Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss. The critical crossroads, The shape SpaceX. Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink and I'm. Your host. Will Walden if you want uninterrupted episodes of the Elon Musk podcast. Please. Go to clubelon.supercast.com to find out how. There's a link in the show notes. SpaceX is working with the Department of Defense on the
Starship program. And this is a huge leap for SpaceX because currently they launched Department of Defense satellites with the Falcon 9 rocket. But with Starship, that's a whole other game. It's huge. It can take tons of cargo to low Earth orbit and beyond. And the Department of Defense is greedy, and they want to stick their fangs into the Starship
program as deep as possible. They're frothing at the mouth of this thing because it can transport cargo anywhere in the world from point A to point B in about an hour. So any amount of tonnage that the Department of Defense needs, they can get it there within an hour. And SpaceX could provide that if the Starship is successful. Now they've already had a few test launches IFT 1, IFT 2. They're coming up on IFT 3 sometime in February.
Hopefully, and if they are successful with this, will be a game changer for SpaceX. The Department of Defense is looking deep into space XS reserves and they know that they can count on SpaceX to make a rocket that's going to be sustainable for the near term and also the long term of the Department of Defense for the United States. So, and what does the Department of Defense need now? They already have the Falcon 9, right? They can transport stuff up into space, but they want to do point
to point. They want to do people from point A to point B. But do they want SpaceX in charge of this? That is the key. The Department of Defense works with other contractors and they make sure that they are in charge of the Rockets and not the people and the the producers of the Rockets. So they want to do this now with SpaceX. And there's been some insight here from Irene Klotz.
The Department of Defense has requested take over Starship for individual missions from Aviation Week network and wrote a great article about this. Irene did a great job here. So let's see here. I'm sorry. Brian Everstein did the article, Irene posted it. The Pentagon has approached SpaceX about potentially taking over Starship for sensitive, potentially dangerous missions as a government owned the government operated asset.
Instead of contracting the company to launch payloads so the government would control the Starship, the particular Starship or starships, they would launch them on their own accord. Maybe they would launch them through SpaceX. We're not sure yet, but they're looking into it. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about the government being in control of
starships? Because the Starship is supposed to send people in cargo to the moon and to Mars in a peaceful way, is it OK for the Department of Defense to get their hands on the Starship and the technology behind Starship? And if they can launch it themselves, is that a good thing? Let me know in the comments because I I have mixed emotions about this one because I think it's important to realize that SpaceX isn't just in it for the
humanity benefit. Sending people to the moon to Mars beyond is great, but they already do Department of Defense stuff. They've sent up spy satellites for the Department of Defense is they're up there already, so they're already in bed with the Department of Defense. Is this a game changer though? Is this a different thing? What could they transport on Starship they could not transport on a Falcon 9 and that's transporting troops and cargo across the world, the Department of Defense
represented said. We've had conversations, It really came down to specific mission where it's a very specific and sometimes elevated risk or maybe a dangerous use case for the Department of Defense where they're asking themselves do we need to own it as a particular asset. SpaceX, can you accommodate that? Basically asking SpaceX, hey, can you build this Starship? It's like when somebody builds the Department of Defense a tank, and that tank is owned by the government Now the builder
doesn't own it anymore. The Department of Defense owns that tank. Is this what's going to happen to starships in the future? And they said we've been exploring all kinds of options to deal with those questions. You know, they they move cargo like I was saying, like they're going to be moving cargo. They already have a Starship contract with the Department of Defense to move cargo. And eventually they'll have a contract to move people once
they human rate this. And of course, we know that it's capable of carrying. I think Elon said 100 people at a time. So if you could get 100 troops anywhere in the world within an hour, would you do it? If you're the Department of Defense, of course you would. You'd buy your own rockets to do it too. And you'd build your own Starship facility where you could launch the starships. You could catch the boosters. It'll be all under the watchful eye of SpaceX.
They'd build it, probably. They'd contract them to build the launch pads, the landing pads, the Rockets, of course, and or at least give them the blueprints, if you want to put it in a very broad term, to build these things, to build the launchpad, the landing pad, the chopsticks, the arms, the tower, everything. And once SpaceX nails this, the Department of Defense is going to be all over this.
