Speaker A
Thank you so much for being with us here at Wired Science. Well, thank you for having me.
Rare 2007 interview with Elon Musk discussing his vision for space exploration, SpaceX, and the future of humanity beyond Earth.
Key Takeaways
- SpaceX aims to make humanity a multiplanetary species with Mars as the primary focus.
- Orbital spaceflight is vastly more challenging than suborbital tourism, requiring significantly more energy.
- The US space program has regressed since the 1969 moon landing due to technological choices and lack of political will.
- Private companies like SpaceX complement NASA rather than compete with it.
- Strong governmental leadership is crucial for ambitious space exploration goals.
What the video covers
- Elon Musk discusses his early entrepreneurial ventures including Zip2 and PayPal.
- He outlines his three key areas of impact: internet, space exploration, and solar electric economy.
- Musk expresses optimism about humanity's future on Earth but advocates for becoming a spacefaring civilization.
- He explains SpaceX's role in servicing NASA and replacing the space shuttle with Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft.
- Musk critiques the stagnation of the US space program since the moon landing and calls for leadership focused on Mars rather than the moon.
- He differentiates SpaceX's orbital missions from suborbital efforts like Virgin Galactic's, emphasizing the greater technological challenge.
- Musk states SpaceX currently has no serious competition capable of catching up.
- He highlights the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary to ensure humanity's long-term survival.
- Musk reflects on the importance of government leadership in space exploration goals.
- He shares admiration for other entrepreneurs but remains focused on SpaceX’s unique technological ambitions.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Early Ventures
- 01:00Optimism About Humanity and Space Goals
- 01:48SpaceX Rockets: Falcon 9 and Dragon Explained
- 02:45Musk's Age and Space Program Critique
- 03:43Technological and Leadership Challenges in Space Exploration
- 04:44Comparison with Other Space Entrepreneurs
- 06:53Focus on SpaceX's Unique Technological Challenges
- 07:46Musk on Competition and Criticism
- 08:44Long-Term Vision: Making Life Multiplanetary
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Uh, I need to first lay a little bit of a foundation here. Two days into your physics program at Stanford University, you quit school to start a company called Zip, a media company, right?
Speaker A
Uh, which you sold a few years later for a paltry $37 million. Then four years later, eBay buys PayPal. Is that correct? A company that you established or helped to establish as one of the few others. Yeah.
Speaker A
Um, and now you've taken those two enormous successes and you've set your ambition on space. How did you go from online payment systems to building a spaceship essentially?
Speaker A
Well, uh, when I graduated from college, there were three areas that I thought would be most impactful to the future of humanity. The three were the internet, space exploration, and then changing the economy from a mine and burn hydrocarbon-based economy to one which is solar electric, which I think is going to be the primary but not exclusive means of energy and transportation.
Speaker A
Have we screwed it up so badly here on this planet that our only hope is to build a new civilization out there?
Speaker A
No, not at all. Actually, I'm quite optimistic about the future of humanity on Earth.
Speaker A
You are? Yeah, absolutely. So what is the benefit to humanity then to inhabit Mars, which is really what is an ambition of yours?
Speaker A
Well, I think if you consider two paths, one where we're forever confined to Earth and the other where we are a spacefaring civilization out exploring the stars, I think the latter is far more exciting and will result in a richer and more diverse human experience.
Speaker A
How can you do that better than NASA?
Speaker A
Well, you know, NASA is a customer of ours. So there's a, I think, a confusion in the public mind that perhaps a company like SpaceX is competing with NASA, but in fact, NASA is a customer of ours. So we're actually providing services to NASA, launch services, and when the shuttle retires in 2010, so starting in 2011, SpaceX's rocket will replace the space shuttle in servicing the space station with astronauts and cargo transportation.
Speaker A
The name of your rocket ship is called the Falcon Explorer. Is that it?
Speaker A
Well, the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 is the rocket, and then the spaceship is Dragon.
Speaker A
Yeah. So the Falcon 9 rocket lifts the Dragon spaceship, and the Dragon spaceship is what goes to the space station and then returns to Earth.
Speaker A
So it transports. The Falcon is almost cargo then.
Speaker A
So yeah, the Falcon 9 is kind of like the semi or something like that.
Speaker A
It transports—the Falcon 9 booster rocket takes the Dragon spaceship to space and drops it off.
