- Hi, it's me Tim Dodd,
the Everyday Astronaut. Last night, Elon Musk updated the world on SpaceX's Starship development. Let me tell ya, the event was amazing. We learned a lot of really cool details. But, I'm still a little
baffled by the pace of this program, it's unheard of. If only there was someone
that could answer a few more of my questions about this
program and about Starship. - That's a nice shirt. - How's it going? Thank-you, you know full flow staged conduction not a bad idea Mind mic-ing yourself up there? [Tim Voiceover] After Elon
complimented my shirt, we mic-ed him up and let the cameras roll. Now, for those of you new to my channel, we're gonna get into some
fairly in-depth rocket science and if it's over your head don't worry. Stick around my channel, and
I promise I'll make sense of all the stuff we talk about, like full flow staged combustion cycle and aerospike engines. There were parts of this interview that I wasn't really
planning to release at first but, actually think the best
thing I can do is just show you the entire thing, un-cut,
from a single camera, so you can feel like
you're right there with us. - Yeah, first off, thank-you so much for, you know, talking to me, I mean, we're underneath your beautiful beast. - Yeah it's crazy, can you
believe this is even here? - I was here a month ago,
literally standing right here, well not, just over the fence, and you know you got a
tube and a pointy tube, and now you've got this! I mean, how do you, how do you do that? Is it just sheer will? Is everyone that driven about the goal? - I don't, I think I've
learned a lot of lessons about how to make things go fast. And then I've... propagated those lessons
to the SpaceX team and there's just like
an incredibly talented, hard working team at SpaceX,
in fact at times I think, maybe there's too many
talented people at SpaceX. We have like... you know, too many talented people, that we're cornering the
market, or something. You know, but there's like
this very talented group that works super hard and... The, and just have taking
the general approach of, if a design is taking
too long, the design is wrong and therefore, the design must be modified to accelerate progress. And one of the most
fundamental errors made in advanced developments
is to stick to a design even when it is very complicated, and to not strive to
delete parts and processes. It's incredibly important. So, this is why the switch to steel was because the advanced carbon
fiber was taking too long. - Right, right, well and
you're not, you're definitely not a sunk cost fallacist,
you're like Mister, "This is clearly the new path
forward, let's hop on it" - Yeah, is it in the future or not? If it's not in the future, who cares? - Yeah, yeah, and you did that, I mean look at last year, DearMoon, you guys were kind of in that like, awkward stage of probably figuring this out right here. You know, you had the
carbon fiber mandrel... - I think we didn't even have the steel, I think we were still on the path, when was the DearMoon thing? - Almost exactly a year ago. - That was before the change to steel. - Yeah, you guys, I mean you showed the carbon mandrel and everything and you're, you know, excited about that, but then all of the sudden we see you switch- - I canceled the carbon fiber
design in October last year. - Yeah, so just after that. - Yeah... - You know, what people
don't understand is that you're the lead engineer,
you're literally sit- - Literally, this is, I
was actually at dinner with some, with a friend and he was like, "Well, who's the chief
engineer at SpaceX?" Oh I go, "It's me", "No, no" he's like, "It's not you, who is it?", like okay it's either someone with a very low ego, or, I don't know, you know, but, you know that said, you know the, like, you know what I actually
used to tell the team, I was like, "Everyone
is a chief engineer", this is extremely important, and that everyone must understand
how, the, broadly speaking, all the systems in the vehicle work. And so that, so you don't have self-system optimization, cause this is naturally what happens, you can see the organizational errors, The product errors reflect
the organizational errors. So like essentially,
you'll see that there's an interface at this particular, like, whatever departments you've got, that will be where your interfaces are. - Right. - Instead of like,
getting rid of something, or questioning the constraints,
the one department will design to the constraints
that the other department has given them without
calling into question those constraints and saying,
"Those constraints are wrong", and you should actually take the approach that the constraints that you are given are guaranteed to be some degree wrong, guaranteed to be some degree wrong, because the counterpoint would
be that they are perfect. - Right, which is never. - As you were saying like,
what's the probability that this is a platonic
ideal of a perfect part? Zero, okay, basically, so,
