enough to say we're going to try
using this thing because it's actually
really complicated to to do what they're
doing but at the same time like so are
so are Rockets like rocket engines
already stupid complicated so adding you
know 10 20% more you know pain in the
butt during the R&D if it's you know in
the long long long 20 30y year existence
or whatever you know like future of that
engine is that going to be worth it
obviously SpaceX said yeah I think we
can actually develop this this Raptor
engine so it's it's just interesting to
see the things that have been looked at
or even reusability you know like the
space shuttle was reusable it was fully
uh the upper stage you know the shuttle
itself the the Orbiter was you know I
mean that thing was for all intents and
purposes a reusable rocket now did it
live up to its expectations not
necessarily so it left a lot of bad
taste in people's mouth on the the ideas
of reusability so for SpaceX to kind of
come back into the room and on the table
and say we're going to use a reusable
rocket specifically we're going to do a
fully reasonable rocket you know a lot
of people are even still today A lot of
people are going yeah yeah you're not
going to be able to do that even today
even today so like long term you're not
going to be able to reuse at
scale yeah but yeah definitely I think
the number of people that are saying
that today is is a small portion of
those that were saying that type of
thing five years ago you know when Elon
did that announcement in
2016 um for the its it was very very
aspirational and people were just like
yeah right you know and there's a large
number of people that had the fact ual
reasons to to think that and do that you
know um at the time they had only landed
like two Rockets or something you know
when they did that or maybe three it was
very small number uh when they announced
that actually they had just lost a
couple months prior they just lost amo6
so they like they were still this young
blossoming company and to come in and be
like we figured out reusability and now
we're going to go full scale and make
the world's biggest most heaviest most
powerful rocket ever and we're going to
fully reuse it and it's going to go to
Mars was just pretty out there like it
really was and yeah you know it's all
about perspective but now again we're
coming up on 100 consecutive Landings of
an orbital class rocket that's you know
45 MERS tall 3.7 met wide like this
thing is huge weighs 20 metric tons even
empty when it's Landing that thing's
already huge so seeing the success of
that I think people are now more like
well okay maybe maybe there is actually
the opportunity to be fully reusable
that's definitely probably the biggest
constraint that I think has been
questioned that isil yep and then of
course like the broader one of cost of
bringing down cost uh that it's able to
you're able to kind of bring down cost
so much that this something like
colonizing Mars or many trips to Mars
would be a possibility that's people
don't even that seems so far out that
they don't even have time or give effort
to questioning it but it's the implied
questioning can you really do that many
launches actually do it can you actually
do it yeah it's it's looking I think
it's one of those things where you look
at the curve you know you look at like
10 years ago that was ridiculous yeah
following this curve if SpaceX goes from
you know two years ago launching I don't
remember what it was 40 times to 60
times to 100 times this year is their is
their amount and if we just keep
extrapolating that out if they maybe not
that exponential maybe it goes more
linear whatever what's 20 30 years like
the amount of stuff we can put on orbit
and and the potential we have to do
things like absolutely now I don't want
to put a time frame like you know yeah I
think but you got to think it's we're
increasing the number of launches we're
increasing the amount of things in space
we're increasing the amount of payload
on orbit that's probably not going to
decrease anytime soon and
therefore eventually like the idea of
going to Mars is absolutely reasonable
let me ask a difficult question that
needs to be asked
here can uh SpaceX continue uh its
successes without
Elon this long-term Mission to Mars
I I think the discussion about Tesla and
autopilot or robotics or neuralink with
brain computer interfaces is a question
wholly separate from the SpaceX question
um because there's a lot of other
competitors
doing um some different but amazing
engineering that Tesla is doing and both
autonomous vehicles semi semi-autonomy
or full autonomy and obviously in
vehicle design electric vehicle
there's a lot of people that are doing
incredible brain computer interfaces but
while there is a lot of competitors to
SpaceX and we'll talk about many of them
they're doing amazing work it seems like
he's really driving progress here over
the past 10 years what do you think
about that okay the first thing I think
to remind people is just how many
brilliant people do work at each of
these companies obviously you know
elon's had the some of the best teams
assembled ever just incredible people he
knows this he he will gladly tell people
and he says it often like the amazing
people the amazing teams here so it is
important to remember that um that being
said like there is something to
elon's just super far forward not taking
no for an answer on things approach that
and and and almost to his dismay I think
he is afraid of the sunk cost fallacy so
much that it almost almost gets to the
border of like being you know like throw
out everything before it's even we've
we've known it or not but at the same
time like it moves the needle so fast so
far so as far as the question of would
SpaceX continue to like succeed and and
be able to ultimately go to Mars without
Elon the Mars thing I think would
probably be hard to uphold without I
think a lot of that drive for Mars is
from Elon um it is maybe too Fantastical
for the average person and the average
employee and maybe the average CEO that
might step in to have a company's
mission to go to Mars like it's just or
even governments clearly because like
you said the Mars plan was non-existent
for NASA yeah still really there isn't
much you know
so I I think if and how many people I'm
sorry to interrupt how many people are
talking about it's obvious that we need
to become multiplanetary right there's
not a there's the Mars society and like
serious leaders of engineering uh
efforts or or nations and so on yeah
which it does seem if you think about it
that it it's obvious yeah in the grand
eventuality it it is obvious of the of
human civilization this whole human
experiment we have here we should be uh
expanding out into the cosmos 100% so I
think the big mission if we're we're
measuring SpaceX spacex's success on
getting to Mars or not I think they'd
have a really hard time um continuing to
fulfill that drive without Elon at the
helm um now
I think there's a certain balance and
beauty of Elon specifically when it was
Tesla and SpaceX where Elon will go in
you know have mild tornadoes around the
factory and the the engineering you know
and like mix everything up and and
things get sometimes just totally thrown
together you know and and totally just
like get it done just to to get it done
and start moving that direction and then
he'll leave and go do that same thing
you know at SpaceX or Tesla vice versa
and then there's a little bit of a calm
where people come back in and they f in
those gaps you know and I think that's
kind of always been a pretty healthy
thing honestly is like I think if he is
too focused on on any one thing it
almost is like spin too much you know
like it's like the too many tornadoes
yeah too many tornadoes and and I think
it could almost be like you need someone
to come back in and like you know like
backfill almost because i' I've heard
definitely stories of like like well
public a good a good example would be
last um last was that last year or two
years ago 2020
two yeah was that yeah or no 2021 they
did a the First full stack of Starship
super heavy and they called it the big
surge all of a sudden like thousands of
SpaceX employees you know came down to
Starbase and they just started building
like you wouldn't freaking believe I
mean it's just things going crazy be it
was actually in the middle that first
interview I did with him was in the
middle of that surge there was like
commotion like you wouldn't believe you
couldn't hardly talk because there's
just so much going on people just
welding and blah blah blah you know
everything they did during that period
was basically scrapped cuz it was just
not done very well but they got a fully
stacked Starship rocket out on their
Launchpad you know and it it said I
think at some point you kind of have to
stabilize some things enough and just
say like this is what we're doing to
catalyze some things and say now do this
it's almost like do it for fake now do
it for real almost it's funny cuz
through that time cuz I had a lot a lot
of convers with him I think that process
was hugely stressful there was a sense I
don't know where that sense is today but
there was a sense that Starship is going
to be very hard to pull off yeah that's
still borderline impossible to pull off
and and that was really weighing heavy
on him and the team and everybody yeah
so like to have this chaos of
development is fascinating yeah big time
and I think they really had to push you
know if they hadn't done that if they
hadn't done that big push
you know we might only be now seeing a
rocket stacked for the first time um you
know might be a lot more finished rocket
a lot more High Fidelity a lot more
flight worthy rocket finished and and
stacked but um and they might not have
to walk stuff backwards but at the same
time like you do have to in this world
you do have to push really hard uh to to
make rapid iteration rapid change in
progress so it's it's interesting I
don't know so lingering on that another
question I I really should ask you
because of you've seen you've been in
awe of the amazing
development of space travel technology
over the past few years um what do you
think about Elon buying Twitter so in
this perfect balance optimized
reallocation of
tornadoes throughout uh the various
efforts in human civilization uh do you
think do you worry about his involvement
with
Twitter I mean personally I just I I see
that as a lot less important than and
personally for me inspirational than
Starship and you know the work done at
SpaceX and Tesla to me those were two
very uh impactful and really really just
generally like you know they uniting
like you know something to Rally around
get excited about rally and just like a
future to look forward to Y um you know
the idea of we're going to be building
the world's most powerful biggest rocket
ever and it's eventually going to be
able to get humans on Mars for the first
time and we're going to transition the
world into fully sustainable awesome
just totally badass cars that do all
these cool things to me those were like
that brought a sense of unity and a
sense of like we can do this personally
I just don't think that a social media
no matter what it is I don't see that in
a social media and I don't I don't see
um any sort of politicking as ever
anything that's really ever uniting
thing I understand that I totally agree
with you especially with space how
inspiring it is I have to push back I I
do think the impact of social
media the basic level of uh meaningful
connections of this collective
intelligence that we call human
civilization through the medium of you
know digital communication which is
social media I think that can have a
huge impact it could be the very vehicle
that increases the inspiration that
SpaceX does and and all different uh the
thing I've criticized them a bunch for
is like why bring politics into this uh
so the politic the political divisions
that we see on Twitter feeding them It's
Tricky um It's tricky to sort of
understand what is the value of that
what is the contribution of that to uh
to this whole effort with God going on
so that that's been a that that's been a
big challenge but that said like again
this
tornado the number of tornadoes in
social media I think is really important
because social media has such a huge
impact on on us as a society and to have
a
transparent um have a bit of
turmoil you know it's like Tom way says
I like my town with a bit of Drop of
Poison with a little Drop of Poison so
like a little bit of that um shake
things up I think might be really
healthy I just just worry about the
long-term impact on the whole Mars
project through that and so but you know
what uh this life one of the reasons
that's fun is uh through the chaos you
like none of us know how it's going to
turn out and hope hopefully we try to
help each other to make sure it turns
out well and and this really isn't like
anything about my personal like politics
or anything like that but really just
generally any of my friends that are
like the first thing you hear about them
in their day is something that happened
in politics or something that some world
leaders doing or not doing or saying and
not saying I just don't find that to be
the most important thing really um I I
know that obviously that can affect a
lot of people that has big real world
consequences politics do but like I just
re and this is just me I'm such a like
Oh Come Together you know cheero kind of
guy that I just really think like you
need something bigger than bickering
about what you you know what people said
and did and what they voted on and all
this stuff to to Really push Humanity
forward like I you know I know that
politics and and there and and by
extracting that social media can affect
things like space flight and even our
like planetary defense like be able to
defend ourselves against asteroids like
if politics has their way and everything
goes to crap and we don't even get to
you know yeah we're not going to be able
to you know continue space flight and
things like that but like I don't know I
just think there's better ways to do it
and more uniting ways to do it than than
you know what feels like immature name
calling sometimes you know yeah I think
the political bickering that most people
talk about that that's on top of most
people's minds is the thing that'll be
completely forgotten about history it
has actually very little impact yes
politics matters but like 1% of it I
think most of it is just political
bickering the push and pull of the red
team and the blue team and the and then
the uh the the news media that feeds off
the division for the attention and it's
just like a fun athletic event almost
with the with the blue team and the red
team so that you kind of have to have a
historical perspective on it like most
things uh will not really have a
significant impact and we should focus
on development of science technology
engineering which is the thing that
grows the pie 100% this is what the
economists know well yeah which is the
Innovation the engineering that's what
actually makes everybody richer this
kind of political bickering is just
eating the pie and not just richer but
it improves their lives you know we we
can look at every modern technology that
is bestowed upon us today air
conditioning electricity internet access
fresh clean water running water blah
blah blah you know a hundred years ago
so many of the things that I listed
either didn't exist or were only
accessible by the ultra wealthy you know
and it's through the innovation of
technology and and engineering and
education that we able to have it be
that even someone below the poverty line
and the most of the developed world will
have a good number of those things in
their life um and that's just continuing
to increase and continue to get better
so I I think yeah that's to me that's in
the grand scheme more important but um
to each their own speaking of amazing
technological development uh you have uh
you have a few videos on this but how
does a rocket engine
work uh you you're you're wearing some
of the instruction
manuals but uh for one one type of it
like what what's the fuel what are the
kind of types of different rockets that
you can kind of give an overview yeah
ultimately a rocket engine converts um
high pressure and heat into kinetic
energy like that's the only real job of
a rocket engine is to take uh high
pressure gas hot high pressure gas um
very energized there's a lot of energy
involved and then literally turning that
into molecules shooting in One Direction
into kinetic energy so um yeah what you
do basically you know I mean the
simplest version of it is of course like
famously a balloon you take a balloon
you fill it up with air you've got a
pressure you let go of it uh some of the
air shoots out in a general direction is
you converted that pressure into kinetic
energy now if you start scaling that up
um you know you can continue to do
something like that like um cold gas
Thruster would be kind of the most
simple and easiest rocket engine to make
would be a cold gas Thruster and all
that is you literally just take air or
specifically night because it's a little
bit more dense than all the others or
you know it's the majority of our
atmosphere um you can uh or sorry it's
more sparse um you can condense that
down sort in a really high pressure
bottle and then uh just literally shoot
it through what's called a DL nozzle
which is something that chokes the flow
a little bit gets it to be um takes it
and gets it into supersonic speeds once
it's at supersonic speed you actually
can't choke it down anymore you'll just
constrict the flow of of mass flow
you'll constrict the air flow so you
actually go opposite you start making it
wider and once it's already at
supersonic speeds if you expand it and
make it wider it actually gets faster
and faster so at first you know when
it's subsonic gas you start shrinking
you can strict the flow you know it's
actually speeding up just like you know
a highway if you go from you know any of
these examples like a a water hose you
you know if you pinch it down you want
to flow the same amount of water from
point A to point B through a smaller
pipe you can you can flow more water or
the same amount of water from point A to
point B with a smaller pipe it just has
to go faster mhm so obviously you can
constrict it but at some point you
actually get to a physical limitation
and that happens to be the speed of
sound once it gets to the local speed of
sound um you can then actually do the
opposite you actually expand it back out
and you're continuing to convert um the
the pressure into velocity at that point
but it's now Supersonic and what's
interesting is while you're doing that
you're actually cooling it down too each
each bit of that pipe that you're making
wider and wider and wider you're cooling
down so the more heat energy you have to
work with the more work you can actually
do so at some point a hot High Press
rocket engine is the best source of like
that's the ultimate amount of work you
can do and the nozzle so as you're
saying there's a bunch of different
design options but it's a critical part
of this yeah how you do that conversion
which basically like how much can you
convert is really like the ultimate game
how much pressure and heat can we
convert into thrust like that's really
at the end of the day that's what a
rocket engine is so you have have a
powerful enough rocket engine to
actually lift the rocket and well a
rocket is mostly just fuel it's like 90
90 plus% just the weight of fuel so you
just have to lift the fuel that's going
to take it uh you know into orbit and
that's the thing specifically for
Rockets you're just saying generally
rocket engines but for the task of going
to orbit you're Fighting Gravity Earth
gravity which is fundamentally different
than moon gravity or Mars gravity yeah
uh or like you said traveling out into
space Earth has a pretty intense gravity
it's to overcome we're lucky cuz if I I
think if it was 10% either way like 10%
harder it'd be like oh we could still do
it you know we'd still be with our
current technology would still be able
to get stuff into orb but man things
like your reusability and this you know
commercialization the success that we've
seen in the last 10 years we' just be on
two Thin margins I think 10% easier and
we would have been like I mean it's just
like totally different it's so much so
much easier it's like this big you know
sliding scale and 10% in either
direction we'd be either screwed or
really happy you know um as far as
getting into space so it's just hard
enough that it things like fully
reusable becomes very very very
difficult I think it's completely
achievable um we have all the pieces to
make it achievable it does not disobey
any laws of physics it does not disobey
any there's no like hard stops to it is
just very very very hard and so
ultimately yeah like on Earth for the
first bit of of launch again when when
the Rocket's pointing straight up and it
and the engines are pointing straight
down pointing end up flaming and down
you're Fighting Gravity and so that's
kind of your biggest enemy um outside of
the Earth's atmosphere too so what kind
of uh sources of fuel is there so this
chemical Rockets liquid solid gas hybrid
uh there's electric so what what are the
kinds of fuels we're talking about what
are oxidized what what what can you just
explain your shirt I
guess yeah the components of the shirt
so uh so really I mean fuels it's
there's kind of two terms well you'll
generally hear the word propellant being
used it's anything that is used to
propel a spacecraft or used in a rocket
engine so um you have to have you know
you can have a fuel you have to have a
fuel you have to have an oxidizer and
you have to have a spark to actually get
those things burning and that's just a
general law of like the universe you
have to have fuel and oxidizer and a
spark um now some fuels will by
themselves spark like hyper golf fuels
But ultimately you're you're always left
with some kind of fuel oxidizer in a
spark so um the the general ones used
most often in Rockets liquid oxygen is
kind of the king of well there's better
oxidizers but they're extremely
extremely hard to work with like Florine
um but the generally liquid oxygen so
you just chill oxygen down to its liquid
state minus 183 degrees C um so it can
be dense enough to store in tanks you
know it's a thousand times more dense
when it's in a liquid than it is as a
gas um rp1 which is basically kerosene
um is a very common fuel another common
fuel nowadays is methane liquid methane
um liquid hydrogen is another it's the
most efficient potential for the most
efficient since it's one of the lightest
molecules so I think uh correct me if
I'm wrong but Falcon 9 uses kerosene and
then uh Starship uses methane methane
yep for fuel and they both use liquid
oxygen for their oxidizer for the
oxidizer okay yep um but then you know
if you get into hypergolic you'll
normally have nitrogen tetroxide um
which is your oxidizer and some form of
hydrogene for your fuel um there's solid
rocket propellants like solid rocket
boosters and those are actually premixed
your oxidizer is inherently like baked
literally like kind of baked into the
sludge of of fuel so like for SpaceX
it's all uh chemical liquid fuels yep
yep so how many solid based uh fuels are
there is are they still being used today
is are most Rockets yeah and the United
States really is the only ones that well
the only ones I guess early on because
it was really just the Soviet Union
versus the United States the United
States started to use solids pretty
early on uh they're simple and easy but
these days like you know you'll still
see them kind of as traditionally like
boosters like they're used to just uh
help get something off the ground or
help give it a little extra boost um so
the space shuttle famously had those two
huge white solid rocket boosters
attached to the orange fuel tank those
are solid rocket propellants um things
like the atlas 5 can have up to five
smaller solid rocket boosters there's
very few rockets that use a Pure uh at
least these days that use a Pure solid
rocket motor for its first stage um
there still are especially in China
there's a lot of startup rocket
companies that kind of use just missile
technology you know they might use like
a there might just be a variant of an
ICBM um that just use solid rocket fuel
because it is very relatively easy to
develop you know model rockets use solid
rocket Motors and stuff like that so
they're they're still around but they're
just not as elegant and not as uh yeah
not as as used these days I'd say so uh
what are rocket engine Cycles getting I
I think getting more to your towards
your shirt question you have a really
good video called that uh I mean a lot
of your videos that are technical are
just exceptionally well done so I just I
think um you deserve all the props you
get I mean thank you for for doing this
work really really really really well
done uh so it's called rocket engine
Cycles how do you power a rocket engine
and you go through all the different
options is there something you could say
about uh open cycle close cycle full
flow um all the different variants that
you can use words to explain yeah
without all the pretty pictures yeah
without the pretty pictures so
ultimately you know like we said we your
your ultimate goal is you want to get
heat and pressure into an engine so
obviously at some point you can either
make really thick tanks of your rocket
you can like get it so thick that you
store the propellants in really really
high pressures but obviously like that
doesn't scale very well at some point
your Rocket's so heavy you can't even
leave the ground or you know it's just
so much of your mass is just literally
the walls of the rocket so at some point
people realize hey we could actually
just pump the fuels and the oxidizer
into the engine at a high pressure and
increase the pressure through a pump now
obviously a pump's going to require
energy you have to get that energy from
somewhere um and again at some point
people were like well Rockets are
there's already rocket fuel here you
know we'll just use some of the energy
from the rocket fuel to spin these pumps
so that that would be considered like
open cycle closed cycle full flow stage
combustion Cycles are are ways to tap
into the propellant actually and then
there's tap off expander CLE I mean all
of them kind of do the same thing but
you end up uh at some point spinning a
turbine uh you know a turbine can take
uh some of the heat energy and the and
the and the pressure uh of an engine and
then they can that can be connected to a
shaft to pumps and those pumps can you
know increase the pressure of the
propellants and force it into the
combustion chamber now the difference
between open cycle closed cycle full
flow all those is what happens after the
gas has flown through the turbine so
after you've used the turbine and spun
up the energ you know spun up the engine
what happens to that gas so in an open
cycle engine you basically have like a
separate small rocket engine in a sense
it's a gas generator they call it and
that will be used to create some of you
know take a little we say 10% of your
the propellant flowing to the engine
instead you reroute it to like a smaller
rocket engine called the gas generator
you point that at your turbine and that
will spin your turbine up to you know
ridiculous speed it's 30,000 plus RPM
and then after it spins it's wasted most
of its its energy you know and it's just
dumped overboard that would be open
cycle you're not worrying about it after
that point but you are left with a lot
of unburnt un you know unused fuel a
good amount of that fuel is just
completely and especially because the
turbine uh you you have to keep it from
melting so you can't run it at like
Optimal ratios um not necessarily
stochiometric in a rocket engine you
actually don't want it to be near
stochiometric where releasing all the
energy you actually want to release um
you actually want to be throwing out the
lighter molecule so it can be shot out
faster generally in the engine so um but
in order to have a turbine survive you
have to actually cool you have to have
the the gas going through it it can't be
stupid stupid hotter else you're just
going to melt your turbine so they
normally um especially in the open cycle
you just run it really fuel Rich so
there's a lot of extra fuel being pumped
into it that will keep the temperatures
at a reasonable uh you know at a
reasonable temperature so you end up
with this like dark Sy smoke pouring out
of that gas generator that's just
unburnt fuel it's just wasted fuel it
never got a chance to be used oh
interesting you know like in the
combustion chamber it's not it's not
being used to propel the rocket you know
it's just being used to cool down the
the propellant that's being used to spin
the turbine that's being used to spin
the pumps to push a lot of propellant
into the engine so you know it doesn't
take too long before you know you're a
greedy rocket scientist being like look
at all this wasted propellant all this
potential energy that's just literally
being spewed out the side of the rocket
so that's where the clo cycle comes in
so now you have to get that propellant
take it from basically what was being
wasted through the turbine and you're
going to try pumping it back into the
engine now you don't literally just pump
that that that gas that's you know that
hot that gas into the engine cuz it's
actually way too low of pressure uh
compared to the main combustion chamber
by that point by the time it's gone
through the turbine it's lost most of
its pressure and heat to the turbine so
if you tried pumping it into the engine
you know just taking that pipe and
sticking it right into the combustion
chamber that the much higher pressure
hotter combustion chamber would just go
backwards and it stall out the engine
and blow up the engine and whatever what
have you so what they actually do is
they normally will send um there might
be some variations of this but the
general concept is you actually flow all
of your fuel or all of your oxidizer
through the turbine mhm so that would be
closed cycle so there's fuel-rich closed
cycle which would be you're flowing all
of the fuel through the turbine or
there's oxidizer Clos cycle which is
where you're flowing all of the oxidizer
that's going into the engine through the
turbine now the trick here is you have
to have that turbine after it's done its
work so after it's taken some of the
potential energy some of the heat energy
from we're now calling it a pre PR
burner by the way instead of it being a
gas generator M you now call that device
that's that's creating pressure to spin
the turbine you're now calling that a
pre-b burner because it's just going
going to pre-burn some of your fuel or
some of your oxidizer the trick is that
has to be by the time it's gone through
the turbine it has to be higher pressure
than the combustion chamber because
otherwise it's going to go backwards
still so you really have to get that
pre- burner up to ridiculously high
pressures like at least 20% higher than
your main combustion chamber and these
combustion Chambers you know we're
talking about engines that are at you
know 200 100 to 200 even in spacex's
Raptor engine up to 300 bar in the main
combustion chamber so that's what is
that 4500 PSI basically insane amounts
of of pressure inside these combustion
Chambers so your turbine has to be even
above that or your your gas generator
your preburner sorry has to be higher
pressure than that even in order to have
the flow going the right direction
through the engine so now you'll you'll
have those closed Cycles you'll have
fuel Rich you have oxidizer Rich um the
tricks now you starting to get it's
crazy there's just so many compromises
every little decision you have of like
oh I did this now I well now crap it's
going to do this for instance fuel Rich
if you ran kerosene fuel Rich you know
how I mentioned Su coming out of the gas
generator well if you run soot um
through your through your engine like
that and and had it go through your
injectors like back into the engine
it'll clog the pores of the injectors
and it'll end up blowing up the engine
the itself is so damaging that you can't
really run a fuel Rich kerosene engine
what exactly is soot so it's like fuel
somehow mixed up with the smoke like
what I wonder what what is it chemically
it's just some some weird it's mostly
just carbon it's mostly just a carbon
solid solid chunks of carbon and it can
cake up and just literally like you know
like it's it's it's like ash almost you
know like at some point you know
especially under those High pressures
and high temperatures
it can physically build up and you know
turn into like stalagmites and stag ties
of of carbon really hard you know for
forged in a rocket engine carbon I
wonder how you figure all that out too
is has to be experimentation some of
that is cheem chemist like theoretical
but like you're going to have to build
the thing at scale and actually test it
trial and trial and error there's many
decades of trial and error and many
pieces of engines that you're trying to
piece back together going like what the
hell happened here yeah what happened
yeah okay so uh so that's closed cycle
so how do we get to full flow so in
either of those situations you're still
actually just having the opposite so if
you're fuel Rich you know all the fuel
is going through the turbine but um only
a tiny bit of oxygen is actually being
put into that pre-b burner to to spin
the pumps and the rest of the the rest
of the oxygen is actually going through
the pump the primary pump and straight
into the combustion chamber now full
flow the idea is you're going to
actually pre-burn both your propellants
both your propellants are going to go
through a pre-b burner and they're both
going to end up spinning one of the
pumps mhm so you'll have a gas a fuel
Rich pre-b burner and you're going to
have an oxygen rich pre-b burner each
one of those is going to get just you
know they're going to heat it up just
enough and get it up to just enough
pressure to spin up that turbine as fast
as they need to do to get the pumps up
to the right pressure and still have
enough pressure through the turbine to
