I swear… the moment you get in a Tesla Cybercab you ain’t going back to anything else.
Everything else will feel outdated after that.
Once you experience the future, it’s hard to go back to the past.
Make it exist first. Make it pretty later
You’re looking at 33 Raptor V1 engines compared with 33 Raptor V3 engines. Years of R&D and billions of dollars were poured into creating this masterpiece.
In the beginning, it wasn’t pretty. There were many failures and setbacks, but SpaceX focused on making it work first. Then, they polished, refined, and improved every version until they achieved this incredible final result.
As Elon Musk says, aesthetics matter. SpaceX delivered
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees
Some of the things I say are speculative or aspirational and some are not.
What is not speculative is that the V3 satellites that will be launched on Starship are an order of magnitude more capable than the V2 satellites currently launched on Falcon.
Or that an order of magnitude more V3 and beyond Starlink satellites, plus V2 and beyond direct-to-cell satellites, will be launched.
That means >100X the bandwidth of the Starlink V2 system, which will reach $20B ARR this year. Even if revenue per gigabit drops by 10X, that still means SpaceX communications revenue will exceed $200B/year!
Elon Musk reveals what happens when a rocket launch needs approval from Fish and Wildlife
Elon: "Nonetheless, we were forced to kidnap a seal, strap it to a board, put headphones on the seal and play sonic boom sounds to it to see if it would be distressed."
Elon: "This is an actual thing that happened. This is actually real. I have pictures."
Before the seal, there was a shark.
Elon: "One of the things that was a bit of a challenge at one point is that they were worried about our rocket hitting a shark."
He asked for the data to calculate the odds. They refused, in case shark hunters got hold of it.
Elon: "Then they said, well, there's another part of Fish and Wildlife that can do this analysis. I'm like, well, why don't you give them the data? They don't, we don't trust them. Like, excuse me, but they're literally in your department."
Then a second agency raised whales.
Elon: "If our rocket does hit a whale, which is extremely unlikely beyond all belief, that whale has some seriously bad luck. It's the least lucky whale ever."
The seal test was for launches out of Vandenberg, where the seal population has been rising for years.
Elon: "So if anything, rocket booms are an aphrodisiac based on the evidence."
Elon: "The amazing part is how calm the seal was. Because if I was a seal, I'd be like, this is the end. They're definitely gonna eat me."
Elon: "Its seal buddies are never gonna believe him that he got strapped to a board and they put headphones on his ears."
They did it twice.
Elon: "I don't think the public is quite aware of the madness that goes on."