Elon Musk, ISS R&D Conference, July 19, 2017

all right everyone I hope you're enjoying your lunch I have to say it was a really exciting morning but there is a lot more to come it's incredible to me that many bold ideas are now turning into actions and that new players from our last panel like Rubbermaid maiden space NIH and Katz and Burke did I say Rubbermaid ah okay how are we doing my guys are in trouble on that one thank you for that okay hopefully that's that's the the last word I want to say there sorry about that Tupperware I think it's because cindy was working so hard on the beady side of that after after he described his experiment so many of these players are investing in space as an achievable destination for human activity research and innovation in a few minutes we'll be joined by someone who has played an important role in changing the equation of what we can accomplish in space and on earth by embracing seemingly impossible ideas however before we introduce Elon Musk we have an exciting announcement as we've increasingly talked about bringing in these new innovative users like Tupperware to conduct research to not only benefit life here on the earth but also to benefit those businesses everyone in this room will be familiar with a company that will be the newest part of the space Rd community please join me in welcoming the Target Corporation as our newest ISS user [Applause] target will be launching an International Space Station research competition in the fall aimed at solving a global issue that is relevant to their industry please welcome Cindy Bhutto who you saw earlier on the panel for Leo commercialization to talk more about the target research challenge thanks Craig thank you so we talked earlier about our mission to use the International Space Station as an innovation platform and to look at solving these big challenges we are so happy to announce that target is looking at solving or understanding more sustainable cotton production using the International Space Station this is really important target is such a good partner from a social responsibility standpoint they have announced a series of sustainability goals long term and short term and they've also started looking at green innovation technologies what we're doing now with this cotton sustainability challenge is we're looking at the International Space Station as the platform to look at things like gene expression with seeds water and membrane technologies and remote sensing applications that could result in more sustainable cotton production and I bet you guys didn't know that in today's world it takes about 700 gallons of water to produce one cotton t-shirt and what Target is doing is looking out at their whole supply chain from a sustainability standpoint trying to learn something through this challenge on the space station bring it back down here on the earth for that more sustainable production so again we couldn't be happier we're very pleased to announce this partner if there is a website that you can see behind me that has now gone live it's going to have all the details of this challenge which is going to kick off in September so stay tuned for that and again very happy to announce this partnership with Target we're excited to share that through this competition target will be investing significantly in space based research enabling new projects to fly to the ISS all right I love that this is another great step in our nation's utilization and investment in space-based research we're proud that casus has facilitated more than 100 million in outside non NASA funding to ISS National Lab research to date target we're really excited to be working with you and to see new innovative research head up to the space station you can learn more online and all of you researchers and implementation partners out there they'll be looking for your ideas so let's move on to the next highly anticipated part of the program a conversation with with Kirk Shireman and Elon Musk from a logistical standpoint Elon and Kirk will be taking questions after their after their talk there are microphones stationed on that side of the room and that side of the room and I see them so we'll be taking questions from those microphones because of the congestion in the audience Elon Musk is a true visionary leader who has helped to redefine multiple industries we're honored to have him join the ISS Rd Conference for the second time he was with us too years ago in Boston showing his commitment and passion for the International Space Station he founded SpaceX in 2002 it's his third successful venture after the innovative companies zip - and PayPal on May 22nd 2012 musk and SpaceX made history when a company launched its Falcon 9 rocket into space when an unmanned capsule the vehicle was sent to the International Space Station with a thousand pounds of supplies for the astronauts marking the first time a private company had sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station since then SpaceX has generated many significant milestones and has delivered hundreds of innovative experiments to the ISS from many companies and organizations in this room today in addition to SpaceX Elon the co-founder CEO and proct architect for Tesla a company that is redefining the automated mode of industry when I think about innovation beyond boundaries the theme for our conference I cannot think of a better representation of that concept in our generation please join me in welcoming Elon Musk and ISS program manager Kirk Shireman to the stage [Applause] okay I'm getting an indication there was a little bit of delay in his transportation the second faux pas three strikes I'm out but I'm not going to fill your time Kirk and Ilan are going to come up momentarily they're going to be stepping up to the stage and they'll start the conversation thank you good afternoon we thought we'd start off by by making Gregg very uncomfortable so I hope we were successful where's Gregg you know why all right so hopefully I hope we made uncomfortable Barry good so Ilan thanks so much for being here today Ilan commuted from the West Coast this morning so we appreciate you taking the time and coming out here and talking with us bill expects everybody we've had we've had a pretty good conference so far at least in my opinion over a thousand people signed up for the first time so ignition increase and lots of people interested in in in space and low Earth orbit and the International Space Station and work that's going on so anyway we're very very excited about the work that's going on and excited to have you here today - great thanks Valerie so you were here a number of years ago July 2015 s not that long ago I guess two years ago and had a discussion like this with Mike Suffredini and a lot of things had happened since 2015 for Spacek so can you can you talk about how things have gone up how they progressed how you're feeling about how the industry and SpaceX particular progressed sure what I think I think we are entering a new era of space exploration which is extremely exciting and it's it's not just base X but there's a number of other companies that have developed new approaches NASA is taking your purchase things which is really exciting in the way that the contracting is done for space station resupply I think is a great model that frankly should be adopted throughout government I talked a little bit about this at the governor's conference and it was actually using the nasty NASA cargo resupply contracting process as a really great model for government in general you knows where you have to compare years of