I want to know, of course, like, I want to know what you think, because I'm still, I know what SpaceX does already. I know that they do this for the Department of Defense already, Air Force already Space Force already NASA of course because they're they're a department of the US government. But is this a different thing with the government owning starships? Is this a whole, this is a huge
leap. You know you making those assets and then they go on to say if we can buy the commercial service that's what we're going to do. But there might be some use cases where we where there needs to be a government owned, government operated vehicle. That transfer can happen on the
fly. So if they can buy a commercial service, say OK, let's load up some cargo from Boca Chica Starbase, Texas and fly it to some place, you know anywhere else in the world, That's not bad, That's not a bad thing. Just get the military to bring down their assets, to bring down their cargo to Starbase loaded up on a Starship and then launch it from now. That's not a big deal. They do that all the time. They do that with cargo planes, cargo helicopters, etcetera. This is a rocket though.
It's pretty big deal, pretty different. But if the Department of Defense could do this and their own property, how often would they do this? It's a little bit scary that they would have that power to get anywhere in the world within an hour. Ish. How to say about an hour? So Brian, you nailed it. That's a great article and it's short. It's easy to read, but I think we may be in trouble. I'm just saying this is very
powerful, this is very powerful. And I think we have to keep an eye on this because there's just so many things could happen with the Starship that it was just it was a game changer for everything, for the cargo and the people and other assets that the government and the Department of Defense can move around. So I just want to have a discussion with you today because I thought it was
pertinent. And I think the Starship, even though we have Mars on the horizon, is it possible that bad things can happen on Earth because of the Starship? And does that sway your opinion about SpaceX? All the other rocket companies do it, not the same thing. They build systems for the Department of Defense. So there's already precedent being set. SpaceX, like I said before, takes cargo to space for the Department of Defense. I don't know.
There's so many things, there's so many things to think about. It's in my wheelhouse, but I'm not in the Department of Defense. So I understand why they do it. I really do. I understand why they would do it. It makes tons of sense. But is it the right thing to do? I don't know. I don't know. That's where I'm. I don't know. So I want to have a discussion about this. I want you guys to talk about it because I think we need to. We need to make our voices heard
about this stuff. I think it's important that we have a strong military, but I also think it's important that sometimes you do the right thing. I know, let's skip. But if this is a ton of money for SpaceX, does it outweigh? Do they use this Department of Defense money to build more starships? To get more cargo to Mars? To get more people to Mars? Is it worth it at the end of the day to get people to Mars by doing this? By selling starships to the
Department of Defense? Possible billions of dollar investment from the DoD towards SpaceX and towards Starbase? And that's a lot of money. When you are a rocket company, it's a lot of money. So yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to consider here. And hope you take this into consideration when you think about SpaceX too, because even though their aspirations are huge and monumental, and they're going to get us to other planets and take cargo everywhere in the
solar system, that's wonderful. But what's the trade off? I'll leave you with that. What's the trade off? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching. If you like this kind of stuff, please hit the like button and hit the subscribe button because not only will you get this content, but you'll get content from other creators that are in this space, Space Flight creators that you might not know about. So did that hit the subscribe
button? And if you really like this kind of stuff, help me out a little bit. Become a member of the channel. You get some perks, you get some cool icons and emojis and stuff when we do live chats. So let me know what you think in the comments below. Oh by the way, I'm not done yet. I moved to the South so I could be closer to NASA and also personal reasons. Really good personal reasons. But the I'm closer to NASA now so if you want me to go to any particular launch, let me know
the comments down below too. It'll be at Kennedy Space Center in Florida so let me know about that. I'm about I'm much closer to Starbase too, so I do have a plan to go to Starbase at some point. Maybe I have T4, might be a good one. So let me know the comments. If you want me to go to a specific lodge, make it a couple months out too. I still got to get settled in. It's a great time though for me. I'm pretty excited right now. Life is good. All right. Take care everybody.
I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thank you. So much for listening today, I really. Do appreciate your. Support. If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
miss an episode and each. Episode is about. 10 minutes or less get you caught U quickly and please if you want to support the show even more, go to Patreon stage Zero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.