question your constraints. It does not matter if
the person handing you those constraints won a
Nobel Prize, they are, even our own standards are
wrong some of the time. So, question your constraints,
this is extremely important, and, another thing that
like, if you say like, "What are the mistakes that
smart engineers make?", like, one of the most, one of the biggest traps for smart engineers is optimizing a thing that shouldn't exist. - Yeah, so they'll just
sit there and spin on that thing that's just like, "Why do we even have
this is the first place?" - Absolutely, so, When you go through
college, and you're like, studying physics or
engineering, I studied physics, the, you have to answer the question that the professor gives
you, you don't get to say, "This is the wrong question". - Right, right, right, yeah. - But, in reality, we
have far more degrees, when you're in reality,
you have all the degrees of freedom of reality, and so
the first thing you should say is, "This question is wrong". - Yeah, and that's what
you said last year, I mean, you kinda said
like, "It took us a long time to frame the
question even, because we didn't necessarily know what it was". - It took ages to frame the
question, I mean, it's just like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, best philosopher ever, maybe, I think, best
book in philosophy ever, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but his book is so deep,
people don't even understand. But like, in The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, the Earth is a giant
computer, and the Earth, it comes up with the answer- 42. - Right, yep. - And, to the question, so what's life, the answer to life, the
universe and everything? The answer's 42, and they're like, "What the hell, that
doesn't make any sense". The really, the hard part is the question, the answer is the easy
part, you need a much more powerful computer to tell
you what the question is, and this is true, at
the point in which you can properly frame the question, the answer is comparatively easy. - Right, right. I have one more question
for you, I'm working on a video about aerospikes,
it's gonna be about an hour long video on
aerospikes and, you know, they're like the rotary
engine of rocket, you know, rockets, like the rotary
was, it's been advantageous in some ways, you know, like your- - Yeah, aerospikes, man, I tell you - They're cool but, what's the biggest, what's your biggest beef on them? 'Cause I'm trying to get
as much insight on like, why do you think they,
you know, aren't used, and obviously, I assume,
you're not ever going to an aerospike for a lot of reasons... - You know, I've internally
asked this question so many times, like, "Guys,
don't we, shouldn't we maybe do an aerospike?", the... The challenge, so... And you're going to
explain to the audience what an aerospike is? - Oh yeah, you're gonna be
like the end of this thing, I've already set it all up, yeah yeah. - Otherwise you know, "What the
hell are you talking about?" you know? - You gotta get your
combustion efficiency, so, you know like, there's
really two parts to, like, when you have a rocket engine,
what're you trying to do? You're trying to shoot things out, as fast as possible, in a straight line. - Yes, yep, converting as much thermal and pressure into kinetic energy. - Yes, exactly, so you have
your combustion efficiency, and so what percentage of
max theoretical combustion efficiency are you, and then what's your nozzle efficiency, which is really you know, are you straightening the flow, and shooting the molecules
out in a straight line, so that you go in the other
direction, Newton's Third Law. - Yep. - With a traditional combustion chamber, you can get to a very high
combustion efficiency, cause the molecules are
all sort of bouncing around in there, they've got a time
to combine and do their thing, and then when you sort of
choke it through the throat, you know, it, that gives
them sort of more opportunity to combine, so you can Like, we think we can
probably get to 90, certainly 98.5, hopefully 99 percent of theoretical combustion efficiency. This is so if, God himself
came and knitted together the molecules, you're
one percent better, okay maybe one and a half
percent better, that's so, that's very high efficiency. - Because of full flow staged combustion. - Full flow staged combustion, exactly, you've got a gas-gas interaction, so you've got two hot gases combining - Yeah. - And with a relatively
simply reaction, the only thing that would be
simpler would be hydrogen. But you've got CH4 and
O2, that's pretty simple, you don't have any long
chain hydrocarbons, you know, with kerosene
you've got the long chains, they've gotta break down,
they've gotta recombine, it's a total soup, you know. Yeah, it's a part like dinner situation. It's very hard to get
high combustion efficiency with kerosene, so when you look at the, say like, "What's the
