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. I'm your host, Will Walden. Let's talk about Starship, let's talk about New Glen, and let's talk about ula as well for a national security space launch phase three launch services program. OK, that's a lot. Wow. OK, So we know that SpaceX works with the Department of Defense, and we also know the Blue Origin
hasn't launched New Glen yet. So those are the two things we have to think about today. SpaceX works with the Department of Defense, with Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and they also work with NASA and other firms around the world. Blue Origin sends people to space to do what some would call a carnival ride. You go up, you come back down. I think it's pretty cool though. Right now the the Blue Origin launcher that sends people to space sent Captain Kirk to space. I mean, come on, you can't just
be a hater on that. That's pretty cool. But New Glen, their giant massive rocket, hasn't launched yet. Why do they get these contracts? How do they get this contract and what does this mean for SpaceX in the overall scheme of things? This contract is coming up $5.6 billion / 5 years from fiscal year 2025 to 2029. They'll compete for at least 30 NSSL Lane One missions, which launch up to two years in advance. So let's talk about Blue Origin
first. Blue Origin, who is founded by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon guy, selected for the first time to launch national security satellites under the NSSL program. The only rocket that they have that can do this is New Glen, which hasn't launched yet. We they haven't even test fired the thing. Now heavy lift reusable rocket is expected to attempt its first orbital flight later this year. Could this be possible?
Could we see a New Glen flight? I think it would be freaking awesome if we saw a New Glen flight. Let me know down to the comments if you support Blue Origin and their gigantic massive New Glen rocket. It's not as big a Starship Mind you not I don't think it's as cool as Starship. But because it's all hidden and secret, we don't really know what's going on with New Glen until Blue Origin releases something.
It's not like SpaceX where you can drive down Hwy. 4, literally parking the side of the road, like across the road from it, take a couple pictures or like to stand there and hang out and notice how huge this thing is. You can't do that with New Glen. It's all in secret. But they received $5 million for initial capabilities assessment and nearly $18 million for early integration studies for New Glen, their initial capabilities assessment. What can it do?
What can the Blue origin rocket do? How much can it hold early integration studies for new glance? So they get 50 or 5,5,000,000 and 18,000,000 for both of those things. Just it's kind of like a study like hey, early integration studies like how can this how does this thing work? How will it work for the Department of Defense? That's a bunch of money. And then phase three, this is how the program structure and lay details. I'm going to read this off to you because it's hard for me to
remember all this stuff. It's divided into two lanes. Lane one is for less demanding low earth orbit launches and lane 2 for heavy lift rockets capable of delivering payloads to 9 reference orbits. So SpaceX has Falcon Heavy, it's their heavy lift rocket. And then Jeff Bezos with New Glen, that's their heavy lift rocket. Lane one contracts are confirmed for Blue Origin, SpaceX and ula with no other launch providers meeting the criteria.
Lane two providers will be selected later this year with up to three contracts awarded for high performance launch systems. So lane 2 heavy lift rockets, SpaceX is more than likely going to get it with Falcon Heavy. Not quite Starship yet because I don't know if the, I don't know if the Department of Defense really is into, I know they're into Starship, but I don't know if they're ready for a Starship launch yet. And Joey Roulette, we're going to talk about that in a minute
too. Joey Roulette had some information about this on X as well. I'll talk about that in a little bit. Now the competition. Space Force aims to increase competition and drive down launch costs, which is a great thing for SpaceX while maintaining assured access to space through redundant capabilities. Do it through ula do it through Blue Origin, do it through SpaceX. You have three different things. You can launch with three different launch providers.
So it's going to be redundant. They can always get something to orbit or beyond on wrap. Opportunities will be available early year to allow new providers and systems to enter the competition. So if anybody else out there has a heavy lift rocket or rocket that can suffice what the Department of Defense needs, sure, throw your hat in the ring. Go for it early year every year to allow new providers to and systems to enter the
competition. Potential new entrants for lane one include Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, and they're all, they all have like medium lift rockets right now or they're developing them. So the task orders, task order number one in phase three lane 1 includes 7 launches for the Space Development Agency and one for National Reconnaissance Office, SpaceX and ula as incumbent phase two providers will each receive 1.5 million.
It's not that much money for these mega mega corporations. Only launch providers who have completed a successful orbital launch prior to the proposal due date can bid for task orders. So why are they using Starship right now? They don't really need to. They have Falcon Heavy. Starship isn't proven yet. Could they do? Could they do it by then? Yeah, of course. And also, if they do with Falcon Heavy this year, they could always bid for the Starship on next year's program.
So Blue Origin looks like they have the confidence of the Department of Defense, which is great because we need competition. Not only do does Blue Origin compete with Starship, but they're going to be competing with these giant contracts, with these giant contracts. SpaceX wants that money. So they're going to make Starship better, faster, a bigger, cheaper also ula going to do the same thing actually ula is kind of old space, right?