Speaker A
Then it goes to the space station, docks with the space station, transfers astronauts or resupply, you know, cargo, whatever the case may be, and then the Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth.
Speaker A
I was reading some of the speeches that you have given in your career. And how old are you? Practically 23 years? You're 23 years old, is that?
Speaker A
I'm actually 32.
Speaker A
You're 32. I was going to say you look terrific. But you have said that we got lost along the way with our space program. What did you mean by that?
Speaker A
Right. I think that was in some of my congressional testimony. I gave a few speeches to Congress.
Speaker A
Well, what I mean by that is in 1969 we were able to go to the moon, and here we are over three decades later and we can barely get to low Earth orbit. And I think by any measure that is a step backwards.
Speaker A
Is that for a lack of leadership or technology?
Speaker A
I think we made the wrong technological choices, and I think there was also a lack of will at the highest levels of government to take the next step and go—well, at least go, at least stay on the moon and perhaps build a base there and then go beyond the moon to Mars. And if you look at the news articles in the late '60s, early '70s, the expectation was that by now, in the 21st century, we would have a moon base and probably even a Mars base. And I think if you'd asked anyone at that point in time whether we would be unable to go to the moon and have not been to Mars, I think they would think you're crazy.
Speaker A
Do we need leadership in that realm? Do we need a John F. Kennedy who sets a goal for us when he said one day a man will walk on the moon? Do we need that kind of leadership for this technology to move forward in that big step?
Speaker A
I do think it's very important the president set the priority and determine the goal that we as a nation will aspire to. And George Bush has his pluses and minuses, but at least one plus is that he has helped to steer the space program in a direction that more or less makes sense. The only thing I would argue with is that I don't think we should be going back to the moon. I think we should be focused on Mars.
Speaker A
I think we—You think that's a mistake focusing on the moon?
Speaker A
I do think we should rather be focused on Mars. The moon is kind of like the Arctic. I mean, it's just a very barren place, very little resources. It's small. It's not really a place that we could establish another human civilization.
Speaker A
There's a feeling of been there, done that too with the moon.
Speaker A
Yeah. I think we saw that movie in the '60s. You know, the remake's never as good.
Speaker A
Did we really go to the moon?
Speaker A
Yes. Yes. We definitely did. I just wanted to check. The government is incapable of suppressing a conspiracy of that nature.
Speaker A
Of that nature. Okay, good. This ambition to explore space. Absolutely. As an entrepreneur, there's quite a bit of competition out there.
Speaker A
There's Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin. There's Richard Branson with his Virgin Galactic, right?
Speaker A
I'm not talking about NASA either. There's Paul Allen. There's the European Space Agency and Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Chinese, the Russians. Let's just throw all of them into this competitive field. How is SpaceX different? How do you think you'll surpass them?
Speaker A
Well, you've listed a wide range of entities there, and I think the differences are really different depending upon which one you're referring to.
Speaker A
Well, let me ask you this question. Who is your competition?
Speaker A
We have no serious competition. Not presently.
Speaker A
Who's chasing you?
Speaker A
Well, if you mean chasing and has a serious chance of catching, then I think none that I'm aware of.
Speaker A
Uh, guys, kind of a hack then.
Speaker A
Well, what Branson is doing, by the way, I'm a great admirer of Branson, is really a much smaller technological challenge. Their craft would be suborbital, so it would go to about Mach 3. Our craft is orbital. It goes to Mach 25, 25 times the speed of sound. But that doesn't describe the whole scale of difficulty because the energy required to get those velocities scales with the square of the velocity. So to do what Branson is doing, you need about 9 units of energy. To do what we're doing, you need 625 units of energy. The difference is monumental. And then when you reenter, you have to burn off all that energy, so that doubles the problem really. So I mean, what Branson is doing from a technological standpoint is building something that can cross the English Channel. What we're building is something that can circumnavigate the globe. It's a very different scale of technological difficulty. I still think what he's doing is great. And by the way, I bought a ticket on his effort.
Speaker A
You did?
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. I still think it's great, but it's not in the same league technologically.
Speaker A
So, you're not particularly worried?
Speaker A
Certainly not about that. No, certainly not about that.
Speaker A
own foolishness uh our own errors can can hurt us, but none of the competition that I'm aware of.