theoretical value of, say a Lox kerosene engine, as compared
to a methane engine?" The kerosene actually looks
more compelling than it really is because you
can't achieve the high combustion efficiency with kerosene that you can with methane. So, you actually want to
say, "What is the actual achievable combustion efficiency times the theoretical chemical energy?",
that's the real number, and this is where methane
starts to look really good. - Yeah, yeah. - It's like, very hard
to get to like 96 percent combustion efficiency, or even 95 percent combustion efficiency with kerosene, but with methane you can get 98 easy, 99 with a little bit of difficulty. - And, so you don't think,
you're just telling me now, spoiler alert, you're
probably never gonna see a full flow staged combustion cycle aerospike engine produced by SpaceX? - You know, if somebody can show that we're wrong, that would be great. If somebody can explain,
"Wow, you've got a, there is a way to make
your design better", this is a gift. - Right, right, right. - "Thank you for this great gift, wow, this is awesome". It's definitely like, the
worst thing would be like, "We wanted to do this dumb design, and stick with our dumb
design", that would be insane. - Right. - I would love it if
somebody could show how an aerospike is the smart move, in which case, we'll just do an aerospike. - Yeah, then just do an aerospike; there's a reason they haven't been used. (chuckles) Period. - But maybe, that reason
is not valid, you know? 'Cause there's also, there hasn't been a methane orbital engine. - Right? Or a flying full flow
staged combustion, yeah. - So, there's been neither a
full flow staged combustion engine that's seen flight,
nor has there been a methane engine that's seen flight,
certainly in a rocket scenario, I think there may have been some like, little test things or whatever,
but no actual rockets. So, but I'm very confident
that CH4 is the right fuel. Maybe aerospike is, is right, even though it's not been done before, but you just have to show that your combustion efficiency is not affected, and that you're, and that you're straightening the flow sufficiently. - To get your expansion ratio - Yeah - Yep, awesome. - Also, if you've got a
two-stage rocket, like I think like, this is
the other thing like, you've got two-stage rockets where your boost stage is primarily in atmosphere, and your upper stage
is primarily in vacuum, then you can specialize
the, for a vacuum nozzle and a sea level nozzle,
and then you're like, "Why need the aerospike?" It's only if you do want, if you want to try to do single stage, reusable, then that's when you start like having to reach for the aerospike. - Right, yep, that's awesome. Aerospikes, with Elon Musk! Thank you so much. - I would love it if
somebody could show it like, "Hey, you're missing the mark, you could do this different thing, and
this would be a better move", that would be, thank you, please. - Right, yeah of course, absolutely. Hey ,thanks for your time again, see you soon, pleasure meeting you. (voices in background) Oh yeah, we might need to steal your mic, I mean, I don't know,
I can bill you later. Thanks again for this - Absolutely. - I have to say, I've
been to IEC 2016, seeing, that was like, it was almost
like awkward back then cause it was like, - "You're insane", and now it's like, "Hey look, I'm not insane." (laughs) - Well, you know obviously I'm sane, but you know, I mean... (background chatter) Even when I am exposed to this all day, it's so like "Holy Smith!" you know, it's so mad, you know, to see it actually there, and I was up in the nose, and I mean I'm gonna post this later but... - Jack Buyer's photo,
Beyer he got a photo of you like, I think like peeking out of it. - Well, like this is the,
when I was inside there - Oh, shoot, no way! Aw and those are the header tanks? - Yeah. - And all the batteries got, what six... - They've got four Tesla
100 kilowatt hour batteries. - Yes! - And we just like, basically welded it on to the header tanks. - Right. - Oh we didn't even talk about that, you're doing model three
motors basically, is that? - Yeah, for that, I
mean, I don't love the, I think we should, we should
just have electro-mechanically I think we are going to,
probably with Mach three, move to a purely electro-mechanical actuators for the valves. Currently, it's electric motors powered, it's like Tesla motors and batteries that essentially pump hydraulic
fluid into the accumulator and then the hydraulic
piston moves the valve. But it would be simpler to
just have the motors directly- - Just do it - Kind of worm drive the valve. - That's awesome. - And also the way the
header tanks are done right now is crazy, we
shouldn't be carrying the header tanks like cargo, I mean, we want the header tanks to be integral to the tip, so seriously,
like just take the tip, use the tip of the rocket as