overcome the pressure inside the main
combustion chamber and they're both
going to arrive both your fuel and your
oxidizer are going to arrive in the main
combustion chamber as hot gases already
so what was liquid oxygen is now gaseous
oxygen what was Liquid methane is now
gaseous methane and they're meeting this
combustion chamber at still ridiculously
high pressures again and for spacex's uh
Raptor engine they're meeting at 300 bar
insane amounts of pressure and then they
uh then they combust from there on and
because they're already a gas gas
interaction they're happy to burn
they're ready to they're ready to burn
they're they're ready to mingle as
opposed to having a gas liquid
interaction which is what's a lot more
normal
you know you'll have two different
states of matter and they just might not
they might take a little more Co you
know cooing to what's that word Co yeah
Co coing coing that doesn't sound like a
sound correct right coing Co coaxing
yeah yeah all right I don't know we'll
cut that post no we'll have Morgan
Freeman over du us yeah was co uh the
fascinating thing is they're Coes as
gases in the combus CH word
but yeah they they just take a little
bit more it takes more time in the
combustion chamber to have a liquid and
gas interaction like mixed together and
and unleash as much of their energy as
you can before it exits the system uh
some of the trade-offs here in terms of
efficiency which which which is most
efficient and then also complexity of
the design and the engineering and the
cost of the design and the engineering
like what are the different trade-offs
between open cycle closed cycle in full
flow yeah it's it's a pretty it's kind
of like a uh what's the the Bears uh the
Goldilocks you know like it's like you
kind of generally the easiest is open
cycle because you know you're just
expelling the the exhaust gas um the gas
generator exhaust you're not having to
worry about it you just spin up that
thing as much as you need and deal with
it right no big deal um closed Cycles
offers 10 to 15% greater performance
generally because you know you're not
wasting that propellant and but it's
it's complicated it's a lot more
complicated especially if you're doing
oxygen rich now you're having hot
gaseous oxy
mhm uh in your engine which just
generally wants to react with everything
it's just a recipe like hot oxygen is
just a recipe for things to catch on
fire that shouldn't be on fire so Metals
you know under those conditions lots of
times will just spontaneously start
burning you know you'll actually turn
your metal and it will now become fuel
you'll be engineer before you know it
because your hot oxygen nice is uh is is
eating and using that engine as fuel
basically so um oxygen rich is generally
very hard but that is what the Soviet
Union ended up doing with almost their
entire line of engines was close cycle
oxygen rich but you know so those two
are kind of generally hard but offer
great performance benefits over open
cycle uh but at the end of the day you
know full flow is by far the it's the
ultimate of all of them it's the the
most difficult but it's also has the
most potential to be the most efficient
Starship the Raptor 2 the why is that
engine using full flow because it's the
best I mean it's just physics wise if
you're trying to extract as much energy
out of your propellant there there just
isn't another cycle type that that is uh
better than it but of course it's very
very hard to develop you know so far to
date the Rd 270 in the 60s was built um
there is a powerhead demonstrator built
in the United States in the in the 90s
and early 2000s I think maybe just the
early 2000s um that was just the just
the power Just the the pumps and the
turbines and the pre-burners no chamber
no nothing that was a big deal only the
United States took you know millions of
dollars to just develop that and then
there spacex's Raptor engine so you
talked about uh the combustion chamber
and how damn hot things get mhm uh high
pressure a lot of heat uh how do you
keep the thing cool you have a great
video on this too how do you get it from
uh from what do you call it me metal
Rich engine Rich engine Rich from like
the the metal from melting well one of
the ways is to let it be engine Rich
there's actually you can use a blade of
cooling you can literally let um make
the walls thicker than you normally make
it make it out of a material that will a
blade away that will kind of chip away
and take some of the heat away with it
it's very again primitive and it's
actually what SpaceX first used on their
first Merlin engines they used a blade
of cooling um so it's basically a carbon
nozzle and you just let it get the
carbon the inner layer of the of the
engine was not was carbon and you just
let it get chewed away and eaten away
and that's just something you factor in
uh it's not uh very elegant and it's
definitely not reusable in that sense so
there's probably really good models
about like how it melts away the the
rate at which melts away to know what
thickness yeah but boy this is dangerous
I just seems so silly so obviously you
probably you know it's again it's not
the most elegant and the problem too
your your geometry physically is
changing too because as you're eroding
the walls now things like your expansion
ratio or the ratio between your throat
and the nozzle exit is changing yeah
because the thick like throat's
diameters actually like everything's
changing so it's it's not great um it
might might not be melting away
uniformly there could be some like weird
pockets for aerodynamics Stu just a
bunch of chaos just can which I can't
imagine having to like figure all that
stuff out honestly yeah um so the uh the
more elegant thing to do there's there's
a couple other things you can do but the
kind of the most common one especially
when we're dealing with liquid field
Rockets is something called regenerative
Le Cooling and the the idea is you
basically just flow fuel fuel or
oxidizer through the walls of the of the
nozzle on the chamber um before they go
through like into the injector into the
actual combustion chamber by doing that
you're you're taking heat out of the you
know you're you're taking heat out of
the metal of the walls and you're
putting it into the propellant so you're
typically heating the propellant up
which is remember when I said there's
gas interaction versus a liquid like
liquid gas so lots of times even if you
pump them both at you know as um they
you know both being pumped as liquids by
the time it goes through the walls of
the chamber lots of times one of them is
Phase changed into a gas so now you do
have that gas liquid interaction um
that's because they're using that the
fuel or the oxidizer to to cool the
walls of the of the engine so when you
look at a rocket engine although it
looks like you know a nice beautifully
uniform cylinder you know smooth thing
um there's either there's oft times like
a the channels actually like milled into
the walls that they run fuel through and
even though they're tin you know they
can be like 2 3 mm thick they'll
actually still have a channel that goes
down and u-turns and comes around and
comes back wow all the way down to the
tip of the nozzle and everything so it's
it's just insane that you know that
wasn't that's predesigned and that
that's that's like uh so they design
those channels yeah there's probably
some optimization there like how the
flow happens well especially because you
you're thinking about a conical thing or
like a semic conical thing where the the
area is getting smaller and smaller and
smaller you're flowing the same amount
of propellant through it as you are down
the you know what I mean like the the
propellant has to so they have all these
unique things like you know sometimes uh
different manifolds where they'll inject
more less fuel in certain areas and
there must be like propellent simulation
software they can't surely can't like
test this on actual physical well back
in the day they had to just build it
well you mean back in back in the day
walked up uphill in both ways was like I
mean like any anything back in the day
before
computers where you like had
like you just had to do it and like your
simulation or modeling was like a sheet
of paper where you're like calculating
stuff but you can heat flux you know
like you can literally see how much
energy and how much heat is inside the
combustion chamber how much you know and
that is a measurable thing even without
a computer now I'm not near smart enough
to do any of this like I've never tried
measuring the heat flux of anything I
barely even know what that means I'm
just smart enough toate my friend you
haven't
lived but that something that they
people would calculate and they find out
okay copper you know does a better job
of transferring the heat between the
walls of it into the propellant blah
blah blah blah compared to
XYZ um so you know materials people I
like I've met just in all walks of life
especially just through MIT through
everywhere where there's some people are
just like
100x smarter than anyone you've ever met
at a particular thing like you mentioned
copper they'll know the heat dissipation
through different materials they'll
understand that like more than it's like
holy shit it's possible for human being
to deeply understand a thing dude
Aerospace is full of that you'll have
people that are so niche in some thing
that no like the average person has
never even remotely thought of yet this
person has done it 40,000 different ways
in a you know in a an environment being
like well we found out that if we turn
it four degrees that way and add four %
niobium you know like just things you're
like what is your life and how do you
know this you know and the funny thing
about them they usually don't think it's
a big deal yeah they're usually like
they're they're so nachal on about it
that if you don't actually you have to
know enough you actually have to know
quite a lot to
appreciate how much more they know yeah
cuz otherwise you won't even notice it
because our popular culture doesn't
celebrate the intricacies of uh
scientific or engineering Mastery which
is interesting there's all these people
that lurk in the shadows they're just
Geniuses like you see you'll have like
the LeBron's who like good at basketball
so we understand that they're good at
basketball they they do this thing with
the ball and the hoop and they do like
it really well better than a lot of
other people under pressure well like we
celebrate them big public spectacle look
at how great they are yeah but like the
people like yeah as at these aerospace
companies in NASA
SpaceX the kind of stuff they're doing
just the I mean there's Geniuses there
it's actually really inspiring I mean
I've um I've interacted with a lot of
brilliant people in the software world
and maybe because I don't deeply
understand a lot of Hardware stuff
materials engineering mechanical
engineering those people seem like so
much smarter I mean it's always like the
grass is green or whatever the
expression is but there's a depth of
understanding that Engineers have that
do like mechanical engineering that's
just all inspiring uh to me well not to
get too like uh ex what I don't know
what the word would be introvertive or
something or whatever but that's
actually kind of the whole point of
everyday astronaut like that's almost
the whole point of what I do each year
from the beginning I I did a thing
called the Astro Awards trying to be
like an award show hoping to you know
lift up and celebrate and and shine a
spotlight on the people that are
actually doing the hard work and and try
to treat them like the the rock stars
that they are that we don't know about I
think that's one of the things that for
sure I think you know I think Elon
definitely helped make space fight cool
helped make that like a celebration
thing where people are physically out
cheering for rockets and Science and
space exploration um but I think that's
just the beginning you know I think like
this should be a thing where the general
public uh looks to these people as as
the coolest ones as the the coolest
places to work as the most important
things you know sports are great and
everything I'm a big Formula 1 fan and
things like that but you know at the
same time like we should be celebrating
the people doing this crazy work you
know clocking in countless hours just
trying to figure out this one little
thing that's going to help us further
our understanding I mean what's cooler
than a giant thing with a really hot
fire that that goes boom and goes up
into the air I mean like there's no it's
it's like to me like bridges are
inspiring it's like incredible
architecture design and like the humans
are able to uh uh work against nature
build these gigantic metal things but
like rockets yeah yeah with a like a
tiny little humans on top of them flying
out into space it's like it's the
coolest possible thing everything comes
together all the different disciplines
come together for the high stakes drama
of you know riding that super powerful
thing up away from the thing we call
home Earth it's like it's so amazing
exactly so freaking amazing well I think
that's kind of part of my like story arc
CU I I just used to be a huge car and
motorcycle guy like I just loved you
know things that go fast and you know
are loud and go fast and make lots of
power and at the end of the day like at
some point you realize nothing goes
faster and it's louder and makes more
power than rocket you know and I think
that's I think that's kind of where
where I eventually just ended up you
know wound up there just because there
is nothing cooler than that yeah that's
the ultimate level of reach as a car guy
is you become a rocket guy yeah 100% And
at some point some Car Guys literally
become rocket guys and strap Rockets to
cars and try and break land speed
records you know like it's it's it's the
same universe here and yeah uh so Elon
with your conversation with him on on
the Raptor 2 was talking about or you
were talking about like there's an
excessive amount of cooling to be on the
safe side as you're developing the
engine uh what kind of cooling was that
so that would be film cooling so
remember how well a little bit ago we
were talking about like keeping the
turbine from melting you can just run it
off of like off nominal basically off
you know typically fuel rich just run
more fuel through that so it's cool
enough you can actually do that uh
locally kind of in your engine so you
can keep it so you know imagine a
combustion chamber and the top of it
just a flat like imagine a shower head
and then you have like you know the
combustion chamber attached to it the
Outer Perimeter there the the part where
the flame front would be touching the
walls you can actually have just more
fuel injectors so you're injecting
locally a more fuel Rich Zone along the
entire nozzle and that would be called
film cooling so uh it's it's less
efficient though again you're kind of
wasting fuel there's fuel that's running
you know and your your mixture ratio is
off but only for a little portion of
your the big picture you know so that's
one of those compromises like you can do
additional film cooling to make sure
you're not melting your engine uh you
know but at the cost of performance
usually um but you can also be smart and
use film cooling you know there's fun
little clever tricks um for instance
you'll notice on the F1 engine that was
on the Saturn 5 you know the biggest uh
rocket that had been built to date prior
now to Starship um the F1 has this huge
huge huge engines there's five of them
on the Saturn 5 and you'll notice that
like the the gas generator has a pipe
that comes down and then it actually
splits off in a manifold and wraps
around part of the nozzle and that
manifold takes the hot gas uh from the
turbine which which is actually I mean
it's not hot it's actually cold gas
compared to the combustion chamber but
it's you know in human terms it' still
you wouldn't want to put your hand in it
you not live um
and it actually pipes that gas into the
nozzle so that it creates a film cooling
an actual boundary layer of cooler gas
against the hotter combustion chamber
gas so basically repurposing that gas
that was normally wasted and they pump
it back into the engine and then into
the nozzle like kind of further down so
the trick there is it has to be far
enough down that the pressure at the in
the nozzle because remember as the
nozzle gets bigger and bigger and bigger
the pressure is getting lower and lower
and the temperature is getting lower and
lower so you have to find this trade-off
point where the pressure is is lower
than that gas from the turbine and then
you pump it in and it's cooler than the
than the gas still is in the nozzle and
it can help not melt your nozzle so
you'll notice that the F1 is actually a
good example of regen cooling so the
chamber walls you can physically see the
pipes actually um on the F1 because it's
so big and they just literally use pipes
and bent them and you can see the the
the coolant channels all the way up and
down the the engine until you get to
that manifold then from there on it just
has what's called a nozzle extension and
it keeps going and going and going and
that section of nozzle is cooled by the
film cooling of the gas generator I mean
the aerodynamics of cooler gas and the
hot
gas uh cuz you have to have this kind of
layer right to protective layer of cool
g like understanding that obviously
probably has to do in modern times
there's probably really good simulation
of aerodynamics but and to do that in
terms of pressure PR too like um to make
sure it's in the right place yeah that
it doesn't like go back up go backwards
exactly if they have that manifold even
six inches too high on that nozzle yeah
that it's just going to go upwards you
know pressure always wants to flow from
high to low the number of options you
have here that result in it going boom
is very large near Infinity yeah
especially cuz I mean you can't do like
a a small model of it maybe you can no
you can't doesn't really scale very well
no you have you have to do the full
testing and that's why you have all the
kind of
that's that's why you have with Starship
all the tests that you know you think
why would you need to do so many static
fires and so many tests and why is it
failing so many times can't you get it
right but like it's very tough to get it
right well and when you're pushing the
boundaries you want to know where and
how it's going to fail that's right so
you can engineer around them so that's
that's a luxury that SpaceX does have
with the scale of raptor you know
they're building Raptor cheaper than
probably almost any other engine you
know maybe besides some of their own at
least at that scale um then before
they're testing you know I think since
last March or last April they've tested
a thousand Raptor you know rap a
thousand engine fires I guess not just
Raptors but um you know that's just an
insane amount of data and an insane
amount of edge cases to learn oh my God
we found out that we're actually
slightly over spinning our turbine to
this degree and this frequency uh is
harmonic at this blah blah blah and all
of a sudden realize it's rattling and
you know it did this and then you can
engineer around that you know it's like
It
ultimately you know I think Elon said
something like high production rate uh
solves many ills or something along
those lines and it's just true if you
have an insane amount of engines and an
insane amount of data and insane amount
of failures to learn from you just know
your system inside and out you know
those margins you know where the failure
points are you know how to engineer
around them and that's how I approach
dating no I'm just kidding uh cuz we're
talking about engines
uh so most Rockets I think all Rockets
have multiple stages uh today uh maybe
they'll take us in discussion of what
ideas that could be for single stage uh
to orbit Rockets but can you describe
this whole thing that you've been
mentioning here and there of multiple
stages of a rocket yeah no that's a good
question so ultimately you know like I
said we're you're kind of pushing about
90% the Rockets like basically just fuel
with some skin on it you know what I
mean um and so uh that skin weighs a lot
of you know skin and engines do weigh a
lot you know like I said the the Falcon
9 on sonone is about 20 tons just the
booster is about 20 metric tons um so
it's not an insignificant amount of
weight so the idea is with staging is
you ditch anything you don't need more
or less so um in the you know Falcon 9
is a perfect rocket to think about this
because you have a an upper stage and
you have a booster you know or first
stage and the first stage Burns through
all its fuel once it's out of fuel you
let go of the second stage and Tada you
actually just basically basically
started and lit a brand new fresh rocket
you know this brand new fresh rocket now
doesn't have all that that 20 tons
attached to it so it's a lot lighter it
doesn't need you know nearly as many
engines to push it around it needs just
one instead of nine um this engine can
be optimized for the vacuum of space as
opposed to having to operate at sea
level with all of our Rel actually
pretty thick atmosphere you know
relatively so there's so staging is
basically the idea that you get rid of
things you don't need um Earth again
kind of that whole like 10% harder 10%
easier if it was 10% easier single
staged orbit would be no big deal and it
it probably would have been like the the
the way to get to orbit by choice just
because like it's not that hard but with
our Earth as it is uh with physics as it
is it's just it's doable and we've had
and you know we almost kind of actually
the first orbit to take humans or the
first rocket to take humans into orbit
uh for from the United States um which
was
the atlas rocket um was kind of a stage
and a half it actually only had like one
big fuel tank and what they did is they
actually dropped off two of its three
engines so it just ditched some of the
engines but if it hadn't done that you
know so kind of people were like well
that was single stage it's like it's
still had a staging event still had a
ditch mass in order to even make it into
orbit had it not done that it would have
not been able to get into orbit so you
pretty quickly look at your trade and
say okay well if I want to stick to
single stage to orbit my payload Mass
becomes
tiny you know like you you might be able
to put like you know a falcon9 booster
on its own like if you just flew one of
the side core boosters of a falcon heavy
with the nose cone on and everything
just said I'm just going to fly this on
its own you might be able to put like a
you know 10 kilograms into space or
something you know a very small amount
well throw a second stage on that thing
and now you can put uh you know 177,000
kilograms into space so it's just an
order you know orders of magnitude more
payload Capac capacity because you did
staging because you ditched the residual
weight so um the other thing that's uh
hard about that too uh is that the
engines again that that operate at sea
level uh are often not great in in space
and vice versa like you physically can't
most optimized for space engines you
can't even operate at sea level they'll
they'll destroy themselves due to
something called flow separation MH so
um not only are you getting the benefit
of ditching all the weight but you're
also able to use a much more efficient
and less typically you know much less
powerful engine in space so you
mentioned on uh the multi-stage
Rockets uh that maybe the dream would be
uh if we weren't living on Earth but
maybe we can on Earth uh to have a
single stage uh to orbit rocket where
it's all one package reusable mhm
reusable gets even harder it gets even
harder so first of all what is uh just
to linger on it what is the single stage
to orbit rocket
why is it so hard to achieve on Earth
you already kind of explained it a
little bit but just if we were to say
like that's your assignment Yeah Tim
you're supposed to get together with
Elon and other brilliant people and like
you have to do this yeah why is it so
hard why is it so hard um it your the
the the payload fraction of a rocket is
like 3 to five or six or 7% would be
like re you know that's the amount of P
compared to the total mass of the rocket
like you're lucky to get into Beyond 5%
so if you're now having to deal with the
weight of the rocket by the time you're
in orbit like your your payload fraction
just you're you're talking about like
margins it's such it's so small amount
of leftover if you have to take all of
it with you so the sooner you can ditch
weight the better the sooner you can
ditch weight the better the sooner you
can you know and that's what you're
doing a rocket the whole time is
actually ditching weight all of that
fuel all that big giant flame you see is
literally Mass being thrown out the back
of the rocket but what typically isn't
expended you know at least during
nominal operations you're not seeing the
engines being you know expelled out the
thing until you get to staging of course
and that's where you know you're
ditching all that dead weight so single
stage orbit your margins just become so
small that it it's border it's not
impossible but it's just at the end of
the day like almost no matter who you
are you end up saying it's just simply
not worth it like it'd be if you have
two rockets that are using the same same
amount of propellant you know they're
the same physical sizes and one of them
is cut in you know in a third and has
another little engine it'll have a 100
or a thousand times more payload
capacity than the one sitting right next
to it and now so there's tricks you can
do to like try to offset that things
like Aeros Spike engines which operate
at uh as efficiently at C Level at you
kind of optimized efficiency at C- level
and just by their uh by the way their
design the physics of them they're also
efficient in a vacuum too um you can do
things like that and at the end of the
day though you just end up with a worse
rocket than if you had just done stage
like no matter what and and people say
like well what if you developed the new
technology it's like okay apply that
technology to a multi-stage rocket and
it's going to do better you know like no
matter where you end up it's just always
better to ditch that weight you know is
there a cost to having multi-stage
because you can still reuse the
different stages that's the the dream is
you know becomes easier to reuse
multiple stages because now you know
like the booster doesn't have to survive
orbital re-entry temperatures and and
extreme environments and you only have
to you know make survivable the upper
stage you only have to put a big heat
shield I mean starship's the perfect
perfect thing of this the the upper
stage has a big giant heat shield the
booster doesn't need it because it's not
going the booster is not going to orbit
it's only going A fifth or a quarter of
orbital velocity so it's heat that it
experiences is survivable just by the
stainless steel you don't need an
additional heat shield um so all of a
sudden if you're trying to reuse pretend
that you just welded the two stages of
Starship together remove those engines
on Starship that whole vehicle if you're
trying to reuse it the whole vehicle now
has to have a heat shield on one side of
it yeah the whole thing has to have
these big heavy Wings by the time you
come down to it there's probably just
zero payload capacity you basically put
your fuel tank in space you know good
job so the the dream of a single state
to orbit rocket is is that just even the
wrong dream on Earth that's what most
convention tells you you know by the
time if if you're your if your goal is
cheap then you're going to spend you're
going to have a physically larger rocket
that has more engines that has more
propellant blah blah blah to put the
same amount of thing same amount of mass
into orbit compared to something else
you know we're talking like rocket Labs
electron a really small rocket it's like
I think 1.3 M wide and something like
you know 18 meters tall or something
it's it's it's a small rocket if you
were to you know the and it can put
something like 300 or so kilograms into
orbit you could either launch something
that size or again like a full like big
old Falcon 9 booster the huge huge thing
and that would be lucky to put 300
kilograms into orbit you know so it's
like which one's going to be cheaper to
build you know chip around all the stuff
and then you also look at you have fixed
costs like the idea of flying a but this
is this again everything in rocket
science is a compromise because now you
have things like um people on Console
time all the people that are you know on
comms and working on the rocket going
down to the pad you know filing
paperwork doing range control making
sure there's not planes and boats in the
way uh flight termination people you
have all these fixed costs for any
launch I don't care how big the rocket
is there's a relatively fixed cost so
now you say like okay I'm going to be
paying let's just make them number I'm
going to pay $5 million to fly a rocket
between all the people going on site all
the propellant all the licenses blah
blah blah if your fixed cost is $5
million you can put 300 kilograms in
Space versus have a $5 million cost of
operation and he can put 5,000 kilg into
space like it it's it's the business
case is going to send you in One
Direction pretty quickly so you
mentioned aerospike engines I think uh
the internet uh inform me of your love
affair with aerospike engine find
somebody that looks at you the way Tim n
looks at aerospike
engine uh can you can you explain uh
what the these are how do they work um
what's beautiful to them what how
practical are they why don't we use them
oh my God uh does it just boil down to
the design of the nozzle uh so maybe can
you explain how is it possible to
achieve this thing for an engine to be
as efficient at uh in a vacuum and sea
level and in all different conditions
you know what I love about this is like
every question you've asked me is like a
1 hour video on my YouTube channel like
now boil it down to 45
seconds um so the Aeros Spike engine
basically um is an inside out engine
more or less so with a traditional
engine you know we've talked about the
combustion chamber and the throat and
then it expands out into the nozzle
those walls are containing the pressure
right and air spike is the opposite it's
basically the pressure of the engine is
on the outside of it and it's pushing
inward against a spike so it's it's
almost like it's like like the
difference of if you were let me think
about this if you were standing in like
a a tent or a tee right and you put your
arms at the top and you pushed your arms
out like into an iron cross or something
you know you can physically lift the
tent just by pushing outwards on the
tent walls right well that would be like
a traditional nozzle now Aeros Spike
would be almost like squeezing an ice
cube you know if you squeeze an ice cube
you can push in on it and kind of that
wedge force will shoot that ice cube so
that's kind of what has happening we
have the high press gases on the outside
of the spike squeezing in on that Spike
and that's and then it's pushing up
against the you know because it's equal
on both sides against the kind of the
ramp is pushing up against the rocket so
that's where that Force comes in is
against the nozle against the chambers
the hard part with an Aeros Spike so the
cool okay I guess I guess the cool thing
about an Aeros spike is that it can
operate um in space you can have what's
known as a really big expansion ratio so
that's your ratio between the throat the
area of the throat versus the area of
the nozzle exit mhm and remember how the
bigger the nozzle is the it's con
continually just converting more and
more it's converting that that high
energy Hot High Press gas into cooler
and cooler lower pressure and faster gas
so each little millimeter along that
nozzle is just getting it lower pressure
and cooler but faster now if you take a
big nozzle on Earth and you at sea level
and you fire it you can actually get
even though we're going from say 300 bar
the Raptor engine um you know our
atmosphere at sea level is about one bar
it's pretty much exactly one bar um
depending on conditions but you can
actually get a Noz to get way below one
bar of pressure so every little you know
you can go from 300 bar in Just 2 m down
to one bar or below one bar W there's
actually a limit you can actually only
expand it below you know we'll say
something like 70% so you can get down
to like7 bar at nozzle exit before the
pressure of the atmosphere is actually
squeezing in on that exhaust and tearing
it away from the walls of the engine the
walls of the nozzle exit and what
happens is it's it's kind of
unpredictable you get these Pockets
these oscillations and they'll be so
extreme that they'll end up just
destroying the nozzle so you can't lower
you can't have a bigger expansion ratio
than again relatively speaking something
like s like you can't go below you can't
get that pressure exit too much below
ambient air pressure before flow
separation can destroy the engine so how
come this engine can do so well in in
different pressure conditions so because
it's inside out
the ambient pressure is pushing the
exhaust gas into the wall M as opposed
to a conventional engine that exhaust
gas or the ambient air is actually
squeezing the exhaust gas away from the
walls of the engine and that squeezing
away from is what can be destructive so
that since the in since it's kind of
inside out the ambient air is pushing
the exhaust gas into the engine walls so
you can't have flow separation you won't
have flow separation now what happens is
so you can have this huge amazingly like
efficient vacuum engine that's that's
has a we'll say a 200 to1 expansion
ratio which is really big like a lot of
sea level engines are like 35 40 50 to1
expansion ratios and then in space you
know it's common to use like 150 180 200
to one expansion ratios so in Aeros
spite can have something like 200 to one
it's just that the at sea level it's
kind of just getting pushed and it's
kind of getting cut off early almost but