fixed-price milestone based with a hotmail sensor are primarily Hardware oriented and then if one of the two companies that's competing does not reach the milestones then the remainder of the milestones are competed to another company and that's what happened with cargo resupply start off with SpaceX and Kistler kisser made some progress but wasn't going to get close to finishing line and then a little sciences was competed for the second slot and they did get a quest finishing line and I was SpaceX and orbital of providing out that NASA with kagra services Space Station and having a competitive dynamic is I think it's a very powerful function for getting a great outcome for the NASA as the customer and I think that that's just a great that was a great model really well executed and to degree that's applicable in other areas of NASA the government I think that the potential for revolutionary progress on that point so from it from a technical standpoint the the the biggest thing that's happened in the last couple of years which I'm really excited about and I think makes the difference for access to space is the landing of the Falcon 9 rocket booster and in the [Applause] and if you ever get a chance to go to the cave or Vanderburgh to see that I've really recommended it's really pretty fun and it'll be a lot of those flights because within the remainder of the year we've got about a dozen flights billed to go this year and then after landing reef lying that same booster with minimal work to the booster and and we believe we can get to the point where in the not-too-distant future fare probably by by next year where the the sakai groups that can be reborn within 24 hours so and the key the key to that is that all you do is inspection and no hardware has changed not even the paint this is very important so that's our aspiration for for next year obviously while paying very close attention to mission assurance and reliability but we think we've got at least a technical path to to achieving that and then the work I think were quite close to being able to recover the the fairing so it does a huge nose cone on the front of Falcon 9 which is a five point two meter diameter nose cone you can fit a basically a whole sort of city bus in there and and that just that that bearing alone with all of its systems and the acoustic damping and qualification will last in separation system that's about a five or six million dollar piece of equipment and the analogy I use with my team is like guys imagine we had you know six million dollars in a palette of cash and that was you know six million dollars is falling through this guy and would we try to catch it I [Laughter] say we do I say we give it a shot you know worst case it ends up at the bottom of the ocean but maybe we do catch it and then pay it six million dollars let me know when ed pallet of cash is coming back yeah I mean I'd like to give it a shot and you know it might as well be a pile of gas because the car six million dollars so and but I think we got a decent shot of recovering the bearing by the end of the year and possibly flight by either late this year or early next and that just leaves the the alpha stage of the rocket upper stage is about 20% of the cost of the mission so if we get through stage and been faring were right around 80% reasonable and then I think I think we've put a lot of missions we can even bring the second stage back so we're going to try to do that although our primary focus will be on the dragon over the next tick Euler the next year or so dragging two spacecraft which is what we'll wait which is a crew crew dragon next generation dragon spacecraft which has got all of the ecosystems and the ability to do a launch aboard all the way to orbit and and do an automated docking maneuver so it does it doesn't need to be both with the aid of the arm it can do a direct docking River and then that will be the once that's operational the new method of taking both call ground crew to the space station so if I say what's what's our primary focus that's making sure we stay on track for getting an included station as we promised NASA around middle of next year that's gonna be real exciting I think it's going to be great for getting the public part up yeah that's really a while since we lost astronauts from us so yeah we're all looking closer than that yeah and I just like to thank people at NASA for giving space extra chance to do this and just want a word of appreciation for the working relationship with NASA which is great in fact that's all the governors last week that you know for a long time my password was I love NASA that is actually true you know you've just given you've given all the hackers around the world yeah hopefully I don't have like some old email accounts to most okay yeah you got to change this we're gonna cut in on yeah very good so how is that you talk a little bit at Commercial Crew how's that going I know it's you know flying flying humans there's more systems involved of course the risk is higher yeah how is that progressing um you know it's it's been way more difficult than cars are for sure yeah misses it's not as sort of people into the picture it's really a giant step up in making sure things go right you know and for sure the EDA oversight the other side from NASA is much tougher it was thought that it wasn't tough with cargo but it's really intense for crew so I come from the right motivations but uh yeah it's you know can be a bit tough them on my guys and I want the kind of a sex but but i but i you know i know where it's coming from it's the right right motivation and in a recent debate you know going into next year about some of the details technical be tonight but I think we really want to do everything humanly possible to make sure it goes well and you know triple check everything and overall I think it's going you know really well you know this getting select these little small technical bones of tension which now we're working through those our engineers we lay together for that exactly yeah it but and some of these things are really like esoteric I mean unless somebody's really in the weaves on rocket and spacecraft design it will just to sound like you're talking Greek but ancient Greek in it but we have it there's you know I think it's good to have these debates and overall I'm confident that it's going to be a system that that NASA feels good about and you just basically supposed to get about and I look forward to continuing the partnership into next year and doing a great job for NASA excellent thank you and of course we're looking forward to we're excited about it and as you mentioned where NASA's working hard with you if on oh yeah and and yeah if we were also all down in the weeds on those technical interviews yeah after you did yep let's see you clearly down to the little ball to the whole thing oh yeah where's cursed curse is here somewhere that's ghosts great to first if you can't have a you can't have a dry loot both pitched discussion with Gersh you know it's not a good day what we've guess I haven't made as many sort of in the weeks technical discussions I actually love I love talking sigrist with my favorite people in the world actually there you go mine too but but he's my boss let's see so you talked we talked a little bit about Commercial Crew we have cargo supply resupply one at which you have the dragon which of course dragon one which is birthed and in fact you've done a reef light recently with thanks for bringing that up you know that's kind of important yes uh and again thanks for the master support on that yeah we really