Speaker A
Mhm. So, generally, you're worried about what's in front of you, not not the other guy. In fact, you probably don't think about them in terms of how they criticize you or what they think about you.
Speaker A
I I don't think actually I don't think uh there's much criticism. I mean, Boeing and Loheed of course that they would criticize, but I don't think any of the entrepreneurial guys would criticize what we're doing. Um and it's
Speaker A
certainly possible. I think you know what what Jeff Bezos is working on could ultimately I mean he he does have aspirations to get to orbit and beyond.
Speaker A
It's just that what they're doing right now is suborbital and at at the sort of lower technology level. What I think about at SpaceX is really entirely what are we doing to ensure that our rocket is is going to be successful and that we
Speaker A
are truly uh optimizing the the the cost uh and ensuring high reliability. I mean that's just a very very difficult problem. There's a reason why there's an idiomatic expression about rocket science being hard. Uh it it really is
Speaker A
really hard. So rocket science really is rocket science. Yeah. It looks hard and it's harder than it looks.
Speaker A
What's the big goal here? What's the long-term plan? Well, the long-term ultimate objective, the the holy grail is we would like to help make life multilanetary. That's really what we'd like to do.
Speaker A
So, establish societies on as many planets as possible. Uh well, yeah, I think there's only one possibility, but yeah, I mean, even if we can just go from one planet to two, I think that's a pretty big step.
Speaker A
And you'll start with well, Mars. Mars is the only viable planet. Viable planet. So, multilanetary life.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's help make life multilanetary. I think that's an important thing. I don't think your goal is big enough, huh?
Speaker A
Yeah, it's ambitious. Well, like I said, we're not don't expect to do it single-handedly, but we certainly would like to help make it happen.
Speaker A
It's fair to say you've made a fortune. Yeah, I think so. By any reasonable standard. Yeah. And you know, those who work in science probably understand your trajectory, but there are those who are watching who would think, "If I made
Speaker A
that money, I'd sit on a beach, I'd drink beer, and I would just watch the sunset." Kind of like a Corona beer commercial. Have you ever thought about that as a career option?
Speaker A
Uh, you know, I find that really pretty boring. So, that would be torture if I had to do that every day. That would really be pretty awful for me. Is there something about startup businesses that that that really fuels your desire to
Speaker A
work? Well, I guess I I I I I really need to be preoccupied with something. Uh and I if if I'm just sort of sitting there relaxing, I can only do that for a very short period of time and then it becomes
Speaker A
unbearable. Um although startups definitely have their highs and lows. There's a friend of mine who has a good phrase, you know, a startup business is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. What is the criteria that you
Speaker A
establish for yourself for a startup? You mean why one business over another? Yeah. Well, I for me it's always about does this does what I'm doing matter if if we are successful uh does it matter to the world? And uh so there are easier ways
Speaker A
to make money than starting a rocket company or say a car company um or or even when I started an internet company cuz when I started the first internet company uh nobody had made any money and it wasn't clear that anyone
Speaker A
would make any money. uh it was simply from the perspective of the internet being a very important thing and something that needed to be built and so I wanted to help build it.
Speaker A
Well, you touch upon something that's interesting is that there is a that benefiting humanity is a very integral part of your criteria no matter what you're starting up.
Speaker A
Yes, absolutely. Really not everybody has that as a prime interest. I think that's that's probably relatively unusual. Although there are many people that I know in Silicon Valley for whom that is a significant motivation. You said in your endeavor
Speaker A
here to explore space that we are committed to failing in a new way if nothing else. What did you mean by that?
Speaker A
Just just just how it sounds. Well, I mean we're we're I mean we're committed to succeed really. But uh but if we do fail uh I would hope that we at least add to the body of knowledge such
Speaker A
that those who follow may make fewer mistakes. Mhm. Uh now if Mars were not enough uh you you are busy here on Earth.
Speaker A
The world is not enough. That's right. Where where what have you no limits my friend? Uh here on earth you are establishing uh a presence certainly uh with Tesla Motors.
Speaker A
Tell tell us a little bit about that. This is an electric car company. Correct. And this is no this is no hybrid car you could buy on a car lot.