it doesn't matter it's not like
destructive it's just not running at its
maximum efficiency as it climbs in
altitude as the ambient air gets thinner
and thinner and thin
it just inherently is pushing less and
less and less against the walls of that
Aeros Spike engine so it actually
continually gets more efficient at you
know as it climbs an altitude as as does
the normal engine but the difference is
that you can use that huge expansion
ratio at sea level and you can't use a
huge expansion ratio at sea level with a
tradition traditional nozzle has that
anyone actually flown on an Aeros Spike
engine no aerospike engine to date has
ever been flown on an orbital rocket why
not not and would you like to see a
future where they're used purely purely
because I think they're cool you know in
the same way that's that's the core of
your love affair with AOS Spike engines
is the just and I said this in my video
actually there outside before I came in
here I saw an RX7 on in the streets that
I just love and that uses a rotary
engine on paper the rotary engine is
like more efficient does all you know
smaller more efficient all these things
but in practice it's like the thing is
actually just like unreliable hot and it
you know it blah blah blah blah blah
Burns oil it's kind of the same thing
with the airos spike engine like yes on
paper it's more efficient but now you
have a lot more surface area of your
your your your throat area no matter
what is going to have uh the throat of
the the rocket engine is always where
it's the hottest you know it's the
hardest thing to cool and with a narrow
Spike if you know if it's inside out now
your throat is no matter what like way
bigger you know it's almost like the
size of the nozzle exit normally but now
it's your hardest thing to cool and you
have a ton of it and you also have two
edges of it no matter what so even if
you have like a you know a circle inside
a circle you have like a just insane
amount
more surface area to cool with a limited
amount of fuel don't foret you're using
your fuel as your as your coolant so if
you all sudden now take your throat area
and you have um x amount of space that
you need to cool you only have you have
a limited Supply it's it's like H it's
sorry this is stuff that just are are
there ideas of for cooling
um for cooling airos Spike engines it's
the same physics apply for an Aeros
Spike as they would so you just run into
you just run into a limitation like at
some point I'm not flowing enough
propellant my it scales it SC scales
kind of poorly you know what I mean like
you can increase the thrust of an
aerospike by making it bigger and
increase the mass flow and the fuel
going through the throats um or the
throat but at the same time like it just
it's at the end of the day it's
physically possible it's a lot more
complex you have aot lot of issues with
Cooling and it just you end up kind of
right back where you started so it's
like is it worth it to just keep going
down this Rabbit Hole you're trying to
engineer this thing to work when like
you could have probably spent a tenth
the amount of time just slightly
increasing the performance of your
normal engine in the first place you
know again I'm going to
anthropomorphize uh that that lesson and
apply it to my dating life once again
just kidding okay um actually just on a
small tangent since you are also a Car
Guy uh what's the greatest uh combustion
engine car ever made to you if you had
to pick something what's the like the
coolest the sexiest the most powerful
the classiest the most elegant welld
designed I don't know what things are
are different for me but I'd say I still
it's funny because now maybe it's just
because it's fresh on mind but I love
that mid90s RX7 which you know
especially in in Japan they had the the
20b a TR rotor that is like the coolest
engine ever to
me the FD
RX7 it's just too darn cool
honestly it' be uh there you go what
about the mid 90s that makes it special
just that's the only time it's it's more
that I love the engine and I and I like
the car it's attached to I'm not
actually a big fan of like 90s styling
you know personally but just that the
20b is just such a cool cool engine and
it's twin turbo sequential turbos they
used um they a bigger turbo takes longer
to spool up you know it takes more it's
using that same like a turbine and a
compressor and it just if it's a large
turbine it takes more exhaust gas to get
it spooled up so if you have an engine
that revs to 9,000 RPM and you want to
get a lot of pressure out of that turbo
you have a big turbo it's going to take
forever like you're going to have you
know your floor it and then like it's
going to take a long time for that turbo
to get spooled up so they actually did a
small turbo on it and a big turbo so
small turbo would spool up first get
some boost going through the engine get
that engine operating get it up to speed
get it you know get some power to the
wheels and then once that kind of
reaches its limit you'd flow it into the
divert the exhaust gas into the bigger
turbo it's this sequential turbo and
then that now can supplement and
actually increase the you know overall
performance of the of the vehicle by a
lot and I just I think that's just so
cool it's it's just like the ultimate
like Brute Force out of the box thinking
and it actually made it into production
you know what I mean can you uh what
What's the sound like can you tell an
engine by it sound it sounds like a a
really really really angry
lawnmower it sounds horrible it's
actually a terrible sounding car in my
opinion like it sounds just raspy and
like the opposite of like a big muscle
car you know like a big muscle car is
this deep gut roll like deep oh it just
it hits you this is like it's just going
to annoy the hell out of you in all your
neighbors like it's but you love the
engineering I love the engineering of it
so to you the car is the engine it's not
all the surface stuff all the design
stuff uh all the you know yeah the the
the Elegance the curves Whatever It Is
Well those come and go you know to me
Styles change forever yeah the I'm going
to apply that to my uh dating life once
again the metaphors just keep on coming
well if you think about it like my taste
has changed throughout the years when I
first saw uh a model 3 Tesla I thought
it was the most hideous car I've ever
without without the gorilla I like this
is so stupid
it took me all but two months to think
that it was one of the coolest looking
cars same with cybertruck I mourned
cybertruck when I first saw that thing I
was at that that thing with and I went
with we used to do a podcast called our
our ludicrous future so we talked a lot
about like you know cars and EVs and
stuff we went to that unveiling and
literally like we had like almost a a
non-alcohol induced hangover the next
morning of like mourning the hideousness
of
cybertruck come six months later a year
later and I'm like damn it that thing's
kind of cool yeah that also teaches you
something about again it's it's the
thing you said uh earlier sort of
uh going
against the the current of the experts
of the beliefs or whatever is is and and
making a decision from first principles
some of that also applies to design and
styling and fashion and culture and all
that big uh some of that you know so
fashion especially it's so interesting
so subjective being
rebellious against the current the the
the current fads actually is the way to
pave the new fads well it didn't take
long for others to follow you look at
like currently like what Hyundai is
doing with their I forget which one like
the ionic or something like that it's
it's Square it's like it's boxy you know
it's it's a throwback it's 80s it's got
these beautiful retro tail lights it's
got these Square headlights it's it's
it's very inspired by cyber truck in my
opinion Ian it might not be it might be
coincidental that we're all kind of
getting this
F Vibe but uh I personally like the boxy
so I never I still haven't understood uh
Porsches Porsches I still can't quite
understand the small size the eleg the
curves I don't quite I don't quite get
it see like I said I don't love the look
of the RX7 I don't love it but I love it
because of the engineering I guess that
it represents you know what I mean yeah
it's it's uh it's not the surface stuff
it's the deep down
stuff it's that 50/50 weight
distribution that matters all right
let's uh let's talk about Starship a
little bit we've been sneaking up uh to
it from a bunch of different directions
can you just
say
um what is Starship and what is the most
impressive thing uh to you about it I
you've talked about the S of the engines
involved maybe you haven't really kind
of like dancing around it but because
this is such a crucial thing
in terms of uh the next few years in
terms of your own life personally and
also just human civilization reaching
out to the Stars seems like Starship is
a really important vehicle to making
that happen so what is this thing that
we're talking about yeah so Starship is
uh currently uh in development the
world's largest most powerful rocket
ever built fully reusable rocket a
two-stage rocket so the booster is
landed and you know all this is
currently aspirational until it's
working uh so I'll I'll I'll say it's
I'll say what it's aspirationally going
to be and obviously I have faith that
that will happen but just factually so
the the booster will be reused landed
and refueled and reused the upper stage
will be landed refueled and reused and
ideally rapidly in the in the sense not
talking about months or weeks of
refurbishment but literally talking
about like mild inspections and ideally
like under 24-hour reuse you know where
you literally land it and fly it like an
airplane um so it utilizes liquid
methane and liquid oxygen um as its as
its propellants it utilizes uh the
current iterations of it are 33 Raptor
engines on the booster engine on the
booster and six uh Raptors on the second
stage so they'll be three that are
vacuum optimized and three that are sea
level optimized on the upper stage that
are primarily they'll be used I think at
stage separation anyway um in space but
um they'll their main reason that they
use them is is they can use them for
landing too the the three sea level
engines uh to be able to propulsively
land the upper stage as well so the
three Raptor engines are the ones that
generate the thrust that makes it the
most powerful rocket ever built by a
almost double compared to the Saturn 5
really the N1 had 45 Mega Newtons of
thrust the Saturn 5 had I think 35 or 40
Mega Newtons of thrust and this has 75
Mega newon so we're talking almost
double
it's a it's a lot of
power um that could be the sexiest thing
I've ever heard okay the so uh so what
are the different testings that's
happening so like uh uh what's a static
fire with some of these raptors look
like and where do we stand you were you
were just talking about offline like the
thing that happened uh yesterday that
was impressive you know everything in
this is kind of iterations and so um you
know the the Milestones that we're
seeing we actually have on on everyday
astronaut. comom we have a milestone
checklist of like all the things we're
hoping to see that we kind of need to
see before the first orbital flight of
this rocket so um a big milestone that
got checked off yesterday was uh wet
dress rehearsal so it's literally like
fueling the rocket up getting ready to
do everything but lighting the engines
basically so we're talking about loading
it with propellant all the way uh this
is the first time yep right there
where's the Milestones right there at
the top click that big picture yep just
anywhere that big picture yep so the
there's the wood dress rehearsal so what
what's the wood dress rehearsal yep so
that's where they uh for the first time
they filled it completely to the brim
with both liquid oxygen and liquid
methane now they had done component
level testing where they fill it with
liquid nitrogen which is you know it's
an inert gas so it's not like say it
leaks out it's not going to explode uh
you could just have a big giant pool of
liquid nitrogen like flooding the area
but it's not going to be an explosion so
they've done that for cryo testing to
make sure all the components and stuff
can handle you know being at Crow genc
temperatures um it's kind of a good
analog before you start putting your
your fuel and your oxidizer in there but
now yet as of uh yesterday they fully
fueled the rocket with uh propellant
both stages the first stage and the
second stage wall fully stacked on the
on the pad like basically I mean there's
the first sense we really got of like
this is what it's going to look like
right before it takes off you know kind
of breathing coming to life for the
first time what is the pad look like so
there's a few interesting aspects of
this what's up with the Chopsticks and
the uh all of that yeah yeah so the the
Launchpad is is is unique I've never
seen anything like it um in the prior
history of of space flight but it's a
really simple launch stand they
basically have like this almost looks
like a a stool like a you know like a
milking a cow stool thing with a a whole
a big giant now I know you're from Iowa
but
yeah yes we all know what that stool
looks like yeah we all we all been
sitting on that stool milk and cat yeah
uh
with with a giant hole in the middle and
that hole in middle of that stool is
where the rocket sits and it sits on
these you know launch clamps um and then
next to it is the so that's the orbital
launch Mount and then next to it or the
olm some people will say next to it is
the orbital launch Tower the Olt and
that is not only um integral to fueling
up the upper stage you know the upper
stage has to have propellant lines run
to it so that they can fill it with
propellant and you know all that but it
also uh they ended up making it so
instead of having a big crane on site to
stack the two on top of each other they
literally just use that Tower as a crane
so the crane has these giant arms
lovingly called the Chopsticks or the
whole system can be called mechazilla
and that will grab onto first it'll grab
onto the booster pick it up off of its
off of its transporter that transports
it from the production site uh lifts it
up puts it down onto the launch Mount
and then it will pick up the second
stage or the upper stage Starship and
plop it down on top of the booster and
they did that for the first time last
year actually I think it was like
Valentine's last year was the first time
they used the Chopsticks to stack it and
now they're doing it quite frequently
you know but ultimately those Chopsticks
have to serve a second purpose they're
actually going to utilize if you say
catch it's not so much they're going to
catch the booster with these Chopsticks
it's not like it's you know a dad trying
to catch a falling child you know it's
more that the the booster and the
Starship will someday land on those arms
yeah so um they're more or less
stationary I'm sure there's some bit of
you know adjustment of the arms will do
but more or less the Rocket's going to
propulsively land and get picked up by
like what's essentially like two like
relatively small ball joints that hold
the entire thing and so has to land very
precisely on these these mounts and on
onto the the launch Mount and that's
what's going to just place it back onto
the stand and allow it to be refueled
and fly again what's the idea of using
the arms versus having a Launchpad to
land on what's what's the benefit
you are basically removing the mass of
what would be heavy Landing legs and
you're putting kind of that Landing
infrastructure onto a ground system so
you're not having to carry those Landing
legs into orbit but is it's also
elevated off the ground is there some
aspect to that where you don't have to
balance the thrust and all the you you
you can negate some of those like
there's like plume plume interactions
there's like you know the exhaust
hitting concrete and especially with the
rocket this big it's going to you know
use like three Raptor engines firing if
you know if you have them firing really
close of the ground you're just going to
absolutely destroy and crater the ground
and you're going to have to refurbish
the the ground and the the landing pad
every time and you know or have huge
Landing legs that are super long and and
Tall you know to to make it so it's it's
elevated enough to not do that um so
yeah you're kind of you're avoiding that
whole mess by by catching it high enough
off the ground that you don't have to
factor that in and it's that's how many
engines are involved in the Landing part
is the three Raptor engines well we
haven't actually you know we haven't to
date seen the exact l in sequence so it
might be something like at first they
might light up you know seven or
something or nine or something some
number to to accelerate quickly or
decelerate quickly same thing um and and
then shut it down to three or something
for a little bit more granular control
um because unlike Falcon 9 Starship has
enough engines and variability to
actually if it needed to hover you know
to maybe more precisely align itself
with the pad it would have that
capability um and especially having
multiple engines you know if you only
have a single engine running you can't
really roll you know your roll axis you
can do pitch and yaw because the the
engine is kind of like a a Rudder it it
can move in two axes so you can easily
pitch and yaw the vehicle but to
actually induce Roll Along its its
vertical axis you you would either need
like auxiliary engines to roll it or
you'd need a pair of engines so they can
be opposed and induce roll so by having
two or three running they have all three
axes of control that they would need
kind of like a broomstick you know and
uh balancing a broomstick on your hand
they can just move Mo it over and if
they need to align it to those Landing
Nubs you know on the landing arms and
stuff like that then uh they can do that
uh speaking of pitch and yaw the thing
uh so Starship flips on its belly flops
does a interesting kind of
maneuver uh on the way down to land uh
can you describe that maneuver what's
involved with that yeah so this is
definitely a first I don't think
anything's tried Landing like this
before but the idea is when you're
falling through the at atere the
atmosphere could actually do a lot of
work for you you know you're moving
quickly something is falling from space
there's a lot of energy involved you
have a really good video on this as
well and uh thank you um the uh as it's
falling you know you can let the you
want to let the atmosphere do as much
work as it can and so um if you have a a
unsymmetric you know it's not a ball
that's falling this is some kind of
object with with shape some you know at
at one face of it is going to have more
Sur area than the other face so you know
the in the shape of like a cylinder if
you're falling you know like a a soda
can if you're falling top or bottom
first it's a a certain amount of surface
area if you flip that on its side you
actually have a lot more surface area so
with the same exact vehicle you can
actually have a lot more drag you can
actually slow it down a lot more using
the exact same like same atmosphere same
same vehicle just by turning at 90° you
can slow it down substantially like
three or four times slower so so that's
energy that you don't have to use
anywhere else you know you don't have to
use an engine to slow you down you don't
have to do anything else so SpaceX
realized okay if we flip this thing on
its side and let it fall like a sky
diver almost you know instead of like
pencil diving into the pool you're belly
flopping you're maximizing the amount of
surface area that's in the windream
that's being slowed down but obviously
like in order to land especially if
you're SpaceX and you know elon's
obsessed with like not having different
parts you know he wants the best part is
no part so if you're going to land with
the engines you might as well use
engines that you've already have the the
engines that are you know used for the
other portions of flight so you kick
those on and you use those engines to
actually turn it 90 degrees from belly
flopping to feet first and that way you
can use the same engines to land and you
don't have to have like auxiliary
Landing engines you don't have to have
forces you know even if you were to land
like on its belly with a a separate set
of engines Not only would those engines
weigh a lot you know and be extra
complexity etc etc but you also don't
have to make the ship be able to handle
Landing you know like on its belly as
opposed to having the forces be vertical
through it but it's a giant thing you
have to rotate in the air huge and uh as
you also highlight you know there's
liquid fuel slushing around in the tank
so like you can't uh I guess use that
fuel directly after have another kind of
fuel like there's just complexities
there that involved uh plus the actual
maneuver
is difficult from the like like what are
the thrusters that actually make that
make all that happen you're you're
adding a lot of complexity uh not a lot
but your complexity to the maneuver and
possibility where failure Could Happen
uh in order to sort of save in order for
the air to do uh some of the work so
what is some of that complexity just you
can Linger on it you know if you if we
think about what it's going to take to
go from horizontal to Vertical um this
rocket in particular Starship has these
big flaps um so it has kind of two nose
flaps and two uh rearward flaps the
rearward flaps are a lot bigger because
the majority of the the mass the engines
and stuff are in the back of the the
vehicle so in order to kind of be stable
and they just fold themselves inwards
like on their dihedral angle at a
dihedral angle in order to uh increase
or decrease the drag so you can control
its all three axes of control while it's
falling uh you on its belly you can
control it that way using these four
different fins so you have these giant
moving surfaces that take thousands of
of horsepower is just insane amount of
torque in order to move these quickly
enough to be a valid control surface so
that's a huge complication is moving
these fins and and developing that that
Landing algorithm and the you know the
control for a a huge vehicle with flaps
going like you know in and out in and
out in and out to stay stable then right
as you light the engines now all of a
sudden you want the top you know that
you want to flip the Rock at 90 degrees
so the rear Rd flaps the bottom flaps
fold in they tuck all the way in to
minimize drag that's going to make it
want a you know swing down you extend
the upper flaps that makes it so the
nose wants to pitch up you kick on the
engines um they're now lighting all
three engines at least as as of the last
like successful attempts they light all
three of the se- level Raptor engines
and they're pitched all the way like you
know 10 or 15 degrees or whatever the
maximum pitch is on them and that
induces a you know it does that kick
maneuver to kick it over from horizontal
to Vertical now the problem is you lit
your engines while you're horizontal so
they put some horizontal velocity into
the rocket they're push the rocket you
know at the time the nose is at the at
the time of lighting those engines the
nose is facing the Horizon and the
engines are facing the opposite Horizon
yeah so you now shot it a decent amount
in an off you know the direction that
you're not falling you know um so you
have to factor that in to where you're
Landing because you're going to land on
this precise in this case you're going
to land on inside the arm the loving
arms of the Chopsticks you know the
Creed Arms Wide Open you try to land
inside this exactly the song that be
playing through my head as I watch this
now thank you thank you for forever
joining those to I appreciate this and
he had the very precisely control so
what you have to do is now that it's
done that kick you also have to cancel
out that horizontal velocity so it's
actually going to rotate Beyond 90
degrees to cancel out that horizontal
velocity mhm and then modulate the
engine to make it so the thrust you know
is is perfect so that it can control
itself into a control landing and all
this is done in like 500 meters like
1500 feet you know you're doing all of
those things stupidly close to the
ground it looks absurd so far they've
done five of these tests all um the
first four all blew up you know um
they're all coming in from about 10 km
or 33,000 ft um falling flipping you
know again this thing is huge that just
the booster or just the Upper State of
this um is is like 50 m tall you know so
it's 150 it's like 45 M about 50 m tall
about 165 ft tall um 9 M wide it's a 30
ft wide it weighs you know something
like God I don't remember if it's
something like 120 metric tons so
120,000 kilg you know two quarter of a
million pounds empty and it's doing this
flip maneuver and it has to do all this
perfectly so the first four four
attempts of this were pretty spectacular
failures so just to clarify which stage
is doing maneuver it's the upper stage
is doing this belly flop maneuver yep uh
so this is the the stage that would
presumably um have humans on board if we
were to use and uh if things continue to
play now here's here's something I would
love to see yeah just saying this yeah
if you already have these big Arrow
surfaces the flaps they also have to
move they're on heavy Motors and hinges
and flaps and all that stuff I'm
actually surprised that for Earth they
aren't just looking at Landing it
horizontally on a Runway like the space
shuttle oo I mean interesting that
worked the brawn did it you know the
Soviet Union's put on I rolled my art
real hard there sorry thank you wow wow
really good I'm very impressed I'm very
impressed oh and uh you know the Bron
did it we have other space planes like
the
X-37B we have the upcoming SRA Nevada's
Dreamchaser uh it's yeah you have some
extra mass in the wings but so does
Starship Starship has the extra mass of
those flaps and you know the the the
motors and the hinges and all that stuff
I I would like to see the trade on like
is it actually lighter weight to do that
versus doing what SpaceX is doing so
yeah I mean that's the that's the funny
thing I I think realistically if Elon
walks in the door tomorrow and says guys
we did some simulations and actually
it's like we can get another 5,000
kilograms into space if we just land at
horizontal if we kind of give up on our
ego and land horizontally at least on
Earth then you know I think they could
be doing pretty quickly because that's
the thing is uh this ultimate thing has
been to land on Mars and you know other
planets and Mars doesn't have a Runway
doesn't have a you know thick enough
atmosphere to utilize aerodynamic flight
like that so you have to do propulsive
Landing for Mars um you're going to land
on a unprepared surface you know so it
has to be able to do this at some point
the the ultim it sounds ridiculous and
it is but the ultimate goal of it is to
land on Mars there's not much of an
atmosphere to like to help you with the
for the belly flop to be useful there's
only 1% the atmosphere on Mars as there
is on Earth but you still want to
utilize as much of that atmosphere as
possible so in the upper atmosphere it's
still going to be coming in more or less
uh kind of perpendicular to the
Airstream I guess it's probably more
like you know 60 degrees 70 degrees to
the Airstream like where it's belly
flopping and it's going to especially do
that on Mars it's going to need to you
know use up as let the little bit of
atmosphere there is you know you're
coming in an insane veloc I ities and so
even that 1% thin atmosphere is still
going to do a lot of work now on Mars it
there's only 38% of Earth's gravity on
Mars so the belly flop maneuver is a lot
it could be a lot more conservative you
could do that at like 5,000 ft up and it
just wouldn't matter as much because
there's not as much gravity loss or
gravity drag so you can kind of just
more slowly gently you know you don't
have to do this crazy extravagant like
belly flop you know flip maneuver um but
it would still something at some point
you would transition from more or less
perpendicular to the Airstream to you
know and horizontal to Landing
vertically I like how we're having this
old boring conversation about the
differences of landing on Earth versus
on
Mars uh this is surreal that this is
actually a real
conversation that uh this is something
that we're discussing yeah cuz it has to
do both yeah but in my opinion yes I
think we'll pretty quickly see an
evolution of Starship that's like
dedicated versions for certain tasks
sure and at the end of the day again if
if it's if someone runs a simulation
says it's actually more efficient and
it's better just to land horizontally on
a Runway then that's what's going to
happen you know it it it doesn't matter
but they still will develop you know if
the ultimate goal is to land on Mars
then they'll have a dedicated Mars
variant you know which will likely look
different than the earth variant you
know and they'll still probably be
launched on the same booster you know
what I mean so there's Oh you mean like
that particular vehicle will not be
returning back to Earth it'll need to be
modified cuz uh cuz the ultimate is to
have one Starship that goes to Mars
lands on Mars then takes off of Mars
lands back on Earth and is reused again
over and over and over and there's a
chance that you you know you have just a
a cycler just a you know if you're if
you at the end of the day you're just
really trying to see what is most
feasible what's the most efficient you
literally have a vehicle dedicated to
Mars Mars it's easy to do a single
staged orbit it's a lot lower gravity a
lot thinner atmosphere you can easily do
a single stag orbit you get into orbit
you park to a dedicated you know
transfer vehicle that goes between Earth
and Mars it only stays in space you
don't have heat shields you don't have
Landing leges you don't have all these
things that you need and ideally it's
nuclear powered so it's super efficient
that gets you back to earth once you're
at Earth you Rondevu again with another
Landing Starship and that Starship might
be horizontal Runway Starship you know
like yeah there's no I I don't see the
and I I think ultimately it'll win out
where we don't have a one-size fits-all
I think that's the that's the flaw of
the Space Shuttle really is that it was
trying to do everything and ended up
kind of doing nothing well but that's I
think what SpaceX is proven I mean
SpaceX already has variants coming
there's already going to be a dedicated
lunar lander for NASA for the emis
program there's already going to be a
tanker variant there's already going to
be likely just a pure cargo version
there's likely going to be a human
version we'll likely see evolutions of
this thing happen you know relatively
quickly and one once it's all working
it's only a matter of weeks before
people riding on it will be complaining
about the speed of the
Wi-Fi as the old like uh Louis C K joke
with like where you're flying on a chair
through the air it's incredible you
didn't even know this existed and now
you're complaining about it oh it's
great exactly uh so you uh you tweeted
fun fact about Starship by doing the
flip around 500 m versus higher up like
two 2,000 M the
in Delta V is 500 m/s that's a 20 ton
fuel saving which means basically 20
tons more you can put into orbit that's
more than uh Falcon 9 has ever launched
just by flipping later that's really
interesting so there that that was the
decision too to flip close to the ground
yeah yeah the closer to the ground the
better the more again the more the
atmosphere is doing work and uh you know
we get into that video really dives into
like gravity losses and gravity drag the
more time you're spent every every
second that your rocket engine is
running Earth is stealing 9.8 m/ second
of acceleration against you m there's
just inherently 9.8 m/ second squared of
acceleration so every second that engine
is running the first of big majority of
your thrust is actually being just
stolen by Earth's gravity well so if
you're the longer you're fighting that
the more inefficient it is so IDE I mean
the best thing would be you flip at you
know 100 meters off the ground you light
all your engines to maximum thrust you
pull 50 G's you know and you you land on
a dime basically obviously there's no
margin there there's you know and
there's diminishing returns on that that
gravity loss thing and your high thrust
weight ratios so that's a pretty good
compromise like yes it looks scary but
they could be a lot more aggressive with
that yet and squeeze out even a little
bit better performance but there are
diminishing returns so that's kind of
the the magic number we've seen so far
today but we'll likely see that you know
be played with you've attended uh some
of these what does it feel like to see
Starship person first of all when is's
just uh sitting there stacked and second
of all when is doing some of these tests
some of these Maneuvers well first off
if you have the freedom of traveling and
happen to live within a reasonable
either by plane or car it's worth going
down to South Texas it's so star base is
right on the border of Mexico and the
United States and very southern tip of
Texas right along the Rio Grande and uh
it's it's insane because it's right
along a public Highway you can literally
anyone can drive down this assuming it's
not closed for testing because they do
close the highways during the week a
decent amount while they're doing tests
but Sans any of those days anyone can
just drive down and see these things up
close and personal with their own eyes
like we're talking you know from 100 200
meters away you know so two football
fields away from the world's biggest
most powerful rocket imagine being able
to do that during the you know Soviet
Union and you know during the N1 and
Saturn 5 you know imagine just being
able to drive up right next to the
Launchpad there's no way you know and so
to have this kind of access to to this
program is so incredible the craziest
thing is when you when you're driving
out on this the on Highway 4 it's bumpy
it's it's you know riddled with potholes
now because of all the insane amount of