should you know we should have made a slightly bigger deal out of it because it was the first reflow and spacecraft since the shuttle and we kind of forgot to make you know let people know - I mean I guess it was there in the details but we've got to you know I don't think the public even realizes that it's the first grief light of a spacecraft of one overall spacecraft since the shuttle which I found very well - very good yeah clean mission yes solid I mean that no I was a kid especially in full disclosure say that it cost us almost as much to it I probably about as much maybe more tarik without negotiating contract you know I know I know I just ruined totally honest here basics internal accounting who said that it costs us almost as much as building it a dragon one from scratch I suspect our internal accounting was probably being wasn't counting good things there were some circumstances unusual but this one right this wonder why versions and things like that so yeah the amount of rework from disparate abuts had a lot of rework yeah but the next one we think there's a decent shot of being a be sort of 50% the cost of a new one and keep going my contractor yeah negotiate against myself yes and but uh yeah no I mean we would have offered the best possible deal deal for NASA and it's always tough to get that top-line budget to increase hope it is now I think so much could be it could be accomplished if the NASA top-line budget was increased that people have no idea so talk a little bit about CRS 1 and and birthing in CRS two are we talk about Commercial Crew CRS to the dragon is and to his cargo dragon cred it's it's the similar Adam old line of it's the dragon dragon it's like that but it's going to dock and talk about the then we'll have a good commonality between us synergism and things yeah yeah yeah so the I mean the other thing called red dragon would have is the launch escape system or little still have the logic associated with separating from the vehicle so I think most likely even even cargo dragon 2 would be able to support survive booster anomaly but like they would normally the the we don't like them yeah y-yeah I guess I like doing the the it one of them the Lord ill everything else on the dragon crew dragon 2 has except the thrusters but I think in most cases actually it would still be able to survive reentry and and if the cargo safe but but having a commonality is great yeah yeah any going forward it seems like the docking itself and if you know even beyond testing of the systems evolutions and things that might be beneficial to test on on the cargo vers le rue and absolutely and I know you've already done some things on on CRS 1 to prepare for CS 2 in the testing some TPS repair capability and things like that so exactly actually I really you know just like to you know express some appreciation for the whole CRS team because they've really allowed us to update the rocket and you know ad quit crazy things like landing legs and I've been really fair I think in longest to iterate with the booster for for the CRS contract and then and then as you're pointing out drag to being used for both cargo and crew allows us to iterate with a slight list a little more risk on the cargo version and prove it out for this crew on board yeah it's really helpful excellent so let's let's talk about and we got a few more minutes here and then we'll open it up to questions but you know the theme here is for the conferences innovation and and of course we talked already about some innovations in the launch business but what do you think needs to be where are the areas are the thrusts for innovation that we really need both you know not not excluding launch but but also looking at low-earth orbit what are in low-earth orbit where do we where do you think we as a you know space industry need to go and look for our innovation yeah well you know I I think the log Apple even I think maybe we'll do the really the key to opening up space pesos orbit you know leo and beyond is rapid and complete reusability or near complete reusability and it's like we have a deaf craft or cars or normos April or transport that's super hard with space because this is you develop on a planet with pretty high gravity so so be pretty easy for in Mars or something like that but uh but Earth's gravity is really pretty pretty high and we're going to thick atmosphere and so reusability is tough and you're going through you know height sort of you have operated vacuum hypersonic supersonic transonic subsonic that's just a lot of regimes for any sort of flying object to go through but burries ability I think is absolutely fundamental to break through and access to orbit and beyond Leo Leo and beyond anything that can be done and in that direction I think is good turn change the economics of transportation to low-earth orbit right really fundamental you get quick reusability the economic equation it becomes easier to get to low-earth orbit and do more things yeah yeah I mean it's kind of like there are just any mode of transport it's like before there was Union Pacific across the u.s. to California and was like hardly any people in California people thought building Union Pacific was just crazy because you know like nobody there so why are we pulling a railroad to nowhere now you know California's most populous state in the country some people stopped in Texas along the way yeah yeah without a summer by the way I love Texas yeah we do a huge part of our R&D in Texas in Central Texas love y'all don't know about that near Waco we have substantial Central Texas we do keep the Bolsa Chica down and it's out there that's right yeah exactly so we've got a lot of activity throughout Texas we're building a third launch site in South Texas near Brownsville I think that'll that'll give us good you know contingency capability if there's a hurricane coming through the Cape and we still need to get to the station we could you know watch out of South Texas and that will ensure continuity of service and yeah I really spend a lot of time in Texas here it's great all right uh traffic's not as bad as in Southern California oh man tread so that's the biggest issue with Sun Catholic health I mean like like which level of hell are you in okay curat hell yeah Washington's trying to catch it you know you know weird Rick I mean this is I mean we're digging a tunnel and I'd heard about that yeah yeah so it's like the tunnel starts right across from SpaceX HQ so if you ever out they wanted to see our tunnel as long as you promise that close it in after I never thought it would yeah we're digging the tunnel and it's kind of like a so I can make matters sort of it's like a lot actually oddly enough it's like a little low stress activity because like everyone expected to fail and I mean those sort of grown with a joke that I make about the tunnels is that they have low expectations this is no way to go but down yes I can keep going [Laughter] men'she you involved in space you involved in tunnels you kind of kind of yeah they get a basic when we interact guy when I was in started open space as enteric guy Ling space he's probably gonna fail the no stop saying internet guy I think that's got a transport guy he's actually a transport guy so Tom speaking of transport you know today ISS is up there and real the conference has focused a lot on on some of the research and developments going on there but and commercialization too by the way but what in commercialization least NASA strategy is commercialization will be fostered on ISS and then at that point in the future ISS oh go away and and we expect we hope