the half of the header tank, and essentially mirror the main tanks, but in small form, in the nose. So, just have two domes - Yeah. - And have the oxygen and fuel in the tip of the rocket, not as, not carrying the tanks like cargo, but having the tanks- - Just integrated, right? - Yeah, just a mini
version of the big tanks - Right, oh, and then you
don't have an extra wall and everything too, it's
just integrated into, yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. - Like in the early days
of rocketry, like V2 or whatever you know, like
the fuel and oxygen tanks were carried like cargo in the aeroshell. - Oh really? - Yeah. In the early days of aircraft and rockets, the propellant tanks
were carried like cargo - Right. - now modern rockets, modern
rockets and airplanes, like the wing is just a
fuel tank in, in wing shape. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, we should do the
same for the header tanks. - I love it, thanks again . - Thank you. - Thank you guys. (laughs) Sorry, I didn't mean
to keep him so long I guess. - [Man] Why're you looking at me? (laughs) - [Man] Was, was I rushing you out? - (laughs) No, not at all. - [Man] With everything
at the end, "Come on!" - I'm just trying to kick
him outta here, you know? Wasting all my time tonight, just kidding. Uh, so that was awesome! Actually, we've still
got a lot more questions to get answered, and stick
around 'cause I'll have a lot of content explaining
some of the topics we talk about, and sorry
about the whole like, thing on aerospikes, I wasn't planning to release all that
'cause that's for a video I've been working on, but whatever, I guess you get an aerospike
video spoiler today, my bad. Sorry in the interview I
didn't really get much time to talk about like heat
shields, or the super heavy booster, or what the interior
of Starship might look like, but, maybe if we're
lucky Elon will continue to update us on Twitter, or, Elon, you can always come talk to
me any time about all the nerdy stuff you want, I love
it, I think you did too. I owe the biggest thank you
to my Patreon supporters, you guys have helped take
this little passion and hobby, into a career, it wouldn't
be a career without you guys, so thank you so much for your support. If you want access to more
behind-the-scenes things and exclusive content and
access, please consider becoming a Patreon at
www.patreon.com/everydayastronaut Thank you guys. And if you want your own
full flow staged combustion cycle shirt or other really
cool, nerdy, aerospace stuff, I've got you covered, go over to www.everydayastronaut.com/shop, and if you work in the aerospace
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get 25 percent off as my thank you to you for
inspiring me to do what I do, I wouldn't be doing any
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get humans off this planet, so thank you guys. It's www.everydayastronaut.com/shop. Thanks everybody, that's
gonna do it for me, I'm Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, bringing space down to
Earth for everyday people. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
The candid conversation at the end was even better than the interview itself!
Tim finessing the time limit by letting Elon talk lol
Hey guys! Sorry it not only took so long to post this, but also sorry we didn't get straight to the juicy stuff. Honestly, I wanted to let him talk and just see where the conversation went. Since it was my first time interviewing him I didn't want to blast him with "WHAT ABOUT THIS AND THIS AND THIS" I wanted it to be casual and fun with no pressure. I also was given "6 minutes", so I had to be mindful of Elon's valuable time and really wanted a juicy nugget for my aerospike video, which is why I initially wasn't telling anyone about it.
The end of the video is honestly what I truly wanted, so I'm glad we got that "second chance"! Maybe we'll get more info from him here soon! Thanks for your support everyone! Maybe next time we can get right to the nerdy stuff, I think you can tell we both enjoyed that more than "interview mode" anyway.
Elon is such a down to earth guy. You both looked like a couple of pals, not a billionaire giving a 6 minute interview to a YouTuber
Thanks for a good job! I have no doubts you’ll get more interviews with him, he seems to like you and loves to talk with you.
After all, he extended that conversation!
Tim, the best part about your interview, is that Musk is able to be free to talk about all the cool stuff he knows. He is able to tell you things, and subsequently us things, that would literally go over the head of reporters from CNN, and other news networks. Thanks for all the info and hope you land another “6 minutes” in the very near future! :)
Always nice when interviewers let Elon talk. He always reveals interesting details and it's just interesting to see what he says.
What Elon was talking about with organizations and the systems they create is called Conway’s law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
Need this posted above my desk.