trucks having to go out there and
traffic and you're going through this
it's just this weird you're like where
am I you occasionally are seeing like
you can kind of see the I mean you can
see Mexico out your right window as
you're driving driving down this highway
you know and you're just sitting there
like where am I and then all of a sudden
you kind of turn this corner and the
trees and the brush kind of clear out
and all of a sudden you get a sense of
everything on the horizon at that point
you're pretty much five miles on the
nose or eight kilometers away and from
there you can just see through the the
heat Haze through the you know the
atmospheric Distortion and you just see
this weird like looks like a city almost
on the horizon you know there's tons of
these tall buildings there's a weird
ominous launch Tower thing With Arms
Wide Open and sometimes and you know
giant metal rocket and it just looks so
so weird I mean it I it's the word
surreal I think by definition I think if
you are expecting it it's not surreal I
think surreal kind of means like
unexpected surprise or whatever you know
even if you're expecting it even if
you've seen pictures even if everything
it is surreal yeah you stand there and
you just go what is this
and and also I mean there is a there's a
kind of magical aspect to the that this
is the place where over the next few
years we'll start as a human species
reaching out there and traveling out
there well for sure see the development
of the rockets that I think will take us
further than ever before be born right
there what's it like to witness the
actual testing of of
Starship so far it's been high
stakes like it's it's been insane cuz
those the the first I kind of mentioned
earlier there's been SN 8 9 10 11 and 15
that have all done these suborbital hops
the highest one went 12.5 km and the the
rest of the four went 10 km in altitude
and then turned off the engines and just
fell mhm now the cool thing about that
is the general public could be about
five five miles away so again like 8
kilometers away and the weird thing is
this Rocket's slowly accelerating mhm
they didn't want to exceed a certain
speed so they didn't have to worry about
the aerodynamics of it you know they
just slowly climbed and it probably also
to appease the FAA they're like here
we'll just limit the Thruster weight
ratio and just you know make make it so
it's slow and controlled no big deal so
it's basically more or less like
slightly above a hover just climbing
forever for minutes for like four or
five minutes you just hear and feel the
Roar of this thing normal Rockets like
after the first 30 seconds or minute you
know they're so far away that it's just
diminishing you know it's just it's just
fading fading fading fading you still
get that Rumble that that sense but but
those first five flights uh the
suborbital Hops were just I I'll cherish
him forever because you just you're
watching this thing that you've driven
up next to you've seen it with your own
eyes that's bigger than most buildings
in a you know fairly dense urban area
you know it's this massive thing you
stay in there you stood there you look
at it you're like wow that's crazy
you've seen people working on it they're
little ants compared to it then you
drive away and you see it on the horizon
and all of a sudden that thing leaves it
starts moving hovering hovering and the
first time I mean you know you put for
me at least I put my hands on my head
when I I just I can't help it I'm not
it's not so I don't know what like you
said I don't know what in human nature
decides this is what to do when you
can't believe something but that's what
happens and when that thing first took
off it was just like my brain couldn't
process seeing you know cuz I had spent
so much time driving around and seeing
it and all of a sudden you're watching
it just take off and you're like it's
moving and all these you know most
complicated rocket engines ever made are
all firing simultaneously and it didn't
blow up on the launch pad and it's
slowly increasing and it's just crazy
and the sound the everything about it
and so by the time the first one and
specifically it was it was December 2020
was the first uh sn8 it it went up and I
actually we all lost it in the sky we
couldn't quite see it but our our we had
telescopes and and you know High
telephoto lenses tracking it and what's
funny is there's a pretty strong wind up
there at altitude and it was moving
there's a lot of um gaseous oxygen being
vented out of the rocket and it's you
know being blown by this air so it looks
like it's moving actually quite quickly
like away from us like it was strafing
to one side so I'm watching the monitor
I'm going oh my God they're moving it
like over Brownsville mhm and we're all
all of us everyone on this this hotel
balcony is looking out down like way out
over you know and we can't find it and
we're like where did they lose it like
we're thinking like oh my God this is
going to crash down in
Brownsville and and finally they they
shut the engines off and we're watching
it fall and again we're tracking it we
know it's falling and it's falling
falling falling it's falling super
controlled and we're like oh my God this
is perfect and all of a sudden it
clicked and I see it with my you know my
eyes I finally like track in it's it's
straight out like straight in front of
us and it looks like it looks like it
was a blimp just barely moving cuz it is
Falling Slowly thanks to all of its drag
and again that's one of those moments
I'm like it's falling so slow you know
because it's so big it's so massive it's
falling sideways you know I've seen
Falcon 9 boosters and Falcon heavy
boosters and they scream they come in so
fast and you can barely even see you can
just barely track all a they light their
engines and they decelerate so quickly
this was like the opposite it was like
is that thing ever coming down it was
just falling so slowly and so right
there just felt like it was so close and
so when it finally lit its engine and it
flipped I was losing my mind because I'm
like it's working you know this crazy
plan this huge massive thing is doing
this absurd feat and the first one well
the first four again didn't work out as
planned but getting to that point
already getting to that flip maneuver
was a huge milestone and it was so
exciting just going through those those
firsts were amazing and I think
you know we're coming up now on them
doing the full stacks of the booster and
the upper stage MH I think when we see
that fly when that leaves Earth for the
first time it'll be like I said almost
twice the amount of thrust as anything
else it'll be the biggest heaviest
largest thing to ever fly it's going to
shake everything I can't wait have all
33 Raptor engines uh been active at once
have they tested that no that's coming
up that's kind of the next Milestone um
I don't know you know when this will
come out but we're that's like the next
just a few days very quickly here it
then but if people listening to this if
they're listening to it early on they'll
likely be able to catch I you know I
think at this point it seems like next
week so step one would be static fire
yep holding on to the rocket and
lighting up the engines and so so far
they've lit at most they kind of they
went for like a more than 14 engine
static fired I don't recall if it was
like you know 16 or something engines
lit at once and they ended up going down
to 14 engines that's the most engines
they've ever lit um so the next step and
the final kind of Step before they fly
this thing is they're actually going to
light all 33 engines
simultaneously and um although that
sounds scary let let's not forget the
Falcon heavy that's now flown five times
completely flawlessly um has has 27
engines running simultaneously so they
definitely have you know SpaceX has
experience with high number of engines
running at the same time but it is still
like this is going to be a lot of moving
s and a lot of potential and a lot just
a a lot of everything uh what are the
upcoming uh Milestones expected
milestones and I think um there's one in
particular I'd like to talk to you more
about but leading up to that of course
is like what what are some of the tests
here on the way so is the static fire uh
the the the fully stacked with the two
stages uh will there be uh and then all
that leading to an orbital launch test
uh what so what are the things we should
know about and when do you think like
what what do you think the timeline will
be look like the orbital test timeline
uh the reason we have this website the
expected Milestones is because I always
tell people to ignore any time you ever
hear for any of this stuff and just pay
attention to Milestones because when
you're doing stuff for the first time
you know you just have no idea so Ju
Just to understand the expected
Milestones here the First Column is the
event the the second column is the date
and Status DVD complete green means what
green means it's been completed and it
shows the completion date there and the
completion date and then The
Others May maybe more maybe not for the
full full stack testing the daack and
the there's a 33 engine so so
realistically we're expecting them to
daack and SpaceX I think just tweeted
that actually that they're going to be
destacking um the second stage from the
first stage kind of get the ship safe
while they test because they don't want
to you know 30 engines is pretty high
risk if they do blow up the rocket it
when they test it for the first time
it's not going to be fully fueled I
don't think at least but there is a
limit to how they do have to have it
weighed down enough that the launch
clamps can hold on to it because if you
think about it like normally the launch
clamps are holding on to an entire
rocket weighing 5 million kilograms 5
million K like you know it's weighing an
insane amount so those clamps don't
actually have to hold 75 Mega Newtons of
thrust they really only to have to hold
down 25 Mega Newtons of thrust you know
what I mean they're not designed to hold
down all 75 so they do have to have
enough weight on the rocket so that so
even when they do these the testing of
the 33 engines it'll have to have enough
propellant in there that they don't
exceed the clamping and the holding
force of the stand otherwise it'll break
free from the launch stand and that
booster will go flying off uncontrolled
so it's a difficult thing to figure out
in the test how many uh simultaneous
things you test right so they're kind of
mitigating risks which is why like
they're daack you know they don't want
to have although the ship could be on
top of it to help weigh it down and and
simulate the you know the launch
environment better at some point they
that's a risk they're just going to take
when they go for launch and so for now
they're taking the ship off in case
something goes wrong during the 33
engine test and then once we see if the
33 engine test goes well hopefully we
see the the second stage get stacked
back on it we'll see them get closer
like closing out all the items and hope
the big one too is the FAA launch
license there that's a that'll be
publicly filed we'll see that you know
in the system uh having launch license
and I I have no sense of that type of
thing you know that's outside of but
that's but that is a big milestone and
it might be something that could
potentially hinder uh you know hold up
the launch date would just be waiting
for a launch license yeah I'm sure
there's a lot of fascinating bureaucracy
and politics and uh legal stuff and all
that kind of beautiful magical thing
when you live in reality because it is I
mean it is a
big uh rocket yeah well and the biggest
thing it's not not so much the fa
doesn't necessarily care about the
success of the rocket they just really
just care about the safety of public and
public property you know so it's it's
it's a matter of being convinced and
having the the data to prove okay if
this thing blows up we have a control of
how and when it blows up we have control
of you know X Y and Z here's the
potential damage here's the blast radius
you know this again is over twice as
powerful and twice as much potential
actually it's it's a lot more potential
for an explosive energy if it you know
where it happened to well let me walk
back a little bit because in order to
have a real detonation you have have a
perfect mixture ratio of of your fuel
and oxidizer um if when a rocket blows
up typically you know it kind of unzips
and some of the fuel will mix into some
of the oxidizer and you could have some
explosive energy but a lot of it's
actually just a def floration it's just
you know flames and and yeah there will
there would be explosive energy but it's
not like you're lighting all of it
simultaneously it's this giant bomb it's
just really not so that's good but at
the same time even in those
circumstances the amount of energy is
still absurd enough to likely blow out
windows you know for miles and miles and
miles including my studio
space uh well if the cameras hold up it
would be one heck of a show uh hopefully
of course would not uh would not happen
so how does that take us to an orbital
launch when do you think that would
happen in in my opinion uh this is a
very fluid and this will change
literally by the hour so you really
think that it's very difficult to really
say like oh even even for something that
could very well happen this year even
just a few months away um you making a
prediction uh by the way are you like
superstitious on this kind of stuff a
little bit like you don't you're worried
about jinxing it that kind of stuff at
all no um cuz I would imagine you would
be like waiting for all of these
launches that keep getting delayed where
you start thinking that there's certain
things you do will control the weather
socks why am I wearing these socks just
scrubbed again you know like yeah you're
lucky you have to wear the same lucky
socks otherwise it's going to there's
going to be bad weather yeah so the
reason that I say this and why it's so
difficult is they did a first full stack
test in July of 2021 and the expectation
was we're a month or two away from a
launch yeah so like realistically for 18
months I've been in a Purgatory thinking
that we're a month or two away of an
orbital launch now I did say for the
record when that thing stacked and when
of speculation was saying you know a
month or two I was saying I don't expect
it to fly in 2021 you know and I've been
just say I just saw the amount of work
that still needed to be done like on the
the ground systems the tanks the the
launch Mount all the stuff I'm they're
like there's still a lot of stuff
they're going to have to validate it
they're going to have to test everything
every component and you know people were
like how dare you say that even Gwen
Shotwell the president of of SpaceX is
saying Q3 of 2021 I'm like okay but like
I'm just I'm not going to be surprised
if it slips into 2022 and here we are
are the beginning of 2023 and I I think
we're finally within like two months I
I'm expecting like I'm trying to keep my
March in April as free as I can we'll
put it that way I love it uh actually
just in a small tangent on uh GW shell
like it what what do you uh uh from
everything I know she's an instrumental
a really crucial person to to the
successful SpaceX in running the show
she's the president the
COO um what what uh do you know about
her that um sort of the genius of gwy
Shotwell man my understanding is she's
really the glue you know she's the glue
to the
tornado tornado comes in and then she
comes around and just really executes on
on and and helps you know a famous story
is that at some point Elon walked in or
she sprinted into a meeting because Elon
was actively trying to cancel Falcon
heavy MH saying it's too far like it's
too much development it's still too far
away and this is like you know this
might have been like end of 2017 or
something and it flew for the first time
in 2018 so we're we're talking like it's
close to the end of development you know
there's Hardware being built all this
stuff and elon's literally in a meeting
telling people they're going to cancel
it we're going to move on to bfr or now
Starship um and just go full steam ahead
on that and she runs into the meeting
and reminds Elon we have X amount of
customers that have already purchased a
ride on Falcon heavy we can't delay that
you know so it's it's that business
sense of like we yes it's great to
innovate but we also have to pay our
dues and and and make the money to
continue our operations and I think
she's just a lot better at she has I
think she has such a great perspective
on everything it really seems like
everything she she doesn't I wish she
did more interviews because I would love
to hear more from her um but man like it
just seems hear that
Gwen for both of us yeah she hasn't
actually done them many interviews right
not really no she's done like a TED Talk
um couple little things here and there
but not really many interviews and and I
would just love to hear like what you
know what on a daily basis like what is
she doing that to keep her head on and
and keep everything so organized you
know it's you know yeah I my
understanding is that she she is
absolutely integral and and does just
insane amount of work at SpaceX yeah I
mean the so it's the the project
planning but also the how the teams
integrate together and the and and the
hiring and this is the man I think it's
a lot of it is honestly even just the
business making sure the money's flowing
in a positive trend more or less you
know that yes elon's obviously a money
guy but he thinks he's so I think Elon
is so risky you know he just loves to
throw it all in that he leaves little
margin for error you know he's he's been
really lucky with rolling his dice you
know especially like when he started
SpaceX and Tesla that was the ultimate
role of the dice but I think she's a
healthy balance to be like well here's
our you know operations and how we can
continue to do this without risking
everything you know and starship's close
let me be clear Starship is close to
risking everything already it's just
such a big fast-moving high-risk
developmental program that like I I
personally think you know SpaceX would
probably be fine if they shut the doors
on Starship and just flew falcon9 and
Falcon heavy for the next 10 years they'
still be commercially valid they could
not spend another dollar on research and
development they could fire I don't want
them to fire everyone involved in
anything research and development and
just ran operations on Falcon 9 and
Falcon heavy and they would still be
dominant for 10 years and they would
still have a business case and they'd
still be fine but um they're all in like
all chips are pretty much as many chips
as possible are
in this I I don't
know what else I could say is there's
not I've talked to a lot of uh great
leaders there's just not many people
like Elon that would push for Starship
where they're
already a very successful company yeah
uh sort of everyone doubted that it
could be a successful company it was so
close to bankruptcy and failing and then
to take it into a financially viable
successful company and just when you do
you take on a project that again risks
everything well he already did this with
Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 like literally
people were like what are you doing they
basically signed over and were fully
ramping up Falcon 9 by the time they
finally had their first Falcon 1 success
they had one more flight they only flew
Falcon 1 successfully twice they flew
five times all together the fourth one
was successful they flew one more time
and the anyone else out there would have
been like let's keep flying the Falcon 1
we have a working rocket we can start
you know making money and profiting and
already he was risking it all and saying
nope we're going from Falcon 1 to Falcon
9 was a huge huge leap you know it was
at I think it's at least as big as as a
leap from Falcon 1 to 9 as it is from
Falcon 9 to Starship or around
relatively similar leap so it's just
that same thing again people are going
why are you leaping into this insane
program and system and risk when you
have such a you know you finally have
this Workhorse of a rocket that's so
dominant in the industry yet they're
going 10x you know it's so happens that
you've been selected for the dear moon
mission that will fly Starship once
around the Moon with nine people on
board uh you are one of those people
so just pause to take that
in everything that we've been talking
about you will not just be reporting on
you will be a part of
it so tell me about the objective of
this Mission and um how does it feel to
be a part of
it well
man yeah yeah it's basically it's the
Willy Wonka of space like a generous
yeah a generous
individual purchased a ride from SpaceX
as early uh at least as far as I know
the earliest I knew about it was
February 27th 2017 who is the individual
uh yaku maawa but at the time I'm
telling a story at the time we didn't
know okay great great so February 27th
2017 a press release comes out from
SpaceX saying someone purchased a ride
through us around the Moon we're going
to fly someone around the moon and at
the time it was on a crew Dragon capsule
and a falcon heavy it's like wow and
that was enough that little moment right
there that press release so first time
I'm like I'm going to make a YouTube
video about this I stood up turned on my
camera put on my at the time space suit
and I basically yelled at the camera for
3 minutes about someone's going around
the Moon you know fast forward to 2018
uh end of 2018 or near the end they
introduced there was a SpaceX press
conference I'm I'm there as a member of
the press I'm reporting on we're going
to meet this person that's going around
the moon and come to find out boom
they're going to be riding on Starship
now they change from Falcon heavy and
dragon space tax is no longer going to
do that they're going to upgrade them
basically to Starship so instead of
being in like a small Tin Can they're in
this giant luxurious you know Mega
rocket around the moon and it comes out
that this individual named yusaku mayawa
who is a Japanese billionaire uh
purchased this ride and instead of
inviting you know his friends and you
know colleagues and whatever whoever his
family members or whatever he decided
that the most impactful thing he could
do with this opportunity is invite uh
more or less artists in the original
thing it was like artists you know
journalist a painter a an athlete a you
know a all you know photographer
videographer you know all walks of life
basically when they said athlete they
thought of you they're like I know a guy
this guy rode ragby
once oh but uh so and at the time you
know I was like this is crazy I can't
believe this is going to happen and you
know he had this this vision of we're
going to find people from all around the
world I'm going to invite people from
all around the world um from different
walks of life different different you
know trades and I'm going to share this
experience so that they can share it
with the world and really have an impact
much greater than you know any one
country or any one individual or any you
know set of military trained you know
astronauts could could do offer up A New
Perspective beautiful I literally I mean
at the press conference I I cried like I
had a couple tears in my eyes I was like
this is so cool could just pause on that
so he goes by MZ MZ
yep how incredible is that it's like uh
I I I think it
it's you often don't realize the
importance of individuals in human
history like they they they Define
because this this could be we talked
about the importance of Elon in
particular you know most of the work is
done by large groups of people that are
collective intelligence that we band
together but like these individuals can
be the spark of the Catalyst of that
progress and I mean just this idea of
getting not just civilians which is
already incredible but civilians with a
sort of an artistic flame that burns
inside them they're able to communicate
whatever they do are able to communicate
something about that experience it's
just a genius idea to spend quite
probably a very large amount of money
for that I mean it's uh it's it's it's
and and that will be part of History
yeah and it's easy these days for people
to be cynical you know especially about
like space flight and Wealthy
individuals but really in my opinion and
maybe you know just the time I was just
so couldn't believe this this idea you
know I'm someone that has studied a lot
about you know the Apollo program the
people that have been to the moon and
they're incredible individuals
incredible individuals but they're so
saturated with tasks you know and
they're military trained and often um
that they didn't really have the luxury
of just being able to soak in the
experience of going around or to the
moon and seeing the Moon up close with
your own eyes like that just
psychologically has to be insane and so
to have this opportunity to be able to
observe our closest Celestial neighbor
with your own eyes and your sole purpose
is to soak it in and share it and
communicate and create with the rest of
our planet like that to me is just
beautiful so that is the objective of
the mission that right there is the
objective of the mission and how does it
feel to be selected as uh one of the
nine to do it it's it's
it's a it's a gradient it's slowly it's
doing a few things um since I've known
it's
become um I think the closer it gets the
more excited and the more nervous I get
you know it's a the more real it becomes
the more real it becomes you know the
announcement was a big uh it just got
announced at the end of 2022 publicly um
who's involved and so you know prior to
that like I had you know each step of
the selection process you know there's a
pretty comprehensive selection process
with interviews and stuff each each step
I'd try not to get my hopes up and
frankly like this let me be clear this
was not something that like I've always
wanted to do you know it's not like I'm
out there I didn't start doing YouTube
videos because I wanted to even go to
space like none of that I and I've said
hilariously I've probably said dozens or
hundreds of times on a like yeah I don't
ever want to go to space because it's
not like my it's not a driving force
it's not really a thing I even really
truly pictured or let myself fantasize
about frankly so each step of the
selection process I didn't really let
myself dream about it too much or you
know but I'd kind of it would kind of
chip away like oh my God this is
actually becoming more real this is
actually more and more of an opportunity
and I get equally more nervous too like
you know frankly it is it's i' I've you
know I've seen space flight stuff go
wrong I've you know I I think about this
stuff a lot so like yeah I get more
nervous but I also get more excited
about that opportunity like it's an
opportunity that how can you pass and
it's still I still have to actually stop
pause think and actually realize the
reality that like
that I am going to the Moon I'm going to
see the Moon up close uh flying around
the Moon I'm sorry some people get mad
when I say going to the moon since I'm
not landing on it um but flying around
the Moon seeing The Far Side of the Moon
with my own eyes and seeing Earth and
seeing the Earth rise behind it yeah
it's going to I I just I can't I can't
tell you what it's going to be like and
feel like so epic but it's insane to me
that like we're having this conversation
and that that is my my reality you know
like and that someone was generous
enough to consider the option of of
sharing this with with frankly strangers
yeah and the the process that they had
for selecting like how um how much
thought and time went into the selection
process is incredible you know they did
a public call at the beginning of
2021 and so the the team's involved in
in in whittling it down from a million
applicants there's a million applicant
that would and they got it down to to
eight crew members and and two backups
yeah um amazing people I would have you
know I don't know how they wound up
where they did but it's it's incredible
I I feel very deep connection to
everyone that's already involved and
what can you say about the crew you've
gotten a chance to meet them and talk to
them and know Steve iok is on on the
crew like who else who else is there so
uh you are obviously the the star
athlete under who else in terms of the
the artists that are there so oh man we
might just want to pull up just so I
don't totally Butcher and forget anybody
but because so far I have actually had
the chance to meet everyone in person
you know so far a lot of this was done
during the pandemic but we've met
through a couple different things we've
had a couple different times to to get
together but so so far I have not met
Steve Aoki yet or top um we've been on
calls and stuff I also have not yet met
uh Dev Joshy who is uh an actor from
India so yeah we can St Steve Aoki
American uh DJ and producer and musician
top from uh South Korea is also uh a
musician and a producer so this is all
across the world like truly Global uh
all different kinds of walks of life all
artists of different forms and Steve is
is Japanese uh his parents are Japanese
but he you know live born and raised in
the United States uh Yi is uh a dancer
and choreographer from the Czech
Republic uh ranan is a fine art
photographer from well England and and
Ireland I guess she lives in both and
kind of a bit of a she's all over the
place uh Technically she's Irish I guess
uh I Tim Dad yep that's me from the
United States uh then you have Kareem
who is from England and does also as a
uh photographer and documentarian uh
does a lot of work with oceanography and
uh and volcanoes so he does really
incredible work Brendan Hall is a
documentarian and filmmaker uh Dev Joshy
uh sorry Brendan is also from the United
States Dev Joshy is an Indian uh actor
uh I believe also I believe he's also
already been producing and things he's
very young I think he's only like 19 or
20 and he's I mean he's been acting
since he was like 5 years old or
something he's a he's a a Bollywood star
like he is a star in India which is
really cool right um Caitlyn Fairington
from the United States is an Olympic
gold medalist snowboarder so she believe
it or not is the athlete and not
me and then and she's one of the backup
crew members as as as so is uh Miu from
Japan who's a a dancer oh that's amazing
I it's such interesting group I mean can
is there something else you could say
about MZ about yaka maawa yaka mayawa so
he uh he's also a musician so he was
actually in like some kind of punk
hardcore Japanese bands in the early in
the 90s and stuff and early 2000s he
started a um a record company and and
distribution and sales ended up in in
fashion and um owns one of the biggest
fashion companies in Japan and has
become a fine art collector and just
kind of a philanth th pist and and he's
been out to space already he's already
not only been to space like you know
he's been to the International Space
Station he's been on orbit and on the
ISS and so he what's cool is like you
know there's talks of when there then
frankly to be to be honest like we still
don't I still don't know all of the
details about this you know we're not
yet into training I kind of always
assumed prior that there'd be some
professional astronaut you know when
they talked about it in 2018 there's
talks of we'll have a professional
astronaut on board but realistically now
like MZ is a trained astronaut you know
he has trained a long like six months
you know plus to be able to fly on soyu
so as far as like it's good to know for
me that I have someone on the crew that
has experienced with space flight um has
trained and has some knowledge on space
flight as well you know that's that is
an important aspect for sure so you made
a excellent video about flying in the
fighter jet uh that I think you
mentioned may be relevant uh to the
training is there some highlevel asp the
training that you anticipate that you
might be able to speak to yeah so you
know so far I think we can really lean
on what has happened with the other um
you know commercial crew missions and in
in private missions like the inspiration
form Mission or Axiom uh where SpaceX
FLW individuals they trained for about
six months a lot of like reading manuals
and learning the spacecraft are you
going to do like a rocky form Montage or
I hope I just get shredded I hope it's
physical a lot of physical training and
they're like we didn't tell him to do
this he's just seems to want to fill
himself shirtless in the snow doesn't
make any how this why is he always doing
this I can't get him to stop punching
meat um so yeah hopefully uh
realistically I lots of manual reading I
like it but there's there's a physical
component to all this and that's that's
really I mean that that's fascinating
it's also inspiring that sort of
civilians can do this that's that's
really interesting
yeah I mean this is and to me this
represents this and the other commercial
space you know private space flight
missions like this represent really a
turning point like truly an inflection
and again it's easy for people to be
cynical that oh you know why are people
wasting all this money doing space
flight stuff it's like well I'm sure
some people were saying that same thing
about you know airplanes and and early
Aviation going like why are we can't
believe those people are wasting the
government's you know funding these
stupid planes and stuff how's it ever
going to benefit me and nowadays like
imagine if all the planes just stopped
working like we'd freak out like our
economy would collapse yeah it would
suck you know and I you know might be a
long time before we get to that reality
with space flight well I no if if space
flight halted today you know space
assets uh all of our you know on orbit
assets our life would be crippled and I
don't think people realize that yeah so
it's already we're already reliant on it
but now we're getting to the point where
it's we're really turning that corner
where it's the average person alive
today you know if you're born uh you
know now from now on I think there's a
real decent chance that by the time you