for a vibrant low Earth or economy at that point in time and I'm kind of curious what what you see in terms of SpaceX and your transportation relative to that of that economy what's next for Commercial Crew after after ISS sure well if it's well I don't think the public realizes how cool is S is you know that is an awesome thing that's up there you know it's like a lot of also people don't realize we have a space station like an Academy serious like we have a gigantic space station as huge projects really gigantic I mean it's a pretty incredible structure that we have orbiting over the earth and I think just i i'd recommend like man you've gotta do something to educate the public about the awesomeness of the space station crazies pretty amazing and and big like people just lose sight of like they think oh there's like a little thing it was rigged it's real big and yeah so and now it's finally getting into sort of real operational youth and that's great so I can amazing technological achievement so but then yeah I think the the in terms of low Earth orbit stuff on the commercial side I think there's a lot of opportunities in kind of a global internet capability so providing internet so pause the world that either don't have it or where it's very expensive and not very good and it's like that the space is really good for providing internet productivity for sparsely populated or low populated regions so so it's literally a threat to telcos actually can take big telcos lives easier because a lot of customers that are very hard to serve where like you're digging a fiber cable for two miles they'll never pay off the investment to you know to get to one house type thing but but for space you can really serve so those customers so economically sensible rates Earth Observation you're getting better understanding of of crops and climate and natural is sort of not any or any natural disaster information and no but I think the you want to get the public real fired up I think we got a we gotta have a base on the moon you know like that was pretty cool and then going beyond that getting people to Mars yeah certainly sitting people further we've ever symptom before yeah captivating for the people so yeah it's captivating for me I know that yeah exactly so yeah just having some commander presence on another heavenly body to be the kind of moon base and then the in and getting getting people to to Mars and beyond and you know sort of the consist that that's the continuance of the dream of Apollo that like people really looking for excellent this might be a good time to go ahead and open it up for a few questions from the audience weird where the where there on the side I think microphones on the side I can't tell if people or other life is so bright as hard as well I know it's a risk asking people to ask questions but any any questions looks like there's a few people signed up lined up over here so go ahead hi you Don over here from the UK pleasure to ask a question to you my question is how are you managing the risks associated with the Falcon Heavy and particularly the recently announced private launch around the moon thank you be at I'm sure so the first of all I should say Falcon Heavy that requires the simultaneous ignition of 27 over class engines it was like you know a lot that could go wrong there and I encourage people come down to the Cape to the first Balkan heavy mission it's guaranteed to be exciting [Laughter] but it is one of those things is really difficult to test on the ground I mean we can fire the engines in the ground but and we try to simulate that the the dinette the dynamics of having 27 instead of nine Dragons and the you know the airflow as it goes through transonic it's going to see heavy transonic buffered it max Q what has been about a max Q there's a lot of risk associated with Falcon have a real good chance that that vehicle does not make it a little bit when I make sure set expectations accordingly I hope I hope it makes it pass you know far enough away from the pad that it does not course pad damage I would consider even that of one Creon and yeah directs I major pucker factor really that it's like another way to describe it you know that Wendell that dwindles the amount of people who want to ride on that the first time yeah well people just wall are cat they're still people in full disclosure here man at full disclosure I you know I think false Navy is going to be a great vehicle just just like so much that's a really impossible test on the ground and we'll do our best and it actually ended up being way way harder do Falcon Heavy than we thought because first it sounds really easy you just stick to first stages on as crap on boosters yeah how can that be but then everything changes all the loads change aerodynamics totally change you've tripled the vibration and acoustics so if you sort of break the Lacroix levels on so much of the hardware the amount of load you're putting through that Center core is crazy you got two super-powerful boosters also shoving that Center core and it's like so we have to redesign the whole Center core airframe I like the Dalton iink is good take so much load and then you got separation systems and yeah it just ended up being really way way more difficult than we originally thought we're pretty naive about that but I said but it's nice thing is it's a fully optimized it's about two and a half times the payload capability of a falcon 9 so you know well over a hundred thousand pounds - Julia payload capability 50 tons even get up to a little higher than that if you know if optimized and and the nice thing is that does have the throw capability to toss the dragon - in a loop rather man and Dragon - itself the heat shield is designed with a huge amount of margin so it's got enough margin to handle a lunar re-entry and particularly we do initial velocity scrub do sort of at least one pass to scrub blasty then come in on the second pass yeah but no question whoever is on the first flight fear brave yes let's see let's go over here to this side here's our question from over here hey Ilan Ted tegami with educational company called magnitude I oh I had the good fortune of meeting you back in September watching your five sons launch their own Rockets Black Rock Desert oh yeah cool yeah I'm done and since then we've actually been a had the great fortune of sending students payloads up to the International Space Station and we're now working with cases to extend that we'd like 50 million students to get on the International Space Station their experiments on the space station by 2014 so my question to you is more about the innovations in education your thoughts that same year that I met you and your son's you announced ad astra oh yeah and before the advent of neural lace gets fully implemented uh-huh what are your thoughts on that the innovations in education today thank you just the postal education well I think is maybe the definitely some good schools out there but I think the some of the spaces the mistakes at least in my opinion that I see being made in education is that people the teachers do not explain why kids are being taught a subject you know just sort of get dumped into the math and like why are you letting math what's the point of this it seems like some some people like negative see I don't know why I'm being asked to do these strange problems but you know the why of things is extremely important because you know our brain has evolved to not to discard information that it thinks is has a relevance so then if on the one hand you you'll be asked to memorize or learn say formulas but you