Speaker A
This thing goes from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. Is that right? Yes, absolutely. 0 to 60 under 4 seconds. It's faster better acceleration than any uh Porsche currently in production and any Ferrari except the Enzo. Um and it's twice the energy
Speaker A
efficiency of a Prius. So, it's uh you really have the moral high ground and uh you get to, you know, leave uh the Ferrari guy in your dust. So, well, let me ask hard to beat.
Speaker A
Let me ask the obvious. Well, and you don't look like one of those guys who's trying too hard in Ferrari.
Speaker A
Absolutely. Yeah. Um you don't look like a joke, you know. You know, bright banana yellow uh Lamborghini or or or Ferrari. I mean, there's something I should point out about Tesla, which is uh we didn't you Tesla is the first car is is a sports
Speaker A
car. because we think the world likes our sports car uh but because it is the right entry point for the market. If you have a new technology, the right place to enter is high unit cost, low unit volume. uh just as you know when when a
Speaker A
when a new cell phone come out comes out or a new uh a new laptop or or some some new thing uh it tends to be expensive at first uh because that they're figuring out all the issues and it takes time to
Speaker A
optimize and then over time that that technology will become uh cheaper and cheaper and so the model two of of Tesla uh and maybe I'm leaping ahead here but model two of Tesla is a $49,000 four-door five passenger sedan um and
Speaker A
that's uh that's going to be obviously a much broader market segment uh that that that can make use that car. And the Model 3 is intended to be around a $30,000 price point. Uh and so that's that's really affordable by by almost
Speaker A
everyone uh who's who's who can buy a new car. So the idea is to drive to mass market as rapidly as possible uh but at only at the pace at which the technology uh matures. So is Henry Ford and uh someone you admire?
Speaker A
Well, I think Henry Ford made some very important contributions to uh to business and obviously you know moving moving manufacturing line and that sort of thing. So I think he's certainly worthy of admiration. Uh he was a bit of
Speaker A
an odd duck but you know uh certainly noteworthy but the interest in Tesla is is not from the perspective of you know the world needs another car company.
Speaker A
It's more from uh the perspective of we have a very important environmental problem that needs to be addressed which is driven by the the burning of fossil fuels and uh the increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and and
Speaker A
global climate change which I think is going to be one of the most significant issues of of the 21st century. And the only way to to really get around that in my view is is is really with an electric
Speaker A
vehicle. Uh and then you need to pair that up with uh a a a zero emission power generation method such as solar power. I think is solar power is going to be a really big deal.
Speaker A
Tesla is not a hybrid car. Tesla Tesla is pure electric. Pure electric. So help connect the dots for me. Why aren't we seeing Tesla cars on the car lots then? What's Well, we we haven't made them yet. Uh so
Speaker A
the it's we're just finishing up the development right now and anybody can buy this.
Speaker A
Yes. How will you actually almost sold out of 2007 production. So if somebody does want to buy next year's model, they they better act quickly.
Speaker A
One of the primary complaints about hybrid vehicles is they're not fast enough. You seem to overcome.
Speaker A
You won't have any trouble with this. In fact, really uh it's there's something uh uniquely better about uh electric vehicles, which is that the torque response is immediate. So if you want to pass someone, you I mean you just the
Speaker A
the the response of the car is is is very immediate. It's just it's more fun to drive an electric car uh than it is to drive a gasoline car.
Speaker A
You know, I was going to say that Tesla, the car, the name of the car company is no coincidence, is it? Explain a little bit about that.
Speaker A
Right. The company's named after Nicola Tesla who was an inventor. Uh he was originally from uh the sort of the area of of Yugoslavia and Europe, but he moved to America when he was young and uh and and was an inventor of the the AC
Speaker A
induction motor, invented a lot of the principles of magnetism. Uh, so he he was a great man, a great great inventor.
Speaker A
Um, and so the company's named in honor of him. Mhm. So these cars, the Tesla Roadster, the first the first issue of the Tesla Roadster available in 2007.
Speaker A
Yes. In the spring, the summer. How do you get on the waiting list? Well, you you buy the car, you you basically put down a deposit and and we've actually Can you do that through the web?
Speaker A
Uh, yeah. We'll have, by the way, customer centers all around the country. So, we'll have one in LA, one in the the Bay Area, Chicago, Miami, New York, uh, and and eventually nationwide customer centers, uh, where if somebody does want
Speaker A
to see the car in person, take a test drive, or see the car being worked on. I mean, we have this idea for the way that the cars are serviced that it should be a really, uh, a really pleasant
Speaker A
experience. So, we have, you know, some some somewhere between like a Starbucks and an Apple store. So, you go in and you'd see the car being cars being worked on behind a glass partition.