pass There's an opportunity to have
flown in space yeah I mean I if I'm
being honest I still haven't lost the
the feeling of magic of flying in an
airplane I often catch myself thinking
like how's this
real how is and like the contrast of
this incredible thing that's incredibly
safe flying through the a taking off and
Landing while everyone else just looks
bored watching like I don't know uh some
romantic comedy on their phone with WiFi
yeah so it's just it it's like the
contrast to that is like wow we're we're
incredible we're incredible as a society
and it's like we we develop some uh
amazing technology that improves almost
the measure ably our quality of life and
then we take it for granted and now
still reach for the next thing the next
thing and life becomes more beautiful
and complex and interesting and yeah
it's just the same stuff will be uh
happening oh yeah uh with space travel
oh it'll become mundane and boring at
some point the tough thing about space
travel of course uh you know I don't
even know if it's such a giant leap over
airplanes because airplanes are already
incredible but uh the tough thing with
space travel is the destination right is
the is the is the landing on whole other
the worlds whether it's docking with
with different transport vehicles or the
space station or it's Landing elsewhere
it's it's it it really really is
incredible I I think you mentioned since
there's uh there's artists there's
filmmakers and so on and you're all of
those uh on top of being a great athlete
I I don't know I'll just stop the
running joke at this point uh but is
there have you uh thought about um just
just in general like we've offline
talked about microphones and like the
all the different ways to film space
launch uh for yeah rocket launches uh
have you thought about the different
options of like how to capture how to
capture this uh uh have you have the
team have been like brainstorming and
thinking about this do you anticipate it
being super challenging because there's
so many opportunities to sort of think
of how to do this so one of the the fun
things to remember is that Starship is
huge like its internal volume is uh the
pressurized volume on Starship is is
bigger than a 747 pressurized volume and
it can take 100 metric tons to anywhere
with enough refueling 100 so we have in
theory very little mass and volume
constraints unlike prior all other space
flight missions ever you you have to
you're counting you know grams down to
you know and just really can't RI you
know you have very defined parameters on
on what you can and cannot do we're
going to likely have the luxury of being
able to film and capture this in a way
that's just never been done before you
know we won't be inhibited by mass and
volume constraints like prior yeah so
all that said and done I'm hoping that
we'll be able to just arm ourselves to
the teeth with the absolute best cameras
and Equipment possible backups on
backups and you know and pre-wire you
know pre- rig things Starship is going
to be a a transportation system and it
has you know it's being built from the
ground up there's no reason why they
can't put infrastructure in for cameras
that are just housed in the vehicle you
know um these are talks that I'm excited
to have because I I really ideally one
of the things I'd love to do I'm going
to be pushing really hard to actually
try live streaming from inside during
the
launch during the launch live stream
from the inside that would be incredible
if that's
possible that's possible to pull off
that's really really incredible there is
the magic to the live stream because
like that's real that's right there that
would the world would tune in that would
be truly inspiring yes to me that's one
of those things a lot of people ask why
they aren't doing it of course NASA and
other individuals have their reasons of
why not you know there's obviously some
technical hurdles but now with starlink
and other capabilities there's less
hurdles there's obviously some
transparency reason reasons why you know
and safety reasons why it might not be a
great idea to live stream a risky rocket
launch you know the Challenger I think
put a pretty bad taste in our mouth as
far as publicizing an event and having
every student in the United States tune
in to you know a tragedy but um that's
something I'm pushing for really hard
just because I think it could be magical
I think it could really connect with
people in a way that hasn't been done
before speaking of Challenger
have you thought about the fact that
you're riding a thing as we've been
talking about that's
um that's a giant
explosive powerful
rocket have you um have you thought
about the risk of that the danger of
that have you contemplated your own
mortality how could I not you know I've
seen with my I've seen and felt four of
these prototype Vehicles blow up you
know with my own eyes um I don't know if
there's anyone else you know early days
some of the you
know Mercury and Gemini astronauts
watched failures of rockets and then got
on them I don't know of too many people
that are dumb enough to do that though
these day this day and age um it's it's
obviously I will have to see a lot of
successful launches and have to have a
lot of confidence and in the engineering
the data that they've developed a safe
system because currently the current
iteration of Starship Has No abort
system has no Escape Tower so you know
Dragon capsule which is currently flying
people has a launch AB system it has
super Draco engines that either by the
push of a button or by the automatic
triggering of the flight computer can
shoot the the capsule off of the rocket
in milliseconds and pull it safely away
get it far enough away that it can pull
the parachutes and safely splash down um
Starship
by all iterations I've ever seen does
not have that the space shuttle also did
not have that so it's not absurd to not
have an abort system like it is there is
you know certain engineering principles
that that prove that that could be a
completely valid thing you know the
space shle threw 100 flew 133 times
fully successfully it did have two
failures resulting in the loss of 14
lives um 85 or what sorry 98.5% success
rate pretty I mean yeah you there's
other I've probably done things that are
a lot riskier I race motorcycles drag
race motorcycles and you know ridden
like an absolute jerk on the streets on
a motorcycle I'm sure I've had a higher
than a
98.5% survival rate or lower than that I
mean at some point um so it's a you know
yes it's it's risky it's
scary and um I think about it a lot a
lot it it definitely is one of those
things that I you know I I will have to
see and and I'm I'm in no hurry for this
to happen either you know personally I'm
in no hurry because it's like I would
rather see this thing be developed and
integrated and see 10 you know or I was
going to say 10 dozen but I'd be happy
with a dozen fully successful like oh
we've got this thing totally nailed down
uh you know before I get on it but and
that that likely is the reality there
will likely be a dozen or two or three
launches because just even to get to the
moon on Starship they have to refuel it
in orbit um so it will arrive get to
Earth orbit basically empty and out of
fuel so I'll have to dock with a fuel
Depot fill up and then go to the moon so
just to even get that full you know
we're already talking about La you know
a handful of launches so there there
will be a lot of launches before we fly
would they do a test flight without
humans on board to that goes to the moon
or no I'm not sure I'm not sure if
they'll do that exact flight profile but
by then they will have already flown
most likely the Artemis 3 program will
have flown a Starship variant to the
Moon that that lands on the moon um so
doing at that point you're pretty much I
I would like them to test the heat
shield at that entry velocity though
because it it is uh you know it takes
another it's about 30% faster to get
like it to go 30% faster than the lower
orbit to get out to a translunar
injection and although that only sounds
like oh 30% faster it's you know the the
re-entry heating experienced by a
vehicle goes up by velocity
uh cubed not squared so and not even not
linear so it's not like if you go twice
as fast you get you see twice as much
heat you know 30% faster 30% more heat
it's and it's not squared it's not go
twice as fast get four times as much
heat it's go twice as fast get eight
times as much heat on re-entry so 30%
faster on reentry is actually a really
really big deal M so I would love to see
that beest you know there's certain
things that I would love to see
Milestones that I would love to see
tested out and proven um before I get on
board but
at the end of the day I really do
believe that um just like Falcon n and
the success of that that they're going
to push it and get all the The Kinks out
well before anyone's on top of it
nowadays Falcon night and dragon is you
know arguably the one of the safest most
reliable and best rides he could take to
to space are you afraid of
dying yeah yeah is this one of the first
times you get to Year young yeah have
you gotten a chance to think about death
is one of the
first times you've really contemplated
it I mean yeah I
mean like I said I've had I've had dumb
moments on motorcycles where I kind of
saw you know like I'm going to smash
into this thing at 120 M an hour and I'm
going so you've had moments when you
realize it could end just like this yes
where you lit and I and I've I have for
most of my adult life had dreams of
falling and hitting the ground and it
just all you get a ring in your ears it
all goes black and in my head I go oh
shit that was it have you seen a
therapist about this all uhuh I wonder
what it means so i' and I'm sure there's
a Freudian interpretation somewhere in
there uh that I'm going to also apply to
my dating life no the joke is the
running joke continues okay so um I mean
it's um it's it's fascinating in general
as I hope we'll talk about in the early
days of space flight that there is there
is a
the task of reaching out to the stars is
a fundamentally risky one you have to
take risks and of course there's really
rigorous safety precautions and so on
but it's still it's still a risk well
and I think like most people the the for
me the idea of dying isn't so much about
myself it's about those in affected by
it you know my my loved ones my family
you know my girlfriend my my friends you
know obviously I don't want to have this
be a traumatic experience for anybody
you know um it's already going to be
hard like it's already I know uh my mom
gets my my parents and and family and
friends are very supportive um and you
know my parents are you know all about
it of course but my mom is also very
emotional too so you know she's so my
speaking of athletes my brother-in-law
has actually been on American Ninja
Warrior two seasons um phenomenal
athlete and even just when he competes
my mom gets so emotional like she can't
even hold it together seeing that so
what's it going to be like when she sees
her son get on top of a skyscraper and
and Ascend on a a column of flames into
the heavens like that's going to be very
difficult you know um and I I've you
know I've taken them out they've seen
they've seen star base and they've seen
Starship they've seen a couple launches
I don't know if that's going to make him
feel
better exposure therapy I guess exposure
therapy okay uh have you had that
conversation with them about this like
before
agreeing uh to join I mean was was that
what that was or is it one of those
things
like uh you you just you don't have that
conversation supp it's understood that
there's a love there's a passion
here and realistically I'm
not I'm going to be convinced and
statistically convinced that this is
relatively safe you know like again in
the in the 99s percent safe yeah again
there's things that people do every day
that are less safe than this you know
like you riding the motorcycle again
yeah riding the motorcycle doing
wheelies at over 100 m hour not the you
did wheelies
over
what all right I'm not a smart guy
always okay well you know formation
flying in the fighter jets was likely a
more dangerous thing yes than what I'll
be doing in space
fight so as surreal as it is we're
talking about
you um flying around the Moon let's
rewind and talk about the origin story
what's the origin story of everyday
astronaut I used to be a professional
photographer so from 2008 until the end
of 2016 that was my income was
photography fulltime like you were an
Instagram model and took butt pictures
of yourself instag fitness model obit
model obviously um now the uh I I did I
did a lot of weddings I shot 150
weddings um all around the world so
subjects all kinds of material like uh
like uh do do portrait also a lot of
portrait work and then just you know
random like commercial things like you
know food and beverages for businesses
or like you know a wheelchair ramp
company I shot their product like you
know random whatever professional
photographer does in Cedar Falls Iowa
you know when did you uh fall in love
with photography with a visual medium do
you remember yeah I do actually remember
I so I I drew up uh I grew up drawing
constantly I I I was the weird kid that
my would bring a a sketch pad to the
restaurants like every restaurant when I
was growing up until I was like 18 19 I
literally would just sit there and draw
or waiting for food and my parents like
fostered that they would you know and I
I'd be the weird kid but I'd be engaging
and talking but I'd be sitting there
drawing and I I was always obsessed with
realism and like recreating and you know
visualizing things and so when I got my
hands on a camera was actually my dad's
old Pentax that I first shot a on a film
camera and developing the film I didn't
personally develop like you know getting
the film back back in those days um you
know I just was like so excited about
the idea that I had this visual thing
that I saw with my own eyes and now I
can stop time and capture it and and
show it to other people just kind of
like to me that was like the ultimate
form of of realism was like literally
showing you the photons basically that
affected this film um and so I I mean it
was I was 19 when I got my first digital
SLR at Canon 20D
and started shooting um and yeah I just
I I fell in love with it it became like
I got a job at a camera store and you
know basically all my extra money went
into buying everything that I could at
the time and I only worked there for
about exactly a year before I went into
pursuing photography full-time and I
basically was shooting weddings so that
I could travel and pay like you know
afford to be able to uh do some big
trips every year and and develop some
kind of you know portfolio of traveling
and not necessarily like not for you
know I guess Instagram wasn't much of a
thing at the time it's really just I
liked making big prints and having them
displayed and that kind of stuff and
pretty are you still a Canon guy you
still a Canon elitist no no no I I I
moved around I I did Sony for a bit I
still kind of shoot mostly Canon glass
but adapted to either
Sony lenses sorry like Canon lens look
at
you what do you think about the these
things that I'm using Sony a 74 great
it's great see yeah it's uh I've uh I've
been you know I Googled around just
trying to find a camera that can do
video and photography pretty well and
obviously going with just like generic
lens PR Prime I've resisted everything
my whole journey with these camera thing
I'm trying to figure stuff out is like
prime lenses seem so stupid so for Prime
Lin is like a fixed Zoom thing y it's
like why cuz I remember I was going to
like
Ukraine and thinking it's similar like
uh um yeah very similar to space flight
but you're very constrained because
you're going into an unknown environment
you going into a war zone you going into
a front you don't know what like you
don't know anything and there's like a
little suitcase you have to like see
figure out like how do you film this
what's what's robust um what gives you
like a good image versus a flexibility
versus the weight weight is important
there you have to think about like can
you really bring like a bunch zoom
lenses and all that kind of stuff so I
have to learn really quickly but yeah of
um it's a whole journey that you've
already been on but it's it's nice to
have a beginner like me like to explore
that I think there is
um there's a nice thing just I guess
we've been talking about with a
beginner's mind to um not let
equipment get in the way of like what
your vision is of what a thing should
look like yeah sometimes like especially
if you're a professional videographer
photographer C cinematographer whatever
you call it you can like fetishize
equipment too much you could get so much
equipment and I've interacted that
because I've been trying to learn from
other people that have so much more
experience than me I think their advice
is often
like uh very pushing a lot of equipment
versus like the final thing like how do
you create the art of it and like cuz to
me even photography is just like
storytelling and so like a lot of the
discussion to me that I enjoy uh
especially talking to creative people is
like the the the final story like how
and i' I've learned you know like light
light light is a weird thing like it's
so interesting it's so interesting how
you can create em motion with light mhm
like with a little you can take a like a
a phone and like you light your face in
different ways M and like it changes the
emotion oh yeah it's so
weird I'm like holy
shit cuz like that's the conversation I
want to have if people give me advice
how to light a scene and all that kind
of stuff it's great but the reality is
that a little bit of light in a
different direction that you have to
understand how that changes the Contour
on your face and everything and the
expression that your face can like the
the expression that could be effectively
communicated under under different
lighting conditions and then like the
mystery of like having some of your face
uh in darkness and some not uh when you
can only see the eyes and not the face
when the background is visible or not I
mean just the the yeah it's yeah it's
all just like this interesting art form
that's can be so powerful when you're
telling a story well and what's fun for
with me with photography and Rockets
they're both like the ultimate story of
compromise cuz when you start learning
about photography learn about you know
how the aperture affects both your
exposure but also your depth of field
higher shutter speed affects both your
exposure your depth of field how the you
know a medium format camera versus a
crop camera effects you know everything
is a compromise and price versus
performance you like there's always a
compromise you're always literally doing
like a trade study of what can I afford
What's My outcome like blah blah blah
blah blah how fast is the autof focus or
whatever same with rockets like there's
a million choices and every single one
of them affects every single thing so
there's always all these trades and it's
so cool you can see uh the same totally
different outcomes based on the same
like requirements you know like do X and
here's how we're going to do it and you
know two teams of people will come up
with wildly different things when did
you fall in love with Rockets So yeah so
the this the story kind of keeps going
for me so I was doing
s can't talk photography man we'll get
we'll go on a deeper rabit hole there so
um so it ended uh you know I'm through
all this doing a lot of weddings I was
already getting saturated and feeling
like I'm not being as creative you know
you can only shoot him so many weddings
before you're like well now we do this
pose this pose this pose you know even
if like they're amazing places like you
know in front of a castle in Germany or
something I'm still like well any end of
the day I'm I'm not being very creative
you know so I remember craving like some
some projects and so I was sitting at my
friend's coffee shop in my hometown in
Cedar Fall
side car coffee and I'm sitting on this
red couch and I see this article from I
think Gizmodo and it said you could own
the flight stick of an Apollo Command
Module and I knew enough to know what
that meant but that's really about the
end of my space knowledge and so I
clicked on it the clickbait got me like
I'm like oh yeah I'm GNA see if you know
and I see that the minimum bid was like
$250,000 I'm like okay no I can't own
the Apollo joystick you know but I got
me on this website called RR auction and
so I started scroll going through that
looking for things that hadn't been bit
on and they had like you know at the
time they're doing a huge space auction
and so I'm looking for things just out
of curiosity fun these are cool like
starting to really you know like I said
I liked space but I wasn't like in love
with it or anything but I I'm very just
seeing all this stuff like this is so
cool look at all this old history stuff
and ended up seeing a um there's an
article for a a
vmk 44 flight suit high altitude flight
suit that that came from the Soviet
Union and looks you know it's like a MIG
fighter jet fighter pilot suit very
similar to like the SR71 like kind of
pumpkin suit um pre semi- pressure suit
with a you know full helmet I mean it
full it looks like a space suit you know
for all intents and purposes it's kind
of like a spacit and I just bid on it
you know I bid like I think
$325 and next thing you know like it
arrives at my door yeah and from that
point on like literally I got it out I
immediately try to put it on and the
first thing that I do is almost die in
it because I closed the helmet down on
myself and locked it and didn't know how
to unlock it so I'm literally and so as
soon as I seal it up I'm realizing I
can't breathe I'm going to run out of
air so luckily like there's a hose you
know that kind of that long hose thing
that would normally plug into an Air
Supply had a little plug on the end of
it so I just unplugged it and was able
to temporarily breathe through the hose
until I figured out the the locking
mechanism so there was my almost that
was my mortality rate thing right there
so that was probably above a 98 below 9
you're there panicking inside yeah for a
few seconds already reading like my
premature obituary like idiot dies alone
in space suit in his living room you
know like just imagine yeah that would
be like Darwin Award for sure for sure
oh so um so I I get this space suit and
it kind of literally take my breath
[Laughter]
away you should feel bad for for that
one you you introduced Creed to me so
you should feel bad about that one Arms
Wide Open
yeah okay so um so I ended up like the
space Su kind of like more or less
haunted me because it kind of just it
sat in like my living room for a long
time and I didn't know what to do with
it and I actually had a friend who is
also a photographer wanted to do like a
a photo he was just kind of taking
pictures randomly like hey bring your
space suit over we'll do a picture like
all right you know I walk across the
street literally lived across the street
Taylor and I and I put the SPAC suit on
he took this funny picture and me like
this is awesome and I got a lot of like
fun out of like creating a character you
know of everyday astronaut or at at the
time I guess I didn't know an astronaut
and then that kind of just continued I
was like thinking of more and more funny
situations where I could have this
astronaut on earth doing mundane
everyday things and came up with the
name everyday astronaut and originally
it was just literally a photo project
like this whole art series of an
astronaut doing these things these funny
Whimsical you know Silly mundane things
but I was researching a lot about like
you know I was trying to hide Easter
eggs like I was going to hide in like
the you know the echo cardiogram of of
of Alan Shepard you know like his first
flight into space and photoshopping that
into pictures and like you know doing
all these little like facts about space
flight but there just hidden little
elements in these photos and man doing
that I just fell in love with it I just
was going over every little detail that
I could learning as I was just couldn't
stop learning and I was I was getting
excited because I was like I could be
teaching people about all this exciting
stuff and all the cool things people
figured out you know 40 years ago 50
years ago and was trying to portray that
through images on Instagram and you know
it it took me a little while but
eventually I realized you know on
Instagram your retention rate you're
lucky if you get like two seconds of
someone looking at an image you know or
maybe nowadays 60 seconds of a quick
little Instagram short or something but
um yeah I it doesn't give you a chance
to really teach to explore a little
topic that you felt like you felt the
Curiosity about thing there's so much to
learn here this is so beautiful there so
many opportunities to have a light bulb
go off for someone and be like this is
awesome and so uh yeah I think I I
started so at the by the end of 2016
like throughout 2016 I realized I want
to be done doing photography as a
profession and I want to pursue everyday
astronaut but I didn't know what it
meant yet I just knew like I had this
thing you know and at that time I'd been
doing it for roughly two years and had
you know seen I don't know like 50,000
Instagram followers or something I
thought like I can just be a full-time
influencer now you know like just go
around taking pictures of myself in a
spacit and doing public appearances and
write a children's book or something I
don't know I don't know what this thing
is I'll figure it out you know yeah and
so um it basically I gave myself like a
Runway of one year of 2017 of like I I'm
G to throw stuff at the wall and see
what sticks um so I was doing like
twitch streams I was playing Kerbal
Space Program uh which is like a a video
game like a physics-based rocket
building simulation game but it's also
like it's fun and silly cuz you're
you're not playing with like humans
you're playing with these little Kerbal
like little alien guys and it's fun and
silly um you know I was streaming that
on Twitch and doing things and and doing
posting some of those things onto
YouTube but finally like I said it
actually happened to be February 27th
2017 when SpaceX had that announcement
that they're flying someone around the
Moon that I'm I got to tell people about
this and stood there and made my first
like produced YouTube video and I didn't
want it to be over 3 minutes I was
afraid that'd be way too long for
YouTube
and I got it down to like I don't know 2
minutes and 40 seconds or something and
that video were you uh wearing the I was
wearing the the space suit Y and very
like horrible audio it looks like it was
color graded by a seven-year-old with a
tan marker or something like it just
looks terrible sounds horrible I'm
yelling no one's happy but but the video
you know did relatively well like I had
no followers on YouTube like I had you
know maybe 102 or something is the video
still up yeah yeah that's great to watch
so cringy and as it should be you know
your first video should be terrible if
it's not terrible then you spent too
long trying to make it yeah so um the
the thing that clicked for me is I had
very little audience and all of a sudden
that video kind of took off you know
relatively I think it got like 10,000 or
12,000 views and I was like holy crap
that's way more engagement than I would
have I'm famous now 10,000 people that's
almost my whole town first of all that
is kind of crazy like 10,000 people is
crazy it's crazy like if you if you had
500 people attend a thing that you do
that would be like like you're like a
rock star it's crazy is we lose
perspective I yeah we really lose
perspective very quickly very quickly so
I made another video um this one I spent
more time on and I I had before
photography actually I used to do like
wedding videography too so I had done My
Wo with videography and weddings and
stuff I hated video like I thought video
was the worst took so long to edit you
know I love photography it's like boom
you snap it boom post you're done in an
hour you know and video it's like this
whole cumbersome thing so I thought I'll
never do video and here I was making
this long what a the time seemed like a
long seven minute long YouTube video
about how the Falcon 9 lands and again
like that one I posted and actually it
did really bad and I was really upset
I'm like I spent two weeks on this
stupid video you know worked really hard
scripting and blah blah blah and then it
you know had like a thousand views or
something it did much worse than the
first video and I was so upset and I
kind of like was ready to keep throwing
more spaghetti at the wall to see what's
going to stick for everyday astronaut
and I think it was like a month or two
later I happened to like you know check
the analytics on YouTube and all a that
video like kind of yeah took off and it
got like 40 or 50 or 60,000 views or
something I was like no way and it just
kept you know that just honed in more
that like Okay YouTube will bring a
bigger like bring an audience to me as
opposed to like Instagram I had to find
and you know try to get the audience to
come to me and this was like they were
going to do the leg work so if I make
decent videos um and I realized like
really the the fun thing for me was
explaining a topic that was scary and
intimidating and try to make it you know
fun and engaging what were some of the
struggles of uh building up uh a YouTube
channel so for people who don't know
once again you have a YouTube channel uh
called everyday astronaut and has some
incredible videos on it so what was the
what was the some of the challenges and
the struggles in the early days
definitely like At first you're not
going to find your own voice and I know
like even you know Jimmy talked to you
about that like how your first video is
going to suck you don't you're not going
to be yourself you're going to be
nervous you're going to be you're not
going to know the tone the pace the the
things that are interesting and actually
originally I I had constraints I was
really worried about making a short
video because I thought there's no way
anyone's going to watch a three-minute
video and then a seven-minute video and
pretty quickly I realized like YouTube
as a whole was kind of changing but also
there's always that historic backbone of
like 22 minutes of programming for a 30
minute spot on TV like no one goes over
22 or 44 minutes you know if you have
the full hour special or whatever like
that is the absolute limit of what a
human being can watch you know basically
was what I thought yeah and slowly I
just kept playing and getting longer and
and actually more and more in depth into
the topics and instead of getting like
push back you know and being like this
is so boring I realized as long as like
as I was walking people through the
whole step you know giving them all the
context they need they're happy to get
as deep into the weed weeds as I can get
them and so that just kind of fed the
the snowball just kept rolling and I'm
like all right and you know before you
know what I'm making hourong videos like
an hour long is is more or less a normal
length on my channel for a for a
produced video and they're really really
in-depth but I love like that process of
of trying to preemptively kind of guess
what the questions might be and and you
know part of that is like we do like
script read throughs with like our
supporters and do like cuts of videos
and people a decent amount of people see
it before it goes public and I we get
those questions out of the way you know
we get those people asking the questions
and then I I I love nothing more than
trying to you know get all those
questions answered by the end of the
video a question about being a a a
Creator on YouTube there could be a
challenging psychological aspect to it
which is like you might invest a huge
amount of your effort into a thing and
it um doesn't receive much attention at
all and you know there's something about
YouTube and in general social media that
makes you feel really crappy about that
if you let it if you really look at the
numbers it's very very difficult not to
pay attention to that I mean that's the
reason why I turn off numbers on my um
on my interface for stuff that I've
created because I just see it having a
negative effect on your mind but even
then you still it still has an effect uh
the mean your uh your epic video
on the the history of Soviet Rockets
comes to mind and we'll talk about that
in a second but uh it's called people
should check it out uh the entire Soviet
rocket engine family tree so that's
something you've researched for two
years yeah right you put your heart and
soul into it there's a lot of passion
and there's aot there's a long journey
it's and I think about like an hour and
a half video
mhm um is there like uh is there
challenges is there
like how difficult is that to put so
much of yourself into a video
and it maybe not do so well yeah that
that's the that's the struggle for sure
honestly especially as like as we grow I
I try to make better and better videos
which means hiring more and more people
to do you know higher end animations and
spend more time editing and shooting and
scripting and just at but at the end of
the day like it still can't be just
losing money and I have videos that
definitely lose a lot of money because I
you know hire 3D artists and stuff
um and I I was so certain the the Soviet
rocket engine video I thought was just
purely going to be a passion project I
did I honestly was like if it ever
crosses a million I I it's a home run it
did it cross like a couple million now I
think it's a little over two wow which
is insane to me like I just really
thought this was more as something just
to put on the Shelf as a resource almost
for myself you know like just to kind of
have that knowledge bank and something
I've always wanted to straighten out in
my own head and and kind of know the
history a little bit better but come to
find out like it took a while you know
it's a slow turn well that's I remember
when I when you first released it and I
that's when I watched it I I remember