do not know why this is the case then you have this cognitive dissonance of it seems irrelevant but I'm being told to remember it so I'll be punished so cuz I better remember it but so the why of things is very important and then being able to edit and then picking kind of a problem and then using various educational tools to solve that problem like using math or physics or economics to to solve that problem is far more engaging than teaching the tools you know difference between if you say well we're going to take apart this this engine and and see how it works and put it back together again and then in order to take the engine apart we need their wrenches and screwdrivers and the winch and allen keys and whatnot and and then in the course of solving the problem of taking engine apart and putting it back together you learn about wrenches and screwdrivers and all the tools that you need and then now you understand the relevance this is why wrenches are important I would you know worst if you had a class on wrenches I feel like I would not seem that great you know so tying it to solving a problem is I think very powerful for establishing relevance and getting kids excited about what they're working on and then and and having the knowledge stick yeah and some to some extent a lot you know building a CubeSat or flying an experiment on ISS is like that right you've gotta you've gotta why or the relevance in the curiosity and in terms of building that that device that experiment then a big result so it really is cool it ties to the it gives you a really a Content example of what what you're learning in Y yeah exactly I think like things like CubeSat exactly would work because select okay what is the solar panel how does orbital dynamics work how do we you know how to repel this thing you know how to batteries work electronics control systems and you need to bet they're like oh we want to make our satellite work that's why we need to understand all these disciplines something it's like like cube size 2 and Q stats are great like things like design both fly for model airplane so Formula SAE we've got a design build a kind of a race car and I raced out against other people that those things are very powerful for learning as learning tools yeah it's very cool all right thank you let's see over here another question hi my name is Jacob and actually live near the Cape so my question is not much of a tech question but more of what your prediction is so about maybe a hundred years after we develop sustainable colonies on Mars do you think and of course many other countries will also try to get to Mars that there would be like a conflict for the best resources on Mars like in I guess you could say in sort of like a interplanetary warfare it's not it's just like a video game doesn't it it's an idea Mars Attacks the you know I think it's a pretty open territory on Mars so this I don't think we're going to be there's going to be any kind of scarcity there's like a lot of land on Mars how many people yeah so they're hiding on the back side yeah no I mean they're you're pretty clever if there are people on Mars man they are way cleverer than us they're hiding well so yeah no there's plenty of land on Mars so I mean you know the history of human civilization does contain a lot of war so I don't think we you know you go to Mars and that you know be war free forever but but it is certainly not going to be a resource based a conflict due to scarcity of resources on Mars I think we're going to go to the Mars is a multinational effort to write so it's not it's not one country going in another country going in then they're fighting over Wars I think it's countries going together and Anna so I think we're more likely to be peaceful in that in that scenario as well yeah you know I actually advocate for I think it's fine if the countries get together to form teams but I think it's actually probably better if they're at least you know at least two or three country coalition's going going to Mars in a friendly way and and competing to see who can make the most progress if you look at like say the Olympics they were pretty boring if everyone just linked arms and cross the fishing line at the same time you're friendly but it would you know dock be more like the opening ceremonies yeah yeah exactly so we I think friendly competition is a good thing yeah very good why I think you know NASA wants to be part of one of those carnal coalition's with the United States and death and so we're I know we're actually trying to build such a coalition now let's see from over here another question I am yota mariel founder and CEO Bluefield we are deploying methane tracking micro satellites and my question to you I hope to learn your thoughts on advancing remote sensing capabilities of critical gases on earth and one mouth thank you that's a pretty esoteric question remote sensing of gases yeah that that's something that's going to be important Mars has a number of trace gases that are pretty helpful it's very helpful that that Mars has co2 and nitrogen and argon those are those are like really helpful gasses to have in the atmosphere mostly co2 but that a little bit of nitrogen and argon really can be pretty helpful yeah and up again whatever other trace gases we can get I don't know we always say Mars has just enough atmosphere to it's not to be really helpful in terms of aerobraking but it sure makes it a lot harder so it's just enough to be to be difficult so what but in terms of interest you research utilization you know when they hit their to be able to build to get your oxygen and that and hopefully we'll have a water-filled build hot get hydrogen may occur hydrogen on on on the planet so yeah and with enough resources it'll we want to carry everything with us well the best thing if having if you got h2 and co2 you can build hydrocarbons of any kind you can singable plastics you can build you know short chain long-chain hydrocarbons because the current basics thought for kind of a large transport vehicle is a primary methane based system because you get to have a kind of smaller the tanks are half the size with with methane so and then yeah but and Mars with with a co2 atmosphere and a lot of water rice is is grateful for that go beyond mazda this is a lot of Merit for a hydrogen because the yelling need water but that's all sort of can't think beyond f1 so we did speaking of that last last year in Guadalajara the IAC conference you talked about plans to go to Mars and and I know you guys have been working on that since then yep you do so you plan at some point to talk about that work publicly yeah making probably the upcoming IC and a delay might be a good opportunity to do the updated version of the Mosel architecture because it's evolved quite a bit since that last talk yeah I might ask for questions to be quite short of time for that is good strategy it wasn't very enthusiastic people to the mic at the IAC last time I mean but but um the you know the the key thing that better figured out is like how do you pay for this whole you know someone to go to Mars that's super expensive and I kind of think by kind of you know today for downsize the what the Mars vehicle you know make it capable of doing Earth orbit activity as well as Peter Mars activity then you know maybe we could pay for it with by using it for a covert activity that's the one that's one of the key elements in the new architecture it's similar similar to what was at ISE but it's a it's a bit a little bit smaller still big but it's but but I think it's I think this one's got a shot at being real and on it on