Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. And I'm your host Will Walden One. More thing before we start, Google Podcasts is being discontinued by Google. So if you want to continue getting episodes of the Elon Musk podcast.
Please check. Us out over at YouTube Music Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to find our our podcast through Google products. Thank you so much for understanding. I had no control. Over this. Google pulled the Google Podcast app off of Android, and I want to let you know where to continue finding the show. Over at YouTube Music Search for Elon Musk podcast Thank you so much. Elon Musk and SpaceX have been building Starship down at Starbase for the last few years.
This is the 4th flight coming up and it's possibly going to be happening in the next few weeks. There are some things that Elon, SpaceX has to do in order to make this flight successful. Flight 1-2 and three were pretty successful in the whole grand scheme of things. They have to do basically the same thing as flight 3, clear the pad hot staging. They have to do a boost back burn for the booster and they have to possibly soft land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, Elon Musk just recently said that if Flight 4 goes well, Flight 5, they're going to try to land the Starships booster back at the Starbase launch facility. You have to be kind of skeptical about what Elon says. SpaceX is amazing, but you have to understand that some of the expectations that Elon sets are way high compared to the
actuality of the situation. So if they do land soft land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a possibility that Flight 5 could see them landing it on land at the launch facility at the tower. Think about that for a second. What could happen if this goes wrong? Boost back, burn, lip maneuver, everything goes great for the booster. The ship is still flying through to orbit and doing its thing, which is a whole other
conversation. But if the booster does make it back to a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico, they're doing basically a virtual landing with the booster and the catch arms and the tower. So basically you have a landing spot in the Gulf of Mexico that they've partitioned off, so to say. That will be a tower and they'll go through the maneuvers of the booster hovering in the catch
arms not physically closing. There's no catch arms out there on the Gulf, but they will stay there for a certain amount of time. They'll hover down, slow hover down to the catch arms, and when the arms catch it, slowly release the engines engine shut off. And then from there the booster will fall into the Gulf of Mexico. And that would be fantastic. If they could do that, Flight 4, that would be fantastic. But think about it like this. What happens if Flight 4 was an
anomaly? What happens if Flight 4 was just, like, good luck? Like, of course engineering is great. I love engineering, and I love the engineers of SpaceX. I know a few of them and they're great people. But what if this was one of those things that they just got everything right this time and maybe next time? It's not so perfect. That's happened before with SpaceX. They've done this before. They've had numerous boosters land for Falcon Nine in a row and everything looked great.
All of a sudden a booster lands tips over, blows up, and same thing could happen with Starship's booster. Now mind you, the fuel that would have been spent on the boost back, burn and flying back and hovering would basically deplete most if not all of the fuel in the booster. So the booster itself not really explosive, not as much as say, a Falcon Nine. You also use different kind of fuels. The fuel in the booster for Starship is not as explosive or combustible as the Falcon 9.
So starship's booster probably not going to explode if it does land on the catch arms and something happens to it. But mind you, The thing is made out of basically a tube of shrapnel. It's a 250 foot tall stainless steel tube full of electronics, full of motors, wiring, things like that. And you gotta think what would happen if they did get it over land, if they got it over the tower and something were to happen to it. Shrapnel everywhere. And I'm, I don't like to say
things like that. I don't want that to happen. What I want to happen is this thing to be completely successful on flight 4 and then on flight 5 I want them to land it perfectly at the catch arms at the tower. Everything is great, but there is a possibility, a small possibility. The four is anomaly and five works. Elon is happy with flight 4 and it landing in the Gulf and to go on to flight 5 and to land at the tower. I'm totally fine with that, but I don't see it happening for flight 5.
Elon said if this happens in Flight 4 too, By the way. He said that in the latest Star Starship talk. You see it on the channel, go check it out. But if I don't know what do you think? Let me know in the comments down below. I wouldn't have a conversation about this because I don't nobody really knows what's gonna happen for Flight 4 because nobody really we know like the flight pattern. It's gotta be similar to flight 3.
As far as we know. The only thing a few things that are gonna be different but one of the major things is Elon wants to make sure that the Starship is that basically burn up temperature and land it in the Indian Ocean, possibly self detonated over the Indian Ocean. They do have a bunch of flights planned out and they do have combustion warnings over the Indian Ocean. So is the possibility that they do land the Starship and that's the big one, that's the big one.
They want to do the booster and landing in the Gulf of Mexico also a big deal about this. So those two things are the huge deals for the next Starship flight. So if they can get Starship through the atmosphere so it doesn't burn up, they have to get it to an extreme temperature, the most extreme temperature of the Starship has ever faced. And if they do that, this
mission will be a success. If they don't do the boost back burn and the booster landing at the tower or at the imaginary tower in the Gulf of Mexico, I think that's gonna be OK. But Elon says, of course they want to do that. They want to make sure that it all works out. We'll see. I don't know. Let me know down below because I'm torn here. I don't think they should rush it. I think they should do 5 perfect flights of the booster.
I know they only have up to 9 flights every year for the Starship, so I guess they're going to go. They got to go for it, right? It seems like they just have to take some chances here. Now I want to go back to the shrapnel part of it as well. The whole booster is stainless steel. The whole thing is super sharp if you think about it. If something goes arise, something goes haywire and they explode the booster for some reason. There's shrapnel everywhere.
There's pipes, there's tubes, there's wiring, there's harnesses, there's vehicles. Whatever's around the Starship launch facility could get extremely damaged. Think about just imagine a shrapnel piece this large ripping through part of a launch tower. I know they have cladding on it, I know they have protection on it, but some parts are not protected as well as others.
So there's a possibility, even if it's a slim possibility, then some of the ground systems could get damaged if they try this on flight 5. That's my real big concern is the ground systems at Starbase and how fast would they be able to rebuild them. They probably have other parts. It seems like they would have other parts there, replacement parts, or they can ship them in or build them or whatever. But it seems like SpaceX may be taking this risk a little bit
too lightly. If Flight 4 is perfect again, let me know in the comments down below. I want to know what you think because I'm torn here. I would love this to work. I would love for the spectacle, the absolute spectacle of flight 5, to land on the tower, catch arms, lower it down, refurbish the booster possibly, and fly it again. That would be amazing. I don't think the flying again is going to happen, but if they catch it, they lower it down. That would be fantastic.
I would love it. I would absolutely love that, that I think there's a possibility I but still I need your comments, Please hit the like button too. And also, if you like this kind of content, hit the subscribe button, because not only will you get this channel and this kind of commentary, but you'll get other people's channels on
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