like this has so few views yeah I
remember being just
sad like I'm I was like sad about the
state of the world because I know how
much love you put into it how like how
much I don't know I I to me for some
reason that somehow would directly
connect to huge views but see you know
what made me sad is like
if you use a different thumbnail or a
different title that could affect the
popularity and then I just could imagine
the torment you're going through what if
I used a different thumbnail it's that
Jimmy uh the Mr Beast torment like just
a slightly different title uh or a
slightly different it could change
everything I have videos ironically the
last like I don't know five videos I've
produced are horribly flopping like some
of my worst videos I've ever made stally
the the interesting one is like the you
summarize Incredible video you
summarizing that people should go watch
about all the the awards video for 2022
like all the cool stuff that happened
2022 I remember that not being that
popular there's a few ones recently that
they're not that popular like riding in
a fighter jet I thought I thought that
was going to be easy like one or two
million I don't know if I've paid the
flights off to go there you know what I
mean like in that video it makes no
sense and Frank here's here's at the end
of the day I I realized like I have
lately especially the last like year or
two kind of disconnected from the that
aspect of it I'm super fortunate I have
very generous like patreon support and
people that can help me sustain to
produce people go support support Tim on
patreon well it's that but as you know
as a Creator like that is what keeps the
lights on it and makes it so it you know
I can go this deep like if I didn't have
that if I had to RI solely on like
YouTube ad Revenue I mean I would just
they'd be super for different videos I
wouldn't spend as much time researching
because i' just you know they just be
more glossed over it's like a hurry to
turn them out so I can keep the machine
going and I have this incredible freedom
to really dive into a topic like a video
that I've been working on now for almost
three months is how to start a rocket
engine and let me tell you it's not as
easy as one might think or I guess as it
is as difficult as you might think I
mean it's it's an insane topic and how
what do you mean by start you mean like
the ignition yeah like how do you
physically get them running you know
like there's all these you know the
valves and the if the turbine the
turbine you know that we were talking
about earlier like that has to run on
the pumps but it itself is powering the
pumps so how do you get that like
chicken and egg how do you get that
thing started you know there's tons of
it's so cool there's so many ways and so
for me you know that required reading a
lot and talking to people that know a
lot more than me um and just really
trying to make sure I understand enough
of it to explain it and try to weave a
narrative you know and so that video is
3 months in the making we're still
probably another two or 3 weeks out and
it's I don't expect I mean I think this
one will do relatively well you know but
in the grand scheme of YouTube like
still Child's Play you
know but I I I'm okay and I'm okay with
that I've I've I'm at that point
actually where I am okay with that it
still stings and I'm more worried about
just like can I continue to do it at
this quality and at this level if it's
losing money you know what I mean so
it's there is a trade-off and I am kind
of having to navigate that but but you
have it's sort of the
depth uh of the impact you have is um is
a is a thing that YouTube can't give you
numbers on but it's it's a really
important thing to sort of remember that
it's really not just about the YouTube
numbers or it's off for for people like
you that are
basically educating and revealing the
Brilliance in a technology that uh will
make humans a multiplanetary species and
give hope to millions of young minds
that will build that future I mean
that's a measurable that's not just the
views uh but you know it's um that's
really important to sort of remember as
you're creating it that's something I I
I I I try to think about as well so like
views um yeah and that and that becomes
more don't matter I realize that more
and more like every day you know the the
more the channel matures the more I
realized the importance of it as an
overall mission as opposed to like you
know in the first year or two it's a rat
race of of growth and of popularity and
all that kind of stuff you know and you
feel that you feel that it's it's a
driving force these days not so much
just because that will wear you out very
quickly so back to the Soviet rocket
video the epic video probably the most
epically researched video you've done I
it's like is it it's TR it's truly an
epic video uh so what uh again called
the entire Soviet rocket engine family
tree took you two years to research what
are some fascinating things you've
learned about the history of Rocket
engines in the Soviet Union and in
general um through a process of making
that
video the the coolest thing to me is how
it's this weird blend for the the Soviet
Union went through a an insane iteration
process and made so many engines like I
didn't even touch you know any like
maneuvering thrusters or missile engines
like I only really dealt with main
propulsion engines on orbital rockets
and there's still way too many to talk
about I mean it's still dozens and
dozens of engines and I I could have
gone deeper into this which is hilarious
um they iterated so much made a new
engine for just at the drop of a
hat yet they still also like did Super
primitive things you know they they
physically are still today lighting the
main combustion chambers of the soyou
engines of the Rd 107 and RD 108 with
essentially match sticks like they
literally stick a t shaped thing up into
the chamber and have a a pyrotechnic in
in the in it that ignites the actual
propellant in the combustion chamber
it's not the most elegant solution in
the world yeah they're still using that
so they went from like the whole
spectrum of like it's a the mixture of
like make it better faster harder
stronger good all the way around to also
if it ain't broke don't fix it it's like
it employs all of the above so it's like
it's uh a lot of innovation but also
they use duct tape it's like all of it
together yes aund that's exactly like
that's exactly the way to put it and and
they did things that are insane they
developed a full flow stage combustion
cycle engine this engine had it been
used I mean it would have put the F it
was same relative size as the F1 engine
on the Saturn 5 like in that same
category way up there of like you know
6.7 uh like Mega Newtons of thrust or
something around and then the F1 is like
seven or something it's it's
huge yet way more complicated way more
efficient way just better engine in that
sense as far as far as performance goes
yet it never flew it never left the
stand you know they they' never built
the rocket around it the N1 which was
the you know the most powerful rocket to
have flown so far to date um like it
never made it through its first stage
burn it all four attempts failed
spectacularly and yet it had so much
technology on it that was still
unrivaled today almost like finally now
we're beating it the nk-33 that they
developed for that rocket like finally
today we're to the point of like having
better engines than they built in the
60s yeah what stands out to you uh from
the N1 family of Rocket engines well
it's interesting because the N1 was the
ketov design Bureau and he was actually
an aircraft manufacturer so he's one of
the first people outside of kind of the
the missile and rocket program you know
we had all these other uh Big Wigs kind
of in the other oks that were developing
missiles and Rockets and then all of a
sudden here comes uh Nikolai ketov who
um had never developed a rocket engine
and so his first attempt at Rocket
engines was the NK series The nk15 nk-33
and they were amazing they were
brilliant they were these wonderful
closed cycle oxygen rich engines um that
were that were awesome they were awesome
engines and that were you know because
I I love that because he his direct um
boss he since he wasn't necessarily in
the in the Aerospace you know in the I
guess the rocket missile defense World
um he didn't have to uh at the fall of
the Soviet Union he didn't have to give
away all of his things to the same
people as the other people so he hid you
know like 80 of his engines in a hanger
and uh and then we still literally used
them in the United States we used allog
together I think it was like eight or 10
of them um um repurpose them as they're
called AJ 26s in the United States but
like we still were flying Soviet rocket
engines in the
2000s because they were better than
engines we are building today like
that's to me that's my favorite fact
about the N1 rocket that they're still
that good that that they were the the
best choice for at the time uh orbital
Sciences some of the culture that um
engineering has led to these things that
still work it's incredible yeah uh you
said that the Rd 171 is one of the
coolest engines ever made why is that
yeah so one of the fun things about the
Soviet engines is it'll look like mult a
lot of their engines look like multiple
engines because you see multiple nozzles
you see multiple combustion Chambers and
you'd think well obviously you know the
nozzle is the engine right but what they
actually would do the the real the real
heart and the real power of the rocket
engine actually comes from the turbo
pumps comes from the the pumps
themselves and you know as we talked
about earlier that that includes the
turbine and and the actual um pumps that
flow the propellant into the into the
chambers and so the Soviet Union was
incredible at at developing these closed
cycle high-powered turbo pumps but if
you try to scale the combustion chamber
too big um you end up with what's called
um combustion instability you're you're
having you have such a a large surface
area of crazy flames you know and and
combustion happening they can get these
weird pockets and oscillations and
frequencies and and they just couldn't
make big combustion Chambers they never
figured it out they never quite well
they they did actually kind of figured
out but they they didn't like it so they
ended up just shrinking down and having
small combustion Chambers and just
sending splitting the pipes basically
instead of one fuel pump going into or
one pipe going into one combustion
chamber and one oxidizer P pipe going
into one combustion chamber they'd split
it off into two or four engine into two
or four combustion Chambers and kind of
spread that work around so they didn't
experience this combustion inst
stability so the Rd 171 is like still to
date the most powerful rocket engine
ever built the turbo pump is insane I
don't even remember how many you know
like 200,000 horsepower or something
comes out of that turbo pump in order to
flow the amount of propellant necessary
at those rates and at those pressures
into the combustion chamber so it has
four chambers and it's just it's just an
absolute Marvel of engineering and yeah
and then the cool thing too is
specifically with the R1 71 it's engine
all four of those nozzles can actually
pivot and and rotate and I just now as
I'm explaining this realized that has to
mean that they
have joints like flexible joints in the
high press pump lines in order to like I
never I'm this is the realization I'm
having right now because normally you
put the gimbal above the turbo pump like
the the the mount where the engine
swivels so that you have low pressure
coming from the tanks into the pumps and
then you just have a straight you know
fixed pipe flowing into the engine so
you don't have to bend that pipe and
have it be dynamic if they had the four
chambers moving independently from each
other that means those four chambers all
had to have a flexible High Press pipe
going which I don't even I don't know if
that's why am I just now realizing this
yeah so so there's engineering
challenges with
that I I never even thought that was a
thing you would ever could do honestly I
would I got to look into why and how and
what yeah I wonder why that design
decision was made so the easier thing to
do normally is you would keep those
nozzles fixed then then a fixed like say
the the so use engine the Rd 107 and 108
they have a fixed main combustion
Chambers and they and they use these
little verer or some people got mad at
me for saying verer and Verner engines
that swivel themselves and those provide
your your Control Authority so that the
main chamers stay fixed and then you get
your your roll and your pitch and your
yaw out of auxiliary thrusters uh by the
way did did you get anything wrong in
that video that people told you about
yeah I a few things yep um first off we
had a graphic error where we actually
you know we copied and pasted a lot of
our like after effects projects so our
nuclear engines one of them on screen
says that it runs on rp1 it does not has
basically all the wrong stats we just
didn't catch it in the edit you know
that we literally copy and paste it and
I say it right on screen but the like in
the voiceover but on screen it's wrong
the other thing and I'm excited to ask
you about this uh oh I watched and and I
spoke with a lot of uh Russians speaking
individuals we had a lot of research
assistants that were reading and blah
blah blah I tried really hard to learn
how to pronounce Sergey cor corio's
name and I'm still gonna say it wrong no
matter what but I my understanding yes
and from listening to native speakers is
closer to krov than it is corv yeah
definitely Sergey pavich corov see I
I'll will never say it that perfectly
but I I know it's not just corv I mean
the the the English translation of it
likely I should have just said cor 11
and said I'm saying it the dumb America
way but but you roll your heart
comad okay excellent so uh oh let me
just ask you in a difference in in the
culture because youve researched so many
Rockets from so many different eras the
set five and just everything you're
seeing now are there some interesting
differences especially when you look at
the space race between um the
Soviet rocket engineers and efforts
versus the
American the there's I mean there's
definitely huge huge cultural changes
and the the fun thing is that they kind
of spawned from the same they have the
same starting Place both you know the
Soviet rocket engines and Americans all
came from the Nazi V2 rocket and the A4
engine literally physically spawned from
that because at the fall of you know at
the end of World War II we took a
handful of German scientists and the
Soviets took a handful of German
scientists and they both got their own a
little bit some blueprints here and
there and the other's got some blue so
we literally have the same it's a weird
thing where we're starting from the same
like thing and letting two uh uh two
Divergent you know Divergent paths go
crazy on their own development so it's
really fun to see the cultural
differences one of the things the United
States did is they really would kind of
take an
engine and and just perfect it more or
less and then and not really that much
like they they I don't know and I don't
know why I actually need to do a history
lesson on all of the US Engines but it's
literally like uh as far as orbital
class engines before now I it's like a
dozen or two you know it's it's it's a
tenth the amount of the Soviets and the
Soviets just literally made up a new
engine every time they had a new like
they went uh and it was like a
completely different engine yeah so I
just yeah I wonder if there's some
aspect to the culture I don't want to
overstate it but uh there is more of a
safety culture I think in uh the United
States and I think if you care about
safety or rather like you
have uh you're more risk averse so you
care about safety more about the value
of human life and the risk taken there
that you will iterate less so I think
the Soviets especially in the early
aspect of the program I don't want to
overstate this is um some of it is just
um through stories just anecdotes they
are more willing to take risks yeah
risks with human life risks with
spacecraft for example the first uh
orbital space flights from the Soviet
Union the the Cosmonaut had to eject out
of the capsule and parachute to a
landing yes that's not very well like
known and it wasn't they hid that even
from history as as best they could at
first because they were slightly as
shame that they couldn't have a full
recovery system with their spacecraft
they could physically recover it but
they wouldn't have been able to recover
the cosm in one piece so instead they
had them just eject out of the thing and
parachute to safety like that's insane
and so there definitely was some some
extra risks and but also a freedom to
just like push things to the limits and
try everything you know they threw EV
all the spaghetti on the wall it's funny
that most people probably don't even
know the first person in the space in
America and obviously everybody knows
that in uh the it's it's like
um it's it's kind of interesting
how the space race and even World War II
even like the history books you ask most
Americans they think that America won
World War II like without America like
they the the real heroes of World War II
is America you ask uh British people
they say and and everybody has a pretty
good justification like without Britain
without
Churchill there Hitler would have taken
over the world and I think probably the
strongest case is the Soviet Union case
that they're the ones that won the war
the reason it's the strongest case is
where most of the fighting happened most
of the death happened most of like most
of the destruction but everyone has
their perspective and certainly on the
Space Race you know the great
accomplishment is the first man on the
moon us perspective yeah I was going to
say and then Yuri gagaran from the
Russian perspective like first man in
base and that I think still persist and
some of that in healthy forms is
probably constructive to a little bit of
competition is pushes all the all the
great scientists on each side uh but
anyway what do you think
about this uh yur gagaran mission of the
first human in space and the VTO mission
in 1961 just in general when you when
you look back at that time leading to
the the the the first man on the moon
yeah April 12th 1961 Yu's night baby
that's uh yeah it's it's insane what's
insane to me is is the first person in
space didn't just go to space he went
into orbit you know urar flew around the
Earth in orbit and re-entered that's a a
Monumental task compared to suborbital
so the United States did um two
suborbital flights in that same year I
believe in that same year at least I'm
pretty sure in 1961 they flew for the
first time orbitally in 1962 they
weren't terribly far behind to get a
human into orbit like in the grand
scheme of things you know 10 months
difference but at the same time like the
fact that Soviet Union just went
straight to Flying someone into orbit is
Monumental and I'm sure they did not do
excessive uh rigorous testing here
because there is a space race and you
have the first is important just imagine
being
Yuri what do he say when they're like
launching him like let's go or something
like uh I mean you're taking uh we're
talking about you being on Starship like
you're taking a pretty big risk being
launched out into orbit oh hopefully a
lot less risk than what Yuri went
through so Yuri's Yuri the the crazy
thing remember the those match sticks we
talked about yeah you know there's
there's 20 Main combustion Chambers on
soyu and there's for and 12 more verer
engines that all need to be lit so
you're right you're sitting on top of
this this booster and they light all of
those 32 combustion Chambers on the
ground and then it has this insane
separation process between what the
Soviet Union would call the first stage
and the second stages but we would call
it like the core stage and the boosters
um they all four these boosters have to
peel away perfectly from the core stage
simultaneously you know if one of them
sticks on Mission failed if one of them
doesn't eject properly and drags into
the other tank you know you're it's it's
it's a goner so the the staging process
of of the soy is is in theane to me that
that that ended up working
out it's just the the technology in so I
mean more or less that same rocket is
what still flying
humans that are cosmonauts from you know
Ros Kosmos and going to the
International Space Station are flying
on a variant of that so's rocket still
today it's still like that big of a
Workhorse what do you think about Ros
Kosmos as it stands today uh it's
history and its future
in U comparison to NASA and other
National efforts and in comparison to
commercial space flight yeah I mean
utmost respect for the engineers
involved and you everything that's
happened I think aurash is like still
some of the one of the greatest engine
manufactures when they have the funding
to do so but man it seems like they're
they're falling from Grace as far as uh
space prowess you know the Ros Cosmos
went from having I think they got very
comfortable at the top of you know from
2011 until 20 until 2022 or until 2020
they were the only ride to the
International Space Station since then
like in it started I feel like in
2018 honestly I think that's kind of
when things that's the first time I I
specifically remember a pretty nasty
like thing happened in 2018 I think it
was uh a soy mission to the
International Space Station had one of
the boosters not detach and had to have
an abort but you know that that happened
then all of a sudden next thing you know
there's a progress being docked to the
ISS a couple years ago that spun the ISS
cartwheeled the ISS out of control
followed a few months later the piers
module docks to the International Space
Station spiral Z International Space
Station aut of control again with like a
Thruster getting fixed on there's a hole
in in Russian segment uh there's well I
think the most recent one right now
there's a soou dock to the ISS that has
a puncture in it and it's leaking
coolant and will not be returning humans
on it so they're actually having to fly
up in uncrewed soyu um and that one
likely wasn't a manufacturing era
probably was like a micr meteorite
puncture rendering the spacecraft
unusable we don't know for sure yet um
but it's just really been like this fall
from grace where where it they have they
have all the poent potential they have
some of the best engines some of the the
best rockets and especially like right
before the collapse of the Soviet Union
the the Bron uh shuttle and the energia
rocket were incredible had they been
able to evolve that into Bron 2 and the
reusable energia they they had a
reusable energia on the drawing board
and like I honestly fully think they
could have done it is it possible to
return to a place where there is
friendly competition between nations
that ultimately
um unites and inspires the peoples of
these different worlds these very
different worlds that have especially
recently uh come to conflict over the
over the war in Ukraine the tension
builds uh the war the conflict the
suffering is actually creating more and
more division creating more and more
hate I think as we've talked about I
think science and engineering and
especially the most epic version of
engineering which is uh rocketry and
space travel unites people um unites
people even in a time of tension
conflict and War so do you have a hope
that we can return to that place I think
historically space flight has been one
of the most bonding things you know we
look at we have countless examples of
you know Cold War enemies coming
together and working together lending a
hand um Apollo 13 for example of course
you know there is the potential that who
knew where it was going to re-enter
since it was not in the plan trajectory
at all for re-entry and the Soviet Union
said hey wherever you know wherever they
land like we'll help you guys out
basically you know and that was a pretty
big thing at the time obviously um we
also in 1975 saw the Apollo soyuz
Mission which was an Apollo spacecraft
docking with the soyu spacecraft first
time there's International collaboration
and again 1975 still very admidst the
Cold War yet we have this collaboration
um that I don't know what else could
have done that you know I mean and think
about what it actually takes to do that
you have to come up with a a docking
module that is you you know like that
takes the two different air environments
and the two different docking systems
and talk to the engineers and Mission
planners and figure out you know trained
together the the cosmin Nots and the
astronauts trained together and got to
know each other they were crossing
boundaries and borders and coming
together for this Mission and even if it
was totally a Fluff piece like even if
it was totally this like you know
cynical you know just trying to make a
pretty face for everybody for the for
the cameras or something obviously it's
still had an impact yeah the symbolic
impact but there's also the Practical
impact I mean a lot of people have to
work together yes and that and that has
a ripple effect on the culture on the
different
Engineers uh 100% and even just the the
the astronauts and the cosmonauts
involved like think about what what
probably went through their heads during
this process of like going from oh my
God I'm going to have to work with them
to getting to know them and then sharing
meals in space like that's a crazy
transformation of of timelines and I
would love I I I do think that space
flight has the the ability to to bond us
and unite us because it is ultimately
you know this little tiny little planet
we're floating around on you know it's
the only it is the bound that we all
share you know you only can you it only
takes you getting off this planet to
realize oh my God we're all neighbors
we're all living in the same house
together and I I do think ultimately you
know as we continue to uh expand our
Horizons and expand our exploration that
it it has the potential to to unite us
more than than it has the potential to
divide us so one of the potential
conflicts of the 21st century that I
think everyone wants to avoid both in
the cyber space and then the hot War
space Cold War Hot War all kinds of War
all kinds of economic conflict is with
between the United States and
China so China is going full steam ahead
in developing a space program uh doing a
lot of incredible work like you
mentioned uh 64 launches in
2022 uh with two
failures but you know Moving Straight
Ahead uh and by the way we had a lot of
startups like a lot of the launches were
from brand new companies so to have two
failures out of 64 I mean that's still
an impr if you look at operational
launches it was
Flawless do you see a
pathway where there's again in that same
way
collaboration or friendly competition
between all the different uh companies
and nations of the United States and
China in the in the next as we push
towards the moon uh Mars and Beyond I
held a dumb hope that China would
actually be allowed to sign onto the
Artemis Accord to be able to take part
in this next step towards the moon I
just imagine if like if they provided a
you know a propulsion module or a Lander
or something and we actually came
together to land on the Moon instead of
having another space race you know it's
like it would have been so cool
and yeah I I still am hopeful that
similar to to back in the Cold War or
that we might have something like that
someday where we actually are
collaborating and it feels like
sometimes we're really close to that and
then other times it feels like we're
really far from that and it it just
sucks because I know and you know I try
really hard on my channel to to always
separate and celebrate the work being
done you know because at the end of the
day there's someone that's just going
home to their family clocking an hour is
working really hard on on pushing their
program and and and doing engineering
work you know and it's uh we don't get
to choose where we're born and what
we're born into too um so I I really
like to avoid you know the the political
aspects of things and the geopolitical
aspects and just appreciate the science
and the the science we're seeing and the
the progress that China is doing in the
last 10 years is is very akin to the you
know early space flight programs and and
with the runway of like just going keep
on going like I see no reason for them
to be slowing down so it's it's
definitely something to watch and and be
interested in and who know I mean there
really genuinely might be a race to the
moon again and and there really
genuinely might be a race to
Mars the part of me is excited about
that cuz a race is is pretty cool it's
uh but they hopefully it's friendly
competition and some collaboration it is
true that uh maybe I'm being a bit
cynical but
Nations sometimes governments and
leaders of those governments sometimes
ruin things like you don't often have
like statistic Ally speaking it's harder
to have a leader of a nation that looks
beyond the political the particular
political bickering of that nation and
you have like a JFK type character that
really steps up and inspires I think
statistically speaking it's better to
have somebody like Elon who's a leader
of a company a commercial effort that is
able to look beyond the borders of
Nations and uh certainly inspiring
Educators like yourself uh to look
beyond the borders of those Nation and
the geopolitical conflicts and so on to
uh to inspire the to inspire people I
think that's just made so much easier
like you can have more
reach uh Tim Tim DOD can have more reach
than NASA right like in terms of
inspiring the world and that's
fascinating like that that gives power
to the individuals that see past the
this the silly short-term geopolitical
conflicts yeah that's the hope at least
um yeah
do you worry that there might be a war
in space yeah let's let's look let's
look out into the future so forget so so
the interesting thing about these
Rockets right let's not forget Rockets
uh do what Rockets do that they can
carry payloads that uh can be
weapons um do you worry about this I
worry most about space wars as leading
to the kler Slender of having a
cascading effect of like a a spacecraft
blowing up and then affecting another
spacecraft and that blows up and then
all of a sudden you're trapped and have
this debris Cloud that we can't you know
go we can't go into space anymore like
that's my biggest because frankly at
this point we we could annihilate
ourselves with terrestrial stuff anyway
you know what I mean we don't need space
to to to end society as we know it you
know what I mean um but we do we could
really and I the the good thing is I
think everyone well mostly everyone
seems to understand this for the most
part that like we really can't be
risking blowing up stuff in space in in
low earth orbit because it could easily
like we could straand ourselves from
space assets for 50 years if oh can you
elaborate on that so like what is the
danger of the debris there that uh could
jeopardize access to space so for
instance in it was only a couple years
ago Russia did a an anti-satellite test
on a on an orbital there's a we've done
this to us has done this like I'm not
pinning it on them but we kind of know
nowadays like don't do anti-satellite
tests on orbital things because those
things stay in orbit you know when you
blow something up in space it's not like
you know people think you know when in
in space like oh you throw something
it's just going to keep going forever
and ever and ever yeah I mean that's in
the in the sense that it's not going to
be slowed down due to you know due to
air resistance it's going to continue to
do that but it's staying in orbit around
the Earth like you just slightly change
the orbit of it around earth when you
throw a ball or something you know so
the scary thing is when you blow up a
satellite all those pieces of that
satellite are
now millions of bullets in a halo around
the Earth in a very specific Halo you
know so some things get blown up uh
faster you know in according to its
orbit faster so they'll go a little bit
higher elliptically some things will get
slow down in that explosion and actually
re-enter some things will go sideways
and change its inclination of that orbit
so you have this debris field but it
more or less becomes a band of like no
no you know like a big
scary sharp scary bullets that can
destroy another spacecraft and so then
all of a sudden especially now star
linking we're talking about thousands
and thousands and thousands of
satellites in space if all of a sudden
one you know a couple of them crash and
and you know blow up and all a sudden
you have all the shrapnel going
everywhere and then that hits another
satellite that creates shrapnel you can
literally blanket our entire low earth
orbit in 17,500 mph
bullets you know we're talking that the
the K the kinetic energy in this is so
hard for people to Fathom because that
you know that's over 10 times faster
than most like rifle bullets and even
like a a big 50 cal is not going to be
you know we're still talking about about
10% that so when you think about the
kinetic energy it's insane so a Fleck of
paint can go through canes of glass mhm
at that velocity you know a a little
piece of metal can puncture you know
blow straight
through so
like so our actions that seem small so
small scale military
actions can have uh can have dire
detrimental effects to the whole Space
Program like Global Space Program oh
yeah it can affect everything in
everyone including the like including
satellites oh yeah especially satellites
like that's the well I mean the the good
and the bad thing is the good thing is a
lot of satellites don't operate in low
earth orbit like a lot of uh the the
ones that we use day-to-day a lot of
them are in medium earth orbit like if
they're GPS or they're
geostationary uh which are way way way
out there and because of that they they
won't really ever deorbit or like it'll
take you know Millennia to deorbit
because the you know just because
something's in space doesn't mean it's