the economic front you know that's correct all right see I think a question how are we here hi you on TV Jane mark I'm mostly one important question in one a little aside can you talk a little bit about your R&D strategy for your companies and is it all focused on short-term problems solution or how much and in what fashion do you allocate time and money towards R&D spending on some of the long-term goals you're working that and then just as a little aside for the boring company are you looking at not only as a habit as a transportation but potentially is a habitat company for ton of not just tunnels with habitats on Mars or the moon yeah actually so I do think like getting good at digging tunnels could be really helpful for Mars because like once you've got a kind of a it would be a different optimization for you know Mars boring machine versus a boring machine but for sure there's going to need to be a lot of ice mining on Mars and mining in general to get for materials and then along the way building underground habitats where you know you're good good radiation shielding and you kind of have you know there's much you can you can build it really an entire city underground if you wanted to I think people still want to go to the surface you know sometime time but you can build repairs not underground with the right boring technology on Mars so I do think there's overlapping that technology development arena and then Rd you know I try to spend as much on R&D as we can at my companies so we really max out Rd I mean I spent most of my time on engineering that's probably 80% of my week is engineering means and so you know any money that we get a revenue we put that right back into Rd and some of it is longer-term yeah you know like for example the you know bars vehicle look at some drinks and bars communication stuff potentially with with capacity and yeah but I'm super priority site as rings five most fun thing so try to dial that to the max over here hi my name is Chris Lafleur I work for Congress for representative John Conyers a couple days ago I read about you talking about artificial intelligence and the dangers of it and how as a as a businessman you are totally against regulation and stuff like that but as a you know a human being you think it's critical that we get ahead of this issue yeah can you please elaborate on like why what are you saying that we don't get to see and or what as a policy maker I should be looking to do to sort of I guess protect its own huh okay well I think it is difficult to appreciate just how far artificial intelligence has advanced and how far it is advancing because we have a double exponential at work we have an exponential increase in hardware capability and we have an exponential increase in software talent that is going into AI so whenever you have a double exponential it's very cool to predict predictions almost always going to be too conservative in terms of thinking of you further out than it is you know you start to see things like if you seem like the videos where you can sort of really quite accurately video simulate someone and put words in their mouth at the nevus both use Google if it's really pretty amazing and then they had so-called a generative adversarial Network had two of them compete with one another to make the most convincing video so one would generate the video and then the other one would identify where it looked fake and and then that that would be able to fix that and then go back and forth to the point where you can tell which one is the real real video which was the big one and he also had have been some very public things like the defeat of alphago or to be of kovai alphago the blue balls vesko champion people thought defeating go was either never or 20 years away that was the world's best go player was defeated and now that same alphago system can defeat the top 50 players simultaneously with zero percent of chance of them winning and that's one year later so the degrees of freedom to which artificial intelligence is able to apply itself are really increasing I think by 10:00 or 9:30 yeah that's pretty crazy so I think and we're starting and this is on hardware that is really not well-suited for neural nets you know like a GPU is maybe it'll make you better than CPU but something but a chip that is designed optimally for neural nets is order of magnitude that are going to GPU and that is there are a whole bunch of neural net optimized chips coming out either late this year or next year and so I think we should but the other part role of government is to make sure the public is safe like to take our public safety issues and I think so I think the right move is to establish some government or agency which at first is just there to gain insight so it's not about like shooting from the hip and just putting any rules before anyone knows anything but you guys self agency it's got a gain insight once that inside is gain then start applying rules and regulations we have that for the you know crafts they fave at that for cars good at for drugs for food and I don't think anyone wants the FAA to go away or FTA to give away or you know any of those regulatory agencies then I think we just need to make sure people do not cut corners on AI safety so maybe it's going to be a real big deal and it's going to come on like a tidal wave alright thanks see over here question the afternoon lions and and I'm a film director and they are producer and I'm currently working on a film documentary film about future scenarios through humanity which actually brought me to this amazing conference where I can learn big my research on the space exploration area and in the previous three days there was a lot of talks which is I think an extremely beautiful phenomenon about this kind of dual philosophy behind space exploration and space solutions about solutions that are coming back to earth that can benefit humankind and very very wide area and today we've been talking about the commercialization of the of the space area and it brings a lot of questions to me about social responsibility behind gigantic companies that would actually probably take over how the space industry would develop in the near future so I'm very curious how you see in long term these kind of benefits for people or social goals for for SpaceX and especially in the context that you are an entrepreneur that invests in infrastructure and transport hard solution that would probably change the way most of us live and the way we communicate with each other so very very curious how you see that in terms of long term mission long term philosophy and what would be your advice or maybe kind of security signal for other of your colleagues and for all of us I'm not sure I fully understood the question um yeah or the answer but yes I think mainly about lower long-term benefits from the RNG endeavors that your companies would conduct that could actually also not only serving building a service that can be useful for business sort of people but also benefit societies in a wider context and also knowing that it will probably interest the commercial industry in spite would probably develop very quickly and it will grow how do you see a social responsibility of the companies who actually do that and where are the limits of what can be done which should be done the same way as you think about for example open AI mission and areas of AI development so can you track could be translated into space and history endeavors well I think there's a pretty big social benefit or civilizational benefit to being a multi-planet civilization you know that dramatically