So Ula does things the old way where they have a fixed way of doing things. And the rocket doesn't change until later. I mean, it will change later on. They will have their blocks for this rocket, but it's not clear exactly when that'll happen. Also, it's not really clear when Starship will make it to orbit and complete a full orbit, but I'm hoping it's by the end of this year. That would be great. I'm assuming that it will be by
the end of this year. They'll they'll complete a full orbit and they'll possibly get some star links into into orbit while they're up there and hopefully they'll catch a booster. And I don't think, I don't think, you know, IFT 5 is going to be the booster catch. I think IFT six or seven is going to be the booster catch. I'm still optimistic. You know, I'm not a pessimist about this thing. I'm just being realistic.
So I think somebody left a comment in on the last video that I was pessimistic about this stuff. I'm, I'm just being realistic, man. You know, with the, with the booster catch for Starship, it's just a little bit dangerous, you know, and I'm optimistic about Starship. I want it to work very well. I want it to work perfectly. But sometimes you got to be realist, you know, IFT 5, if everything looks great, go for it. Go for it. But you know, it seems like the Department of Defense really
likes Blue Origin in this case. And Space Force plans to select lane two providers this fall. And it they said the government intends to award up to three contracts for the NSSL phase three lane two launch launch service procurement lane two providers this fall. Could that be Starship possibly, possibly. That's a heavy lift 1. So it's either going to be Falcon Heavy or Starship.
If they can show that they can get to orbit, SpaceX has to make some sort of some sort of door, some sort of hatch for their satellites to come out because I don't think they're ready for they're not ready for the clamshell quite yet. You know, how want the, the clamshell with the, the nose of the Starship opening up like this and then the, the satellites come out. I don't think they're ready for that yet. They could do a hatch of some
sort. They did the the Starlink hatch, which seemed to be OK, seemed to work all right. As far as we know is that they said it was a successful test. So yes, it was successful. Was a little bit janky and little, you know, and, you know, probably a couple seconds worth of closing the doors little janky, but you know, it's their first try and it's a Starship so it's huge. It's massive. So The thing is, Starship may get this contract. Falcon Heavy more than likely
like that's reliable. It's proven. If SpaceX wants to go the proven route for this one, I would say just get the contract, take that money. Because if you can demonstrate for the Department of Defense that you can do these things again and again with Falcon Heavy, of course, use that as a heavy lift rocket. It's not a super heavy lift rocket like Starship. And I don't think they're going to need a Starship for what the Department of Defense, US Space Force needs for this launch.
So why would you use the Starship if you don't need it? Let me know in the comments down below what you think they're going to do. Joey Roulette, I'm going to read you some of his tweets. So he just goes over Space Force awarded Blue Origin 5 million to conduct a da, da, da. And then so he says, Joey says SpaceX pitch Starship, Blue Origin pitch New Glen Ula pitch Vulcan. Then he goes on to say, I've asked SSC if Starship was admitted to lane one. They said yes.
But I don't think that's correct. SpaceX got 1.5 million for a well understood system, which obviously wouldn't be Starship, it would be Falcon. And it's highly doubtful Starship would be operational by December. So fully operational by December. He said it's highly doubtful. I think there's a possibility it's possible SpaceX pitch Starship for lane one independent of Falcon because why not in SSC only chose its Falcon bid, but that's not
confirmed. I don't know waiting SSC to clarify, but it certainly seems obvious Falcon is the one. And then Nick Proxima said, hey, hi Joey. Where exactly does it say what each vehicle was pitched? Just trying to phrase this the best of my ability. Thank you. And then Joey said Space Force confirmed to him, as did the company's execs exec SpaceX. And then he said, I don't think it's Starship. So interesting that it's not Starship when New Glenn is
launching too. So Joey's very reputable about this stuff. So it's it's kind of a little bit weird, but also you got to understand it. This is a business like they don't do this to show off Starship. They do this to win contracts. They do this for billions of dollars. So if they have a rocket that can already do that, use the rocket that's already there. Use the Falcon Heavy for now until you get your Starship ready and then when starship's
ready, start launching. It's not like they lost a race or anything like that. They're here to win money and they're winning money with Falcon Heavy because they have a reliable rocket that already works. Unlike Blue Origin who has, you know, their has their tourism rocket, which takes people up to space, they float back down. It's all good. It's fun, it's pretty cool. It's actually, it's actually really cool. I like that. The rocket idea for Blue Origin.
I would love to do it someday. So there you have it. That's what we know so far. Starship isn't going to be launching these as far as we know. If anything changes, I'll let you know.
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