Speaker A
That would be your car you're watching. Yeah. Or somebody else's. Yeah. And but it's really clean. It's really clean.
Speaker A
present, bright, you know, there be sort of a uh, you know, coffee bar available, you know, just a we really want to have a very pleasant experience that that you don't typically get if you go into a dealership.
Speaker A
Have you heard from Toyota? Have you heard from General Motors and Ford saying uh, use the company for sale? No, nobody's actually made a formal offer, but the interest, you know, I think one of the one of the biggest values that
Speaker A
that Tesla can can can provide is serving as an example to the rest of the auto indust industry because right now the auto industry, you know, the big car companies believe that a a viable electric vehicle is not possible and b
Speaker A
even if it was, people wouldn't buy it. So, we need to show that that neither of those are true. uh that the technology works, that people want to buy it, and and that will be the most effective way
Speaker A
of of of really driving change in the in the auto industries by serving as as an example in that matter. And if we were to sell the company to one of one of the big car companies, I think it would
Speaker A
really slow things down. Mhm. You think so? Absolutely. Mhm. You're very busy enterprising the part of your company that will explore space. You're very busy with this car company. Where do you find time to be CEO of two companies that size? Well, I
Speaker A
should correct you that I'm CEO of of SpaceX. Uh, and I'm chairman and CEO of SpaceX, and that is really my day job.
Speaker A
So, I spend 80% of my time on SpaceX. Okay. I am the chairman and the the principal owner of Tesla Motors. Uh, but I do not run it on a daily basis.
Speaker A
You don't run that on a daily basis? No. Well, that was really the question was how do you do how do you run those two large enterprises on a daily basis?
Speaker A
I I Is it a couple of phone calls to the Tesla folks? How's it going? I'm busy with outer space right now. You guys got that covered? I spend about I spend about two two to three days a month on
Speaker A
Tesla related business and almost all the rest of the time is on SpaceX. So SpaceX is very much my my day-to-day job.
Speaker A
Um and then I provide uh product guidance, strategic guidance um and and obviously funding for for Tesla like Steve Jobs, right? So he runs Apple on a daily basis, but he also, you know, has uh oversight over Pixar. It's it's kind
Speaker A
of like that. Mhm. And in your day-to-day, and and this is this is one of those silly lifestyle questions, but how early do you get up in the morning? And where do you go to work physically? Is it an
Speaker A
office? Yeah, I I go to work at SpaceX. How early do you get up in the morning?
Speaker A
You know, I'm not an early morning person. Uh so so you so for young like for young engineers and for inventors and creators, they can sleep in till 10 or 11. We have no fixed hours at SpaceX and
Speaker A
I mean my personally I would I tend to get up around 7:30 or 8 and be in the office around, you know, 900 9:30. Uh but then I tend to stay about till about 8:00 p.m.
Speaker A
Okay. College students across America are saying, "Oh, I thought he was going to say like noon." But then you go into an office and you you sit with uh in a separate office away from those who are working or do
Speaker A
you sit with it? No, I just have a cubicle at SpaceX. You have a cubicle? Yeah.
Speaker A
And are you surrounded by your colleagues there? Absolutely. What is your hope in terms of the impact you will leave on culture, this civilization, this world, global civilization? What is it that you you hope to leave here?
Speaker A
Well, I think what I'd like to do is help solve some important problems. So, I think in a small way, uh helped build the internet uh and then with respect to the the global warming problem, the the transition from from uh away from oil
Speaker A
and other hydrocarbons to to something which is clean and sustainable, I hope to have an impact there. And then uh with respect to space, I hope to have an impact in uh helping make humanity a multilanet species.
Speaker A
Elon Musk, thank you so much for being with us at Wire Science. See, uh let me get it straight. CEO of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors.
Speaker A
Yeah, I got other titles, but that's about that's about right. I think that you're doing pretty good. I think you've done very well.
Topics:Elon MuskSpaceXFalcon 9Dragon spacecraftMars colonizationspace explorationNASAprivate spaceflight2007 interviewfuture of humanity
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