increases the probable I expand of human civilization if we are a multi-planet species versus a single planet species sometimes that is most interpreted as well should we just focus everything on earth it's like well you know but we should focus almost everything on earth but I think whether it should be maybe 1% or 2% of our resources that are applied to making life multiplanetary because there's certain irreducibly reducible risks for therefore on earth you know it's possible in the future that there there's some global war that knocks us back many levels of technology you know certainly if it was a major nuclear war would and it was just so the general decay of societies over time we see this through history we look at ancient Egypt ancient Rome you know they had repeat peak technology levels and then for reasons that aren't obvious declined and you know something just having being a multi-planet civilization having human bases throughout the solar system I think persuasive is very exciting and inspiring and they need to be things that are exciting and inspiring and make you look forward to waking up in the morning like a future is exciting this is underappreciated you know like tunnels sorry absolutely sorry and yeah but there's gotta be things that make you excited about life so you can't just be problem-solving you know one one food was real calm after another it's got to be like I'm fired up about the future begins here's why and and space is one of those things that does that people all around the world you know when when Apollo 11 when they landed on the moon I mean it was something for all of humanity really was yeah if you will it feels like one TV for 50 miles around people walk their walk 50 miles just to go find that one TV but to what should happen so it in a sense people think well what about what about for nations of the world like you know what it's fire inspires them to and we need things like that without we're gonna have an OP alone all right thank you over here hi you on quick questions I heard that dragon is no longer planned to land propulsively is that true yeah that was a tough decision it dragon is capable of landing for Greg to is capable of landing propulsively and technically it still it still is although you'd have to landed on some pretty the soft landing pad because we've deleted the little legs that pop out of the heat shield but it's technically still capable of doing it the the reason we decided not to pursue that heavily is it would have taken a tremendous amount of effort to qualify that for safety particularly for crew crew transport and then there was a time when I thought that the Dragon approach to landing on Mars we've got a base heat shield and side mounted thrusters would be the right way to land on Mars but now I've pretty confident that it's not the right way and that there's a there's a far better approach and and that's what the next generation of SpaceX rockets in spacecraft is going to do so yeah so just the difficulty of safely qualifying dragon propulsive landing and the fact that pro technology evolution standpoint it it was no longer in line with or we were confident was the optimal way to land on Mars that's why we are not pursuing it it could be something that we bring back later but it's it doesn't seem like the right way to apply resources right now we're high ulong my name is Elia overbee I'm a PhD student studying genomics we've all made of evolve together made a lot of technological progress on space system my question isn't about the technology it's about the biology what are the principal biological concerns you have about human health on long-duration missions such as a mission to Mars and have you identified any solutions to these problems well I say Garten Mars not for the faint of heart and it's risky dangerous uncomfortable and you might die now do you want to go you know what a lot of people answer is going to be Aldo and persona scurvy hell yes so it will you know there will be issues I don't think it's like it's going to be a case of like you get irradiated to death long away I don't think that's the case at all you know the radiation levels sort of roughly you know in worst case now really kind of about equivalent to smoking on the way there now smoking is pretty bad but but I think with with some water shielding we can cut down on a large percentage of the incremental radiation and that should be enough that that the sort of marginal risk of cancer is not something that is going to be a showstopper let's that's my best assessment to date something's learning a lot about solar winds and fast particles and or not and one of things I learned recently that I wasn't thinking quite understand is that the I always thought if the particles from the Sun the sort of solar wind is going kind of straight up from the Sun but they follow the magnetic field lines so you actually can get the particles coming at you from the side even though it was kind of a directional thought wall to the Sun so you do need some cut some amount of protection at least on the gallon on kind of for four or five sides and if it I think it's not a showstopper but it is it's definitely you know if its safety is your top goal I would go to Mars you know there's a there's a bunch of work going on ISS right now to understand the risk to the humans for long-duration certainly with it we're in the Van Allen belts to the radiation environments gerrant but and all part of it is understanding what happens to the humans the longer you stay so so far we've had human stay a little bit longer than a year and that's it so in the history of the species they've had someone off the planet for a little more than a year and we're talking three years to go to Mars well you know I think you get the perhaps perhaps sure but it's in the years it's a you know it's so they're very much intial for for things out there that we haven't found yet and so we'll learn more as we go along hopefully learn more before ISS is done yeah it's just actually the here you know Maz is only the same sort of rough quadrant of the above six roughly six months every two years by same I mean sort of Trance lightly off site because it's like a transfer quadrant but but if you can get the ship to and from Mars inside that six-month window then you get to reuse it twice as often so there's actually a lot of Merit to being able to get to Mars in under three months you get there quick and back where skip makes a bigger a bigger vehicle and resupply so anyway well the interesting problem that will I'm sure we'll work on yeah as we go forward a lot of Earth orbit refueling over it's not really mostly oxygen but it propellant realities are good for word for propellant for fuel plus oxygen prof I guess profit prop load will have to divert we'll have to invent a new word right so I answered okay a question over here Dimitri star the performs in Los Angeles first thank you very much for digging those tunnels they will be really handy during Olympics my question is like what Tesla cars will we see you writing the crew module to Isis and back thinking I [Applause] would like to at some point I would like to yeah I think giving things work out you know I'd like to yeah maybe three three or four years something yeah great all right we'll put I on a manifest okay next question over here hello I'm Ana Sofia bag arrived and I have kind of a follow-up on the biology question from before it is one thing to say obviously it's not going to be a safe experience to go to Mars but there are some technologies essential especially we're looking to putting humans