it's there forever especially like in
low earth orbit the atmosphere doesn't
just suddenly stop it's not like you hit
the Caron line 100 kmers and all of a
sudden there's zero atmosphere the
atmosphere just slowly tapers you know
you can experience that yourself as you
climb a mountain you slowly realize
there's less and less air you just keep
going and just because you're in space
200 300 kmers up there's still Trace
molecules you know there's the
occasional oxygen molecule there's the
occasional nitrogen molecule and so that
is actually drag so as a spacecraft in
lower orbit depending on its altitude
will take anywhere from 5 years to 5
months to deorbit you know or two months
or one month like depending on its orbit
or its altitude we'll have some
parasitic drag still and slowly
throughout time slow down which lowers
its orbit which drags it down more
lowers its orbit and etc etc until it
re-enters so if we end up with uh some
kind of catastrophic event where the
entire low earth orbit is you know has
been initated and blown up it'll take
months for the first band you know to
clear up it'll take years for something
like Beyond there's charts you know
people have all this stuff available you
shouldn't look it up this terrifying by
the way this is really the but again the
caveat is for the most part the lower
orbit stuff would clear up within years
so it could get back to doing some lore
with it like starlink stuff would
probably be able to be re and you know
we could kind of redo it and build up
from the ground up again GPS wouldn't be
wiped out and our geostationary
satellites wouldn't be wiped out but the
scary thing is we wouldn't be able to
relaunch and replace new things it's
because we're stuck we we're not going
to fly through that debris field you
know and we avoid that by avoiding
military actions in space and these days
like there's more and more uh
requirements and and legislation and and
especially trying to get International
collaboration on having end of life
plans for satellites so that satellites
especially those in low earth orbit have
like drag devices to increase the once
they're done they literally pull like
even just a ribbon like a silly little
like you know 40 foot long ribbon will
sit there and it'll slowly you or it can
speed up its re-entry process by months
or years or whatever so we're starting
to see that this is now in importance
there's a a really cool company called
Stoke Aerospace out in Washington is one
of these launch provisor providers
that's really looking not into just
trying to be the next you know SpaceX
launch company they're really seeing
satellite uh bringing stuff down from
space as actually being especially right
now we have all of these hundreds and
thousands of satellites being launched
every year someone at some point is
probably going to have to do some
cleanup and so they're looking at at
being one of those companies to do that
uh what do you think about
starlink and the efforts of starlink to
put a very large number of
satellites out there and provide
internet access to uh to Earth anyone to
anyone generally I think starlink is
phenomenal and I would be saying this if
it was any company I want to make that
clear that people think I'm just some
you know SpaceX Fanboy or something and
everything they do is perfect I think I
think as you're a fan I could say you're
basically a fan a fanboy or just a fan
of everybody that's doing space stuff
and I don't like there's no even in this
whole conversation there's no way we
cover like 10% of what I wanted to talk
to you about so we're jumping around I
mean there's we could talk probably for
another an hour about emis uh we could
we could talk about anything with Ula
obviously the all the other all the
other commercial efforts we could talk
about the NASA efforts the you know the
I mean and saturni like are we going to
really go this conversation not talking
about saturni and we might okay so like
anyway you're a fan of everything
Starling is in general exciting to you
and not for the space assets but just
the potential for Humanity like I I
really think even as a consumer of the
internet personally our studio space
down in Texas we're stuck with with
MediaCom which has like the least reli
internet service period That's the only
option either that or they're trying to
charge me like $20,000 to run a fiber op
cable like a th000 meters or something
like it's it's insane I'm not going to
do that I bought starlink it helps but
it's still not you know amazing but it
has you can see where this is going in a
year two three five years they're like
oh I can totally screw the cell internet
provider and this is now by far the best
option and it's available literally
anywhere you don't have to be limited to
your internet local internet service
provider
um and and on the global scale of course
you have you know people being able to
learn and learn about Rockets learn
about uh water management and
architecture and City Planning and
fitness and health all of the all of the
modern conveniences that we Google every
single day there's people that don't
have access to that right now you know I
I'm a self-taught rocket nerd I would
not be who I am if it wasn't for the
internet in the last seven years you
know six seven years so unlocking the
intellect ual potential of places like
Africa of of rural areas that don't
currently have internet access um that's
a genuine that's a huge thing that's
like humanitarian 101 is give people
access to information and you like you
know I think we have this uh potential
to try to step in and and fix other
people's problems but the reality is
like people are smart no matter where
you are you give them the resources to
learn they're going to solve problems
they're going to problem solve they're
going to engineer they're going to but
if you don't give them access to that
information they're going to be stuck in
their in their Cycles you know and so I
I think the potential for starlink is
incredible I think it's already
impactful it's already
affecting people in you know in Rural
and Indigenous areas and it's already
affecting businesses and all that stuff
I think it's great I think it is you
know there's some downsides with
astronomy with with groundbased
astronomy that it can hinder uh
observations from the ground um there's
already a lot of communications between
SpaceX and um astronomical societies and
things like that because it is a real
concern you know it's it can ruin
observations it can ruin data um but
like one of the big ones for instance
recently I think a new thing they're
going to be working into is that
currently if a starlink is flying over
um over a groundbased asset a lot of a
lot of ground telescopes actually have a
laser that goes up and it measures the
atmospheric Distortion and the
telescopes literally sit there and like
by the millisecond fixes like changes
the focus and fixes those atmospheric
distortions M and that laser um Can
interfere with satellites so previously
I I'm pretty sure uh that SpaceX
actually had to you know request that as
they're flying over these satellites
they or these telescopes they turn off
the laser MH and when you have tens of
thousands of these things flying it's
you're going to be turning off the laser
more than it's on you know and just
being this insanely inconen V thing
because you're going to have these
Junctions happen often and I think one
of the things that SpaceX is like okay
no no no you guys keep the laser on
we'll deal with your laser um good good
step you know things like that
mitigating the brightness of them so
they're not visible uh under most
conditions of course like there's still
always going to be visible in some um
but then the ultimately for me it's like
this you have this weird like almost
like a puberty of space flight and and
astronomy where currently it's not cheap
enough to really do a ton of incredible
science or space-based telescopes you
know we have web we have Hubble we have
uh you know all these other you know
awesome space-based telescopes um
Chandra you know all etc etc whatever
and you uh but it's still so expensive
to launch them yeah that we're still so
reliant on our ground telescopes but in
the future you can see a world where oh
this is so cheap we'll just launch like
we can launch 50 James web Space
Telescope size telescop sces this year
for half the price of doing it on Earth
you know and get way better data so in
the future I think in 20 30 years we'll
look at it and be like oh man that was
an awkward time where space assets were
interfering with astronomy but I think
in the future it's like can you imagine
doing space you know astronomy from the
ground that's insane you know there
could be complexities to just having
that many uh just another topic so
complexity is associated with having so
many
satellites uh especially with competing
companies and competing Nations
do you see that as an issue having tens
of thousands hundreds of thousands of
satellites yeah it becomes a very
interesting robotics collision avoidance
problem the the one thing to keep in
mind is perspective like I know 10,000
satellites and 20,000 and 100,000
satellites sounds insane and it sounds
really scary but I mean just even look
at how many planes are in the air at any
given time and the planes are are bigger
they're flying slower which actually
means there's a greater chance of
collision if you think about you know
two objects
occupying space if they're one's moving
really fast like imagine trying to you
know throw two basketballs at each other
relatively easy now try shooting two
bullets at each other and have like you
know at 90 degrees from each other you
have to have your timing down like
really perfect to do that now take that
times 10 you know and these objects are
taking up a physical space very small
amount of time they're relatively small
like most satellites are not very big
and they have in Limitless altitudes to
deal with so even though you can have
what look like convergences you know
they can be 10 20 50 100 kilm difference
often and and you know they're dealing
with this like all the the all space
assets know hey I'm at this orbital
plane and this blah blah blah blah and
they know their altitudes and know their
safe distances and have these margins
built in and it's space so there's like
an insane amount of room you know so
there's there's a lot of margin there's
a lot of margin but of course you can't
excuse that all the way like you have to
still have plans and and be considering
that and considering collisions and
consider in all of the
above when do you think the first human
being will step foot on
Mars I you don't like timelines but is
this something and you're very much
focused on kind of the short term of uh
incredible progress that's happening and
that makes total sense but there is the
Mars plan that that was it the origin of
the commercial space flight efforts um
do you still see and dream about that
day let me be clear that I don't want to
go to Mars but um I do think if you're
if you're making me guess a timeline for
when humans will walk on Mars I even a
year ago I still would have said by the
end of 2020 like the 2020s decade you
know um so by December 31st 2029 I
thought humans would have walked on mars
I'm starting to
think that's still too optimistic but I
do I I definitely think by 2040 like I I
for sure think that I and I really think
it's it's just hard to predict that
curve you know that that project out
that curve we're going to go from
feeling like it's impossible to like
it's feeling like it's inable you know
it could be another by the end of this
decade JFK T moment especially if China
steps up with a space race yeah it could
be like uh all right NASA NASA kind of
says all right this Elon fella like
really make this a gigantic effort well
and if Starship works out as planned and
as as NASA has invested in human Landing
system they're relying on SpaceX to land
on the moon SpaceX can land on the moon
they can land on Mars now whether or not
the life support and the human
considerations of of long-term space
flight missions and high radiation and
blah blah blah blah blah refueling on
Mars is a huge huge huge deal they
definitely could send a Starship to Mars
um and land ideally land in one piece on
Mars as soon as they can land on the
moon they can land on Mars basically I
mean those two things are very
in some ways Mars is almost easier if
you can use because you can use the
atmosphere to slow down it actually
doesn't take that much more Delta V to
actually land on Mars and it does
because on the moon you don't have any
you have to first get out to the Moon
then orbit the Moon you know you have to
slow down every one of those is a
maneuver change then you have to lower
your orbit until it coincides you know
hits the moon then you have to slow down
enough to not explode when you hit the
moon so there's a lot of Delta V there a
lot of change in velocity um Mars is is
actually by the time you kind of crunch
the numbers it's it's relatively similar
it's just a lot more difficult like
timeline wise and you know accuracy and
all of these other communication you
know there's a lot of other things
obviously involved I'm glossing over it
making it sound easy it's not but um but
you know I I think if I I think there's
a real decent chance we could see see a
Starship vehicle land on Mars uncrewed
by the end of the decade though end of
the decade I mean there's also a
sociological element maybe a political
one where I think you're allowed to take
more risks with Mars than you are with
the moon because we've done the moon
1969 yeah it's been a while so PR wise
you have to be much safer yeah with Mars
like everyone's like it's super
dangerous like super like so you could
take a little more risk especially with
uh W with man missions but actually just
uh going back to the moonlanding Apollo
11 Mission we haven't talked about this
at we the the the amazing engine there
but the again the Romantic question when
you look back at that Moon landing
um one small step for man one giant step
for mankind uh what do you think about
that moment in human history do you do
you go back to that often or are you
focused just like with the cars on the
on the engines no no no I I I I still
when I need inspiration I rewatched this
documentary called um when we left Earth
I think it was like a I think it was
Discovery Channel did it six-part
episode uh it it was narrated by Gary
sise phenomenal overview of the Space
Race and that will get my juices flowing
every time every time just it's so well
done and it's it really just summarizes
that program so well and when I and and
Beyond it goes all the way to the Space
Shuttle but um yeah when I when I watch
footage of humans walking on the moon
it's just I can't believe we are dumb
enough to do it with the technology we
had
and the risks they took to do it and the
insane engineering that it took to do
that is just absolutely astonishing the
the amount of the sheer like Logistics
of what it took to do it with the the
technology we had back then is like how
did we have so much money and effort and
energy and time and resources human
resources to do this like it's just just
the weakness of the computers they had
back then they have to do so much I mean
yeah it's so much was so little it's
insane and but at the same time like I
don't know if we want to talk about
conspiracy theories or anything but like
it is all of like we have the proof and
the pudding of like the 400,000 people
on payroll like all of the paperwork all
of the Oh you mean the the question the
conspiracy if we land on the Moon Yeah
like well I mean I I think the receipts
are there like literally we did but it's
like a lot of things like that
I mean we actually generally live in a
in a pretty cynical time where people
distrust institutions part of the thing
with the space program is one of the
things that can help reinvigorate the
Trust In institutions by institutions
even that word is a bad word now but
institutions means a bunch of humans get
together and do big thing together yeah
um yeah but you know like if I was
conspirator minded It's like how the the
hell did humans do that yeah so I I
think that's a very cynical take
unfortunately but it's still an
incredible one and also you know there's
gr there's um until you look at the
receipts there's a kind
of
um like a rationale to that kind of
conspiracy theory because so much
pressure was put on the Space Race the
the pr of it to be the winner so it
makes sense that you might want to
try to take shortcuts and fake things
and you know
propaganda you you know different kinds
of messaging and I'm sure stuff like
that was happening some kind of like
little you know adjustment here and
there to present things better and so on
but ultimately the actual engineering
project of landing on the moon I the
fact that humans did that I mean it is
sad that we didn't have better like ways
to record it and as I watch Like SpaceX
efforts and blue origin and these
efforts
it's still not trivial to record the
um how just amazing all inspiring SPAC
is cuz it like you know it's like Elon
jokes about like space does look fake
yeah like I think there is some element
of it where you have to be there to
experience it really and I don't like I
think it's un un it's currently is still
an unsolved problem of how do you
capture the a of that I mean you're one
of the early people that are uh part of
the crew that is exploring that very
question I'm sure you won't find all the
answers but you will start to say like
how do we convert this into a visual
format into some kind of format that
captures the the magic of it 100% And
that's a perspective thing that I think
about all the time you know and I I'll
I'll do a lot of thinking about like
what is the thing that's reacting to
people is it the sound is it the
perspective is it like seeing a little
tiny human next to a landing leg that
makes people go oh my God this thing is
huge you know just reading you know and
digesting that and trying to help to to
convey that as best as possible because
the stuff that we are and have worked on
is is so cool it's so exciting and it's
so it's so important and like actually
you know so much bigger than any one of
us physically and metaphorically it's
just so it's just I wish everyone had
that that experience and and had that
light bulb go off and that's the cool
thing that you're like smack in the
middle of solving that really difficult
and fascinating problem of how how do
you capture the magic how do you inspire
like that's not just an engineer problem
that's an communication problem
education I I find specifically for
myself that I get most excited about
something when I learn a lot about it
like when I learn the ins and the outs
and I learn all the little problem
solving and the you know the cool like
oh my God they had to do what to make it
work wow that's amazing and that's I try
to just always go back to that root
thing of like what can I teach myself
like if I'm every video I I expect that
I learn something making it no matter
what like no matter how uh much I think
I know about something at the end of the
day if I'm not learning something it's
not a good video you know and I always
think that people get excited when they
learn and when they have uh some
questions answered for
them let me ask you a couple of quick
out there futuristic questions I have to
I'd hate myself if I don't ask you so
first let's talk about nuclear
propulsion so out there interesting
propulsion ideas uh so what do you think
Beyond uh the chemical engines that we
talked about what do you think about
using nuclear fishing and maybe even
nuclear fusion for uh for propulsion we
already have thermal nuclear reactors uh
they are nuclear engines that have been
tested both by the United States and
Soviet Union that were 100% valid like
totally ready to go efficient ient super
awesome um yes yes yes hardcore yes um
and what what they're using is yeah
basically a fusion reactor you're
flowing hydrogen through it and heating
up that hydrogen taking it from liquid
to gas you know and by heating it up
you're you're adding energy to the
propellant and then you're literally
just using that now steam hot hydrogen
and flowing it through a DLo L nozzle
and you also have to use that that
energy to spin the pumps to still pump
the thing so you're still kind of using
like a lot of the tricks you're using
but instead of a chemical reaction
you're literally just
using nuclear fion to heat up propellant
and do the same thing and at the end of
the day you end up with like 8 to 900
seconds of specific impulse which is
double that of chemical propulsion most
of that comes just because hydrogen's so
light you're only emitting you're only
ejecting hydrogen out of the nozzle so
the lighter a molecule is the faster it
you know just like if you had a a you
know a golf ball versus like a a bowling
ball you can only physically throw one
so fast and the other one as a human
you're not going to do very well with so
you can just you get you have the more
potential for a higher exit velocity so
nuclear thermal amazing you can just
shoot these little hydrogen molecules
out crazy fast crazy efficiently we
already have it like we can do it yes
yes yes and actually we're already re-
uh investing in that again as United
States is is looking into uh basically
ramping back up our nuclear propulsion
why haven't we done it yet
and what do you think the challenges
that there and do you think that's an
obvious future like would would you see
in 50 years we're not using
um like we're not for major projects
like a Starship type of project we're
not using chemical propulsion anymore
for getting off Earth you'll always want
to use chemical propulsion because the
the gas would come irradiated like you
don't want to you don't want to and and
actually the Thruster weight ratio of
these engines are relatively poor
they're they're very heavy they have a
nuclear reactor like they're not they're
really
the reason we kind of gave up on them is
they're really most useful for like
interplanetary if you're trying to get a
big like if you're trying to send a huge
payload off to Mars nuclear thermal is
amazing it's still could be beneficial
even going to the Moon you know like in
a Earth Moon system you could use
nuclear thermal uh very effectively it
could be a great choice but it also that
starts to get into that trait of like H
we can just kind of use a little bit
bigger rocket and and a normal you know
it's it's that whole thing but another
reason why we we kind of stopped using
them the the one that the United States
developed nerva was so heavy only a
Saturn 5 could actually lift the stage
of it like the the upper stage so it
replaced the s4b with a nuclear thermal
with a nerva engine um the Soviet Union
developed one about one tenth the size
and and thrust that was small enough to
fly on Pro on a proton rocket um but
neither of them ever flew both of them
have been tested and like thumbs up
ready to go which is just a huge shame
to me because they they could unlock a
lot of interplanetary potential and just
all around a which potentially
Interstellar as well not I don't think
nuclear thermal not we're not quite
getting there but then you get into like
nuclear pulse drives and things where
you're literally like basically ejecting
a bomb out the back of your rocket and
exploding and having like a shock
absorber and and pogo sticking your way
out of the solar
system that that's I mean by all physics
sure you know there not nothing wrong
with that it's not breaking any laws of
physics and you know I but I just don't
see us getting to that need anytime soon
I don't think we're travel yeah I don't
I mean that's that's I I think we're
going to want a better understanding of
physics and physics itself yeah I do you
have a hope that maybe theoretical
physics will open the door to some
exciting propulsion systems yeah I do I
think we're still at the very infancy of
our understanding of everything and how
things work and you know a hundred years
ago it would be stupid to try to predict
the things we know today and who knows
like even you know I think about things
like James web looking deeper into our
solar system than ever before and
physically being able to see objects
that we just have not even been able to
physically see before Oh and being able
to study black holes for example uh
better or better the stuff that's
happening outside of black holes at the
edges of black holes how the information
is stored uh
the% holographic principle just there's
so much weirdness about black holes
around where gravity starts bending
light it's like all right we get to look
at that now and start to wonder like
what is going on and how can we like use
that somehow exactly for propulsion I
mean it seems like awfully crazy and
futuristic at this moment but I think
that's because we know almost nothing
about um you know that those kinds of
objects where again where the general
relativity and quantum mechanics start
to start to um have to be both
considered to describe those kinds of
objects and as we study those objects we
might figure out some kind of
unification thing that will allow us to
uh understand maybe how to use black
holes to for propulsion like yeah to uh
I mean I could say a lot of crazy things
but like basically but the the point is
it'd be stupid for us to even guess
about things we don't even know about
yet you know what I mean like and so
therefore I'm not going to say that the
best option for Interstellar travel is
nuclear drives like that could be like
someone saying you know in 1600 the only
way to fly is by strapping a thousand
Birds to your head you know like but
that said I mean everything you're
saying is right but human history is
such like at the beginning of the 20th
century physicist roord everybody
there's there's brilliant people that
said we've basically solved all of it
right if you talk to most physicists I
think they're going to say like we've
pretty much solved like the standard
model describes physics extremely
accurately right uh general relativity
explains the cosmos as we observe them
extremely accurately yeah there a whole
Dark Matter Dark Energy thing whatever
yeah but uh outside of that we so like
we basically solved
like like where are you going going to
find gaps in knowledge that are going to
somehow create warp drives or something
like that so wormholes
uh but uh that's it seems like
throughout history we prove ourselves
wrong time and time again no I and I
this is well outside of any of my
knowledge based so I want to make sure
that if I say anything stupid it's
because I'm just a a peasant here in
physics land but yes um we're all
peasants in physics land but I I really
just think like it's very humbling that
we're still using chemical propulsion
and and varant S like ejecting mass to
to propel ourselves and I I no matter
how you get at it and I think someday I
I would expect that our species has
figured out a way to to get beyond that
gotta ask you another wild
question what do you think of uh Bob
Lazar who uh claimed that uh he worked
at and saw in Area 51 a propulsion
system fueled by I'm quoting here maybe
from Wikipedia I don't know where I got
this from uh fueled by an anti matter
reactor which used as fuel the chemical
element with atomic number
115 at the time it wasn't synthesized it
was later in in uh 2003 synthesized
named
moscovium he said that the propulsion
system relied on a stable isotope of
element 115 which allegedly generates a
gravity wave that allowed the vehicle to
fly and to evade visual detection by
bending light around it no stabiliz does
of moscovium have yet been synthesized
all have proven extremely radioactive
decaying in a few hundred uh
milliseconds one do you believe him
which I I find him fascinating because
it's um I find the human mind even more
fascinating than
um than than something like an
anti-matter drive because I think it's
such a giant mystery that we haven't
even begun to explore deeply anyway um
in that sense whether he's lying or not
are both interesting things to explore
from a psychology perspective but to I
he basically saying that I guess it's an
alien uh
extraterrestrial engine
thing um what do you think I mean I'm
happy to change my opinion based on new
evidence at any point I have
like the biggest part of me wants to
just be like this is obviously just
stupid and a hoax and just total you
know
quack and then another part of me still
is like this is exciting and fun to
think that this is all real and then
another part of me goes why how how good
is this guy at lying and making stuff up
because it's all really good like good
storytelling good like I don't know what
to think honestly I don't know I'm
really very skeptical about anyone
explaining anything like this like I
mean my my radar is like screaming at me
like this is all
full crap you know but i' say like
there's still a apartment it's just like
man that is kind of cool how did he know
that and like you know what I mean it's
I think conflicted I think you're
actually in the in the best kind of
place cuz it's um I'm afraid of being
the kind of person that hears something
like that and says is
definitely um he's definitely full of
crap and basically close my mind off to
all that stuff I'm afraid of being
somebody who closes my mind off to a
thing that's actually uh a a early
thread to a brilliant to to a future to
a fascinating solution to a mystery so
uh but in this case I mean I have so
many red flags from a psychological
perspective that
um that I but again uh outside of this
particular individual I do wonder if
aliens have visited
us I think aliens are everywhere I think
the universe is teaming with alien life
I mean there's
it's very difficult for me to
statistically understand
given
how life finds a way here on Earth just
everywhere the entire history of life on
Earth from the very origin of life it
seems to be damn good at doing its thing
and evolving to get better and better
and better at doing its thing now there
could be some special aspects to the
origin of life itself which is
completely not understood so maybe the
true magic is is in the origin of life
or it could be that there's some magical
leaps uh to uh eukaryotic cells for
example that the Universe our galaxies
teaming with alien life but it's all
bacteria they're all boring bacteria or
exciting bacteria no offense to bacteria
the but the no intelligence space
fairing civilizations I don't know but I
just if I were to guess if I had to bet
all my money there is space fairing
civilizations everywhere in the universe
and the fact that they're not that they
have not been directly definitively
observed confuses me and I think it's a
mystery and if I were to suggest what
the solution to that mystery is is they
might look extremely different from us
and we might be too dump to detect them
yeah and like and so there I think you
have to be extremely
open-minded at what would we be looking
for right that and that that's a very
practical thing to be open-minded about
and practically speaking if we were to
be able to even detect them from a
distance get a tech uh technos signature
of a distant planet uh of a distant star
system that has alien
life honestly the number one thing I
kind of want to know is like what's your
propulsion
system like how do we travel faster
right like there's a details probably
but first let's get together and teach
me how to go fast go fast I like
motorcycles I like rockets tell me what
you got yeah uh yeah like how like I'll
show you mine if you show me yours kind
of thing at the at the inter
Interstellar Intergalactic uh level um
yeah anyway I just
wonder maybe it's a cheat code in this
video game we call life but I want to I
want to use the cheat code to figure out
what kind of propulsion systems are
possible and it feels like other alien
civiliz ations might help us give
us
um give us a guidance on that of course
I think even
just
discovering boy one of the things with a
space program like everything we're
doing with
Mars like the secret thing I'm really
excited about the romantic thing is
humans on Mars but the secret thing is
building giant stations on Mars that
allow us to
definitively hopefully find
the traces of life that either currently
doesn't live or has once lived on Mars
because if that's the case that means
for sure life is everywhere oh 100% And
then you're like and once you know that
sorry to keep interrupting not shutting
the hell up is this supposed to be an
interview God damn it all right uh that
uh like that just the knowledge of that
just the knowledge that a four minute
mile can be run I think will open our
minds completely to really really
hardcore push to Interstellar travel or
colonizing Mars becoming multiplanetary
species it'd be truly
inspiring you think
that do you do you get nervous though
like I'm gonna I'm the interviewer now
yeah um don't you get nervous that we
could make spectacular discovery on Mars
that not only has there been life
there's actually like pretty Advanced
Micro you know or multicellular life
totally thriving in certain regions just
hadn't visited the man on Mars and we
make this big discovery that
a relatively large percentage of people
just simply wouldn't believe it they
think it's all yeah 100% fake and that
they're just doing this to control us
and that blah blah blah like we could
make the most important Discovery in
human life like in all of human
existence that that we're not alone in
this
universe by you know cellularly at least
and a good percentage of people I'm
thinking 20 30 in today's world 40 plus%
of people wouldn't even believe it
existed interesting I I I'd be it's it's
a very important thing to think about
especially as an educator like yourself
I think the the current cynicism towards
institutions and science is temporary I
think it's they're basically the
internet woke up the internet smells
bullshit and it looked at uh I'm sorry
I'm not being aeges but saying older
scientists and and they looked at them
and they kind of said you're kind of
full of shit you got a lot of ego uh
you're you speak down to everybody
you're not very good at communicating I
think there's a lot of Truth to what
they're saying and I think the young
scientists that are coming up will be
much better at not being full of shit
being authentic being real not treating
uh people like their children they can't
possibly understand like taking it very
seriously that there's a lot of
intelligent people out there that are
curious that are this full of desire for
knowledge like being transparent about
all the
uncertainties uh of the scientific
process all the tensions the conflicts
all of that and it's I I I think I think
once we fix the Comm science
Communication System adapted to the
internet um I think that won't be an
issue I I hope I hope I mean that's
that's why people like you are really
important is it's like communicate with
authenticity um but yeah that's
definitely something to think about I
mean yes the the early uh I mean listen
scientists too like the fos fine
discovered on on Venus it's like they're
extremely skeptical always uh so
definitely there will there will be a
lot of
skepticism uh and it depends what it
looks like if it kind of looks like this
thing kind of looks like bacteria back
on Earth uh yes uh so it means
contamination is very difficult to avoid
in general but if the thing looks like
fundamentally different yeah then you're
like all right yeah that like totally
different DNA RNA like this is not we've
never observed this ever at all then uh
then you're like all right cool of
course uh so that what another promising
thing that difficult to be definitive
about but was get better and better
direct Imaging systems there's now U
like I don't know how many but thousands
of planets being discovered outside of
our solar system there's moons being
discover now earthlike planets being
discovered so like all of that if you
could do direct Imaging of those planets
more and more and more uh there could be
some gigantic listen if there is like a
a card like type 2 civilization we're
going to see the damn thing it's going
to be producing a lot of uh it's going
to be uh radiating a lot of energy so
the possibility of detecting some of
that that's also a real possibility with
something like James web telescope like
those kinds of efforts that starts
becoming a reality uh have you read Andy
we's project Hail Mary I have not no
you're going to love it like it is
basically uh almost answering that like
how could they not see us type of thing
almost where he creates this this
incredible I don't want to spoil
anything but you know um it's just this
the sense that like we could have
totally different perspectives with with
an alien race and not even like consider
that you know the two of us are
coexisting
it yeah I don't want to spoil anything
it's really really really worth the read
or Oh you mean a different perspective
like the aliens have a different
perspective than humans yeah like both
we just like we see with this visual
light someone could see in x-ray Etc you
know like and just the way we even come
to the same perspec and like looking and
observing is just so different
fundamentally that like we could I mean
it's not quite like that it's not like
it's like oh they were actually on the
moon and we're you know it's nothing
like that but uh but it's such a unique
and incredible story I think Andy we is
one of the the best science fiction
writers I don't I can't say that with
much Authority because I don't listen to
much science fiction so zero Authority I
really like Andy Weir's books and that
book is is no different well that sounds
like I'm really worried about that it
sounds like uh I would really love it
I've uh definely I'm been very um I've
I've done a lot of reading in my life
but like the science fiction is one of
the things I've been really really weak
on I haven't really read much and I just
made more and more friends over the
years
recently um that say that I absolutely
must read some of these things are you
do you physically read or do you do
audiobooks while you run and stuff both
I I do both yeah but physically I sadly
don't it's a Kindle right yeah yeah yeah
yeah but uh but when while I run I also
do uh so I do both I do
about uh an normal day especially now CU
I've been really focused on on reading
it's about 6 minutes of reading on a
Kindle and I one to two hours uh cuz I
run about 2 hours when I don't have like
other stuff like today I won't run uh so
it's about 3 hours so on average I would
say it's like two 2 and a half hours a
day that I read and audio books are just
the same they're a little slower but
they're they they can uh especially for
the classics they can capture some of
the magic with the deep voice usually
with the British accent I love it I also
read that uh listen to sorry
that uh a book on propulsion like two
years ago I
remember but I remember that was
extremely diff it was by John D Clark
yeah it was very difficult to listen oh
I yeah I see I don't read I I listen
while I'm on road trips or running or
stuff like that too so I swear there's
probably 40 or like not 40 but there's
like eight minutes of we tried bmz 15
yeah 13 bm42 rmnl mro hydrogen for like
I swear it's multiple minutes of
explaining one trial on something
because there's just so many different
chemicals they try I don't know it's
it's it's almost a joke like I literally
audibly laughed out loud listening to it
because I'm like this is so ridiculous
I'm sure it makes sense reading it but
like listening to it is just hilarious
but it's great
though what do you think of some of the
challenges for long-term space travel do
you think about this kind of stuff the
biological stuff yeah um do you do you
worry do you think about radiation on
Mars
uh and out in Space over periods of uh
actually the effects on the human body
get even the radiation over periods of
months and years
yeah I think realistically we have a
really good handle on what the effects
are and we actually have the solution to
like everything it's just whether or not
we can like you know for instance one of
the you know low earth orbit one of the
biggest challenges eventually after
you're long-term space travel is bone
density loss and not having gravity you
know you actually have issues with a
handful of things and artificial gravity
is easy in terms of relatively easy in
terms of uh space flight you know you
can you can have two vehicles just
tethered together and you know just
spinning as give it enough distance and
decent enough spin velocity and you can
you can get one gene like relatively
easy we're talking again relatively easy
especially after talking about
theoretical physics like this is is
that's easy stuff um we haven't done
that yet but like there's there's no
reason why we can't produce artificial
gravity if we say that that's um you
know a big enough hurdle that we
absolutely have to overcome this okay
cool we'll just spin up two vehicles
that are going to Mars and people will
have but you know that's the thing is
Mars is only about we'll say six months
there then you're hanging out in Mars
you have 38% of gravity and then 6
months-ish back people live on you know
the International Space Station at six
months stin we've had people for
basically a year up on the International
Space Station it's not like it's it's
not life altering yeah you have a couple
days of not being able to walk very well
and you do have some bone density loss
and some other concerns but like again
that's it's solvable and I I think on
you know the first missions to Mars I
think it might we might we'll probably
do the trade is it worth it to like land
on Mars and have a crippled crew that
can't even physically stand yet you know
for a day or two before they get their
you know feet from underneath them or is
it do we need to spin up to spacecraft
or you know a tether and have like you
can't do it like Starship you know even
though it's 30t wide or 9 MERS wide if
you spin it on that one axis um that's
not enough space to get one G uh without
your feet and your head being at two
different uh velocities so you get
really sick it you always feel like
you're falling your brain will tell you
that you're falling constantly um but
then again okay so this is this is a
whole thing is
I you know and I don't know if there's
we don't really have the data yet on
like going from zero g we know the
effects of that we know the effects of
one G really well that's our majority of
our data set but we don't really have
much data on the long-term effects of uh
you know one six gravity like on the
moon or 38% gravity is it is one 16
gravity actually enough to counteract
95% of the effects of low gravity or is
it 15 you know is it one 16 the is it
like a linear thing is 38 % gravity
totally you know 38% as bad as one or
whatever you know is it a slight like
where is it out on the scale so there's
a chance that we don't need anywhere
near 1g of gravity to counteract the
bulk majority of these problems we could
have 0.1g or whatever is the you know
the right compromise of of vehicle
complexity and human biology and all of
these other effects like we this is
absolutely a solvable thing that is and
and we figure some of this out through
just experimentation 100% along the way
yep uh one of this is back to my dating
life I think one of the essential
fundamental research questions I'm
wondering about is uh the
Dynamics and um so the details of how
you have sex in
space um asking for a friend of course I
mean that's there literally is sort of
work on this right cuz like if you think
about long-term space travel I
mean sex is is uh
so of like the there's the recreational
aspect of sex but the most important
aspect of sex for long-term space travel
is um uh procreation is and also the
full biological cycle of that so the
from the embryo the development of the
baby the giving the birth and all that
kind of stuff so like you know there's a
lot of really
difficult problems of biology there to
understand and uh perhaps it's all some
of that again just like you said
brilliantly
some of that can be just solved with
engineering outside of the human body by
creating a gravitational field like that
but maybe be along the way you can
figure out how to do that without doing
it we're balancing the cost and so on
and radiation is the other thing like we
know we have a really good data set on
what radiation and doses do to humans
like we we know we can measure radiation
we know we can approximate you know and
kind of give edge cases for the Mars
transient and getting to Mars and being
on Mars and the simple answer to that is
like at the end of the day if we have to
you know dig into Mars or find a tunnel
to to live in so you get some extra mass
in between you and Cosmic radiation so
be it like that's the that's the answer
then again none of these are like
insolvable problems they're just things
hurdles you would have to overcome based
on you know the the risk exposure and
the the posture there imagine being the
first child the first baby born outside
of Earth that'd be pretty cool yeah I I
would love to be alive to see that
that'll be a big one I don't know if
he'll
um I don't know CU it's such a dangerous
thing it's so risky I think that could
be in our lifetime you think so yeah I I
I would like to think in a perfect world
of for thinking futurism that in 30 to
50 years I definitely think we could
have full-time like permanent major
civilizations you know like like um uh
like what blue origin wants to develop
where they have a a huge like sphere you
know and you're doing a lot of uh
especially heavy IND industry off of
Earth so you're not polluting earth like
that's makes so much sense to me um yeah
I think I think
we we could live in a lifetime where you
know we thought this since the 50s and
60s that people are going to be living
and working in space like crazy and at
any given point we're lucky to have 12
people in space today um but I really
think In Our Lifetime we're finally
getting to that point
of yeah that that's a reality let me
because you mentioned blue origin I can
we just lay out some of the competitors
to SpaceX so much of what we talked
about is uh
SpaceX specifically because they're sort
of pushing the bondaries of what's
possible in the commercial space flight
but there's a lot of like you said
incredible work being done for large
companies and small companies startups
and so on uh so who are the competitors
to SpaceX
Ula United launch Alliance blue origin
there a Virgin uh is it Galactic orbit
orbit would be the competitor V Virgin
orbit uh there's the rocket Labs
electron rocket that you
mentioned um there's the folks you
covered Firefly yep yep and uh what are
we missing there's the the Epic space
launch system from NASA I guess that is
yeah technically NASA but prime
contractor Boeing and Boeing
yeah North the boosters y nice so like
what uh what's what's interesting to say
to lay out the land here that you're
excited about just in general I think if
you aren't working on a reusable some
form of reusable vehicle like physically
working on it penda paper not Beyond
pended paper like bending metal for a
reusable vehicle you're gone you're
toast I think we're well into that being
the only provable you know Way Forward
the only way you're going to compete and
survive is a reusable rocket fully
reusable would be great but that's
obviously massively aspirational still
um but it will come but to me um the
yeah the list you pretty much had it
right on the head uh there's there's
Astra was another orbital rocket company
um they there there's a lot of companies
and I I think right now the the ones
that I personally really believe in um
you know rocket lab is is awesome I
really think that they are one of the
few that I believe can actually build a
falcon 9 class rocket uh like today with
the with their technology with their
knowledge with their Investments with
their funding you know they and they've
proven themselves there's very few they
have actually made it look easy I think
there's a lot of startups and a lot of
new rocket there's a too many launch
providers popping out of the woodwork
right now they won't all survive of
course I think realistically if you look
at like airplanes how many airplane Manu
you know there's a handful of airplane
manufacturers there's not hundreds and
thousands of airplane manufacturers I
think it'll be the similar thing for
space flight I think we'll see we'll see
you know realistically in the terms of
jbo jets and passengers there's
basically two you know there's Airbus
and there's Boeing um so I I think in
the long run there'll be two or three
major players I think there'll be you
know
10 minor like as as far as launch
providers as far as the ones actually
leaving Earth and getting into orbit I
just don't think there's a ton of room
for individuality really you know yeah I
I would love to see it like a really
serious competitor uh to SpaceX in the
way that SpaceX does things I don't know
if you L is quite what i is quite the
right kind of competitor let me let me
say this Ula has all of the potential
but just operationally they're you know
they're they locked Martin and Boeing's
like love child yeah like they're kind
of set up in a far too traditional
manner where they just really aren't
given the opportunity to uh innovate
like a lot of these startups are so
rocket lab is a little bit more of that
nature what do you think about s of just
blue origin in general is BL Origins I
man
I what blue origin has done with new
Shephard is amazing and people just lot
it because it's suborbital and it looks
very phallic
it's it's h so I guess the meme matters
also it's modern day sad because people
don't see what they are also working on
which is new Glenn you know I I see
comments almost every day still of like
it doesn't matter because you know
they're they're working on Tiny it's
like no new Glenn is more powerful and
more capable than Falcon heavy new Glenn
is almost more of a competitor to not
quite as to Starship but it's almost in
that class it's it's a it's a heavy lift
launch vehicle it's huge it's crazy
it'll be nuts they're very actively
working on it you know I still think
we're three years away from it launching
but that's a very strong comp competitor
in the class of rockets that SpaceX is
currently making so SpaceX is currently
leading the way but that that it's it
couldn't become a close race and well
it's just I we'll just for now we'll
ignore SpaceX and we'll just kind of
talk about like I think who's kind of
coming around the corner here who's sure
so let let me just do a quick overview
I'm I'm going to shoot myself in the
foot for getting some cool people here
and some some exciting companies but
relativity is one that if you you should
definitely get Tim LS on the show who is
the uh CEO of Relativity they're doing
3D printed Rockets the ones that have
the world's largest 3D printer they're
getting really close to their first
orbital launch um the cool thing about
them the reason that I think they're
exciting the reason that I I I think
they have the potential is just how
quickly they can iterate I think 3D
printing a rocket is really
dumb I think iterating with 3D printing
on a rocket is brilliant because you can
literally change software and have like
very little you know upload a file and
have a new rocket like that's amazing so
in terms of long-term iterative process
if if we're really talking about like
hitting the ground running and and just
seeing where the the evolution takes you
I think that's about as good as you can
get you know I think what SpaceX is
doing at Starbase just physically
bending cheap steel is probably also a
very valid solution I so I really think
and they have the engineering chops I
think they've got some amazing people
there um again rocket lab I adore what
they work on and you know like every
everyone there's a cave out here that
everything takes longer anything any
company tells you it's two or three
times longer just period rocket lab's no
different um but I really they're
they're working on a neutron rocket
that's going to be um like I think 8,000
to 15,000 kilograms to lower orbit like
it's a a good medium class rocket will
compete right along with Falcon 9
hopefully by the way Neutron would be
its name right it's Neutron it's not
some kind of fascinating new physics
breakthrough where they're using
neutrons yes no no but they are using
they're also using liquid methane and
liquid oxygen um I just think it's a
really it's a seems like a a great
rocket and assuming they can actually
get it flying in two or 3 years I think
they're going to be here to stay you
know um I I'd be remiss right now I'm
editing a video from an interview with
Stoke Aerospace out in in Kent
Washington um it just one of these
companies that they have a long ways to
go like they're still in the very
they're they're behind the curve frankly
in in terms of launch Vehicles right now
because like I said there's so many
coming out of the woodwork but the idea
they're working on their solution to a
fully reusable rocket is amazing one of
the coolest Concepts I've ever seen are
you going to cover in the video yeah
yeah y yep that'll be hopefully coming
out the next depending on what the
schedule like is down there I'm work I'm
actively editing that as we speak and it
is so cool I mean it is like it's it's
genius and um if they can actually get
it to work I could see them merging I
can for sure see someone potentially
like I perfectly in a perfect world they
merge with rocket lab mhm they uh Stoke
develops the upper stage and maybe even
the engines they are the two guys the
the CEO the co-founders of that company
um have they are engine like propulsion
engineer magnificent they have they used
to they both of them worked at Blue they
developed engines in a hurry there and
then left blue and it felt like it was
getting too slow for them and now they
are I mean these these guys fired uh a
15 chambered rocket engine instead of
four from the Soviet we're talking 15
Chambers single turbo pump uh 70 times
in the month of October wow that's
impressive wow and that's like that was
on a you know if you think about like
days off time off you know Parts
changing over twice a day on average of
a hydrolox engine that's insane so I I
love them and I hope the best for them
uh but they're also topical right now
they're at top of my head so uh uh what
about Firefly what I like about Firefly
they've already got kind of a a
traditional AOS face backing they're
starting to Buddy up a lot with north of
Grumman they're going to be building the
booster stage for anaris which is
currently flying only out of walps
Virginia and is one of the only other
commercial providers for the
International Space Station and north of
grman is a very traditional Aerospace
company you know like lots of solid
rocket boosters and they've purchased
ironically their their current anaris is
reliant on Russian engines and Ukrainian
boosters two things that I don't think
you're going to be able to get your
hands on too much anymore so yes they're
looking to um some us propulsion and
stages so they actually are partnering
with uh with firefly and their new
anari's rocket will be a first stage
built entirely by Firefly so I'm I'm
excited that Firefly already has the
propulsion technology um and they
actually developed the ironically their
their tap off cycle engine was developed
uh in partnership with Ukraine with
Ukrainian Engineers uh who developed the
the whole turbo pump system so it's like
it's this cool me meddling of of these
worlds um their former CEO Tom Rusk was
a like I have an interview with him and
he's anyone that can just spout nuances
and facts I just love I I just soaked
that guy's information up as best I
could because he is brilliant literally
a doctor a rocket doctor you know it's
so yeah I mean that's what like you said
the fascinating thing about these folks
they're they're legit there there's such
great Engineers that people that that
bring these Rockets to life and then
there's all the stuff that we know and
don't know about in uh in China and
other parts and other nations that are
putting stuff into orbit one of the sad
things also is like you know with locked
and and Boeing is um and just military
applications in general there's so much
technology that's currently being
developed that we probably know nothing
about yeah and um that it makes me a
little bit sad of course yeah U for
several reasons one is that the use of
that technology is
has really much like it's not it's not
that inspir it's like a very military
focused yeah it's to kill someone it's
to kill someone yeah uh there's not even
like a a side application right and and
the the the big one is that the secret
it's it's it's shed in secrecy as
opposed to being a source of inspiration
yeah 100% but that's the way of the
world mhm like what was that one plane
that you covered that was like we know
nothing about oh the X-37B yeah X 37b
yeah or for over 900 days and returned
like yeah I want to know about I don't
know that's what's it's so frustrating
we know when it launches people you know
amateurs track and know they even will
be like oh it changed orbit you know it
raised and lowered its orbit blah blah
blah we generally have just almost no
idea what it's doing up there and it
just saddens me because I want to know
and it's awesome it's a great vehicle
War what is it good
for uh you mentioned Kerbal space
program the video game uh someone asked
you what video game you recommend for
learning about space and Rockets and you
said duh uh Kerbal Space Program so tell
me about this game what what is this
game and I also saw heard that a second
one is coming out so what what
what like uh you know I've been playing
more games recently uh because games are
fun and they remind you that life is
awesome uh so why should I play this
game if you want to learn about Rockets
how to fly how to build how to get into
orbit how to get to other planets
there's no better way to learn about
Rockets playing space what does it
entail like do you actually like uh it's
like Sim City and Microsoft flight
simulator for Rockets oh interesting so
you get to like what do you design the
Rockets yeah yeah it's okay so I started
playing it in like 2014 I think around
as I'm like falling in love with space
and I became obsessed with this game
like literally you you know you you you
take a like you getop a little Command
Module click you click on a fuel tank
Boop you choose your engine Boop you
choose a stage connector Boop you
connect more tanks and build these space
planes and Fantastical things and it's
all like physics based it's Avail this
sounds like a commercial it's available
on PC Mac and and console like it's it's
available everywhere but wait there's
more but wait there's more and you you
uh you said like you streamed yourself
playing those any of those videos up oh
yeah yeah yeah there's some of my
actually the first videos I ever
uploaded to YouTube were re like
recaptured streams from twitch that I
just physically uploaded to YouTube this
is awesome and so it's it's me playing C
we I used to do this kind of like a
podcast style thing uh I should get back
into this because it's one of my
favorite things I ever did it's called
we called it today in space fight
history but these days I'd probably just
play kerb but I had my friend come sit
next to me his name's Jacob M and he is
a former professional P valter just this
really knows nothing about Rockets yes
knows nothing about space hilarious like
in the sweetest most fun way he know
like he you know as an adult asked me
which is bigger the Earth or the moon
and I love that for him you know that's
that's fantastic he's just a delightful
human he would sit next to me we would
recreate a historical space fight
mission in Kerbal Space Program and he
would just sit there and play guitar and
sing about what I'm like doing and
asking questions and it's still one of
my favorite things I've ever done yeah
you should definitely do something
something like that so basically just uh
yeah shoot the shit with a friend get
their curiosity going let them just sit
there and ask questions and it was
awesome like I mean yeah those are some
I I I've done it a handful of times I
think we probably did like 20 or 30
episodes or something and is it's
definitely something I would like to get
back to doing can you in the in the game
like go to go to the Moon Yeah so it's
it's technically a different solar
system it's the Kerbal system and you're
on the planet curban so there's the mun
mu y there's a second moon in the system
on this planet uh it's called minmus
they didn't want to pay licensing fuse
or
what well it's just a little easier it's
a little bit smaller so the physics are
easier um oh so it tries to be
consistent with physics yeah oh yeah
yeah the physics are all are all like
real world physics and I mean there's
Aeros simulations there's all of its
like one to one you know for Earth
physics AES it's just on on a easier
scale solar system so it's easier to to
navigate but there's still like there's
a planet called Eve that's kind of like
Venus so it has a really thick
atmosphere really thick really soupy
it's um it's and a lot more gravity so
it's just really really hard to get off
of um it's easy relatively easy to land
on Eve but like that's kind of like the
ultimate boss in the game is like
getting off of Eve so that's one of my
favorite things to do is build these
crafts to to get to Eve and and try to
return home you mentioned that there
almost like a podcast thing you also did
our our ludicrous future what uh is
there a podcast in your future are you
are you thinking do you enjoy the media
you're so incredibly good at talking
it's less effort to
uh sort of to produce are you is that
something in the in the back of your
mind also oh man I love talking and
you're very good at it I mean yeah um I
I find that I it's just the problem with
for me with with podcasts and and I
guess the podcasts that I've done have
tried to be relatively topical about
like the current space flight Affairs
and four three or four years ago that
was actually you know manageable for me
to keep up with these days man I can't
keep I just can't keep up with it I gave
up on trying to be super topical and I
realized that maybe my my biggest talent
and the things that resonate most with
people is just trying to explain the
like the basics and the and the the root
really get so I'm really just trying to
like I'm trying to do less live streams
if I can but then again like Starship I
got to stream that there's no way I'm
not going to do that but I'm really just
trying to get back to like making the
Deep dive videos where I have no limit
on how long and how deep and and just
really go for it because that's actually
what I love to do the yeah I mean this
like uh views aside those are just works
of genius and you're getting better and
better at them and like that's
the that in terms of the beautiful
things you can create in this world
those are that so like if you continue
especially where the the way space
travel is developing right like that
your voice is very much needed so I
think it's wise to um to do what you do
best and I I think I'm feeling more and
more especially this last year I did a
lot of like live streaming and traveling
back and forth between Florida and
California and here and just handling
major like big live streams really
stress myself out and at the end of the
day I was like all of this is taking
away from my ability to make videos and
that's I ideally honestly if I like had
my choice of things I would just ignore
everything else and just sit and lock
myself in a in in my house for a year
and just sit there and make videos and
and go and travel every every other
month you know for fun like not for
space stuff just go and and do some
light traveling you know some like on
the moon or
what yeah just some light
traveling uh what advice would you give
to Young Folks um or just folks
struggling to find their way in life uh
whether they're in high school college
or Beyond like how to have a life they
can be proud of how how to have a career
they can be proud of you've had a really
interesting Journey
yourself what what from that can you
draw give advice to others to be honest
like I feel like it's so painfully
obvious to follow your heart and follow
like what makes you happy that I'm just
shocked that people allow themselves to
sit on like mediocrity you know like to
just sit there and be like well this is
just what I do you know and some and for
a lot of people that's perfectly fine
like I have you know some of my best
friends are clocking in and out and
they're perfectly happy they have a
wonderful life absolutely no judgment
there of course um but for people that
are stuck feeling like they're not sure
of you know what's next and how to bring
light into their world uh you really
just got to listen to like what does
make you happy you know people feel
guilty about oh I play video games for
eight hours then start learning how to
make a video game learn how to do
reviews of video games or make there's
so many you can work in the video game
industry you know you don't have to
isolate your love from your work you
know and it's just funny that we you
know maybe uh maybe you feel guilty that
you drink too much okay I don't know if
this a good advice go go learn how to
make alcohol you know be start a liquor
company yeah start a liquor company I
mean that's terrible advice no it's a
it's great advice but it's also in your
own story it seems like you've almost
stumbled on like some of it is just
exploration and keeping your mind and
heart open to discovering that thing
that grabs you right what do you fall
asleep thinking about you know like but
you you stumbled on the space almost
accidentally right I mean yeah yeah
would you when you were doing a being a
professional photographer would you have
known oh no well do you want to know
what I wanted to be when I was a kid
what's that well first when I was young
I wanted to be a tractor I'm not quite
sure I understood yeah how that works
thats then I wanted to be a scorpion
trainer yeah yeah thought I could train
him to cut people's Lawns better and
better yep yep and then honestly the
majority of my childhood people's Lawns
got I think you understanding of physics
early on was just a little the Pinchers
man pin I know uh then uh from like
probably six until like early college I
wanted to be a prosthetic
engineer and never once did I think
about anything Rockets really you know I
had like a I had like a space shuttle
poster I had some space shuttle Legos
you know I liked space and you know I
knew of the Space Shuttle but I you know
it was a far down the list as far as
things that I thought were cool ninja
turtles Lamborghini Kos b7g Flying
Fortress Yeah I guess I guess that means
if you just keep your heart open to
falling in love with an idea with a
passion yeah you could start from that
from Ninja Turtles and scorpions F lawn
to uh being one of the best one of the
top Educators inspirational figures in
space and actually uh traveling around
the moon and who knows maybe one day
stepping foot on the moon and Mars even
though you say you're not interested it
seems like you stating that you're not
interested in certain things
somehow results in you in you're doing
those things my friends joke that like
I'm going to be the first person to go
to the Moon against their will like like
I guess all right this is uh all right
what's the food guys we're going to
start a fundraiser please like like Tim
just doesn't want to have to doesn't
want to go you know definitely don't
want to do it all right Tim you're an
incredible person thank you so much for
everything you do I've I've been a fan
of yours for a long time not just the
the content but just who you are as a
human being just how excited you are for
everything it's it's just an inspiration
your joy to watch thank you for being
you thank you for doing the stuff you're
doing uh I can't wait to see what you do
next man thank you so much for talking
with me today that was awesome thank you
so much it's my pleasure thanks for
listening to this conversation with Tim
Dodd to support this podcast please
check out our sponsors in the
description and now let me leave you
with some words from HG Wells life
forever dying to be born aresh forever
young and eager will presently stand
upon this Earth as upon a foot stol and
stretched out its realm amidst the
Stars thank you for listening and hope
to see you next time