there permanently that are going to be have that are going to have to be developed with biological capabilities speaking of like flight suits habitats eventual artificial biospheres for people to live in do you see your company playing a part in the development of those technologies you see biology having a place in space X's work or will that be outsourced to other unrelated companies and before you answer you should know that NSF e over here one genes and space competition and flew on a SpaceX Dragon and it's a via was that that SpaceX 10 when was that SpaceX 8 so and very smart in late I think fact I think she's smarter me in high school and then that I am now so anyway so good luck with your answer okay biology UPS has a significant role to play in any kind of permanent Mars space or city yes I mean it for spacex 16 we're trying to make sure we can get people there reliably at a cost they can afford and and get cargo they're a black ops number you know because it the business there's kind of a threshold cost per ticket or cost per ton to service and mars below which a self-sustaining city can develop and above which it cannot that that sort of critical economic and technical threshold is is what we're focused on at SpaceX but that we will probably have to do a pivotal work on Alec Depot basically propellant plant on Mars but then our intent is to you know we don't want to get in the way of what others are doing we want to make sure that let's say if somebody makes an investment and wants to do something on Mars creative you know a business or do some scientific endeavor that SpaceX does not compete with that you know because they need to feel like okay they're we're not going to go in and compete with them arbitrarily we want to make sure that they feel is going to be a fruitful environment to be the dinner to go there and and and do something special so our focus is going to be a transport kind of fundamental utilities survivability and we know and we'll do more if we need to do more but we want to make sure that lots of people can go and do all those things on Mars or the moon and I feel like SpaceX is going to do anything but try to help them we don't we don't interfere or compete you know they got to feel like the opportunities there next question over here hi Yvonne my name is Tracy and I'm not here for any reason related to my career or to my area of study I'm actually here as a very cool and only slightly overbearing mother to my ten-year-old daughter Harper and a sister to my 14 year old brother Ben who are both in the audience today and who thinks of you the way that I guess I thought of Madonna at the same age I praise their in the spirit of that I wanted to get your advice doing that to kids who are very interested in space and engineering and entrepreneurism thank you I'm sorry face engineering and entrepreneurial is what's your advice alright yeah well you know there's a lot of technical problems to solve so I guess we sort of you know started studying kind of engineering and physics and Biosciences and I kind of think would be the way to go yeah a lotta give me a lot of poems to solve to to make a city work on Mars we were thinking of just as a sort of a semi joke putting a dub scripture on our website for urban planning in brackets Mars but if this is going to be stressed not a problem solve that'll be it was a lot of building building and problem solving so those like the right you know skills to work on if someone's interested in going beyond earth or you know space and channel thank you we're glad you're glad you're here glad your kids are here to their their the future for all of us so thanks for coming see over here hi my name is Gerard by a NASA Johnson Space Center and my question is in your quest to you cause Mars do you foresee utilizing expandables spacecraft modules as a stepping stone or even a final final organization well I think there's definitely going to be inflatable things on our Mars itself you know in the journey there there might be some not as playable but um we're not currently baselining that oughta Mars itself I think they'd be quite a lot yeah okay thank you inflatable and and perhaps just building it with the materials it's yeah ready pray exactly local materials that you don't have to carry it with you yeah I don't you got to get that tunnel the boring machine there though it's gonna be well right now the earth ones are really heavy like really heavy right well built by aerospace engineers they're not worried about wait for tunneling machine you're like wait actually one one that's nice and heavy but Mars one you'd have to redesign it to be super light that's a tricky one and I'm just taking account the different conditions on Mars really yeah realizing the you know the Curiosity rover and the tires being chewed up by the sharpness of the just of the dirt to the gravel there it's a very foreign environment to us and even in very subtle ways so yeah I'll see ya next question over here hi Alan my name is pricilla Chandra I'm a regenerative medicine scientist from Wake Forest University my question is regarding your company near a link that makes a brain machine interfaces so what do you think this technology how is it useful for humans when they are you know going to low-earth orbits or even deep space exploration and do you have any plans in that direction well the reason for reason I want to create neural link was primarily as an offset to the existential risk associated with artificial intelligence I think we will hear intelligence will not we will not be able to beat AI so then if you know the saying goes we can't beat em join em kind of thing so having some it's a bit excited wait up to link you know human will on mass to the outcome of AI having AI be an extension of individual human well that's really the point of neural link now along the way I think will be a lot of good that's in addressing any brain damage that's you know as a result of a stroke or lesion or something congenital or just loss of memory when you get old that kind of thing and you know velvet I'll have well before it becomes a sort of you know brain AI some buyout situation so if we play it you'll see it coming everyone it won't or what happened all of a sudden Betty I do you think it increases the long-term relevance of human exploration and and yeah I think I think it's but for me it's increased my motivation long-term that that it doesn't just need to be done by robots you know yeah if that answers your question that's your question oh yes all right let's say maybe were one more question here and we'll wrap it up on the left here okay hi caller from space nation as we are building the first global Estoril training program for everyone my question relates would you earlier said to the instable International Space Station and how it's a shame that it's not better known around the world as probably compared for example the shuttle program so and thinking that in the future we need thousands and more space pioneers so how do you see the significance of this public engagement and especially in the time where we have more and more tools to do that and do you have specific plans on that and how you see that affecting accelerating or does it haven't that kind of effect for the whole humanity's transition to space and under the new space era sure well I think it's just getting more more human spaceflight is going to automatically engage the public as you point out that dealing with Space Shuttle there was a lot more engagement when the Space Shuttle was launching I think if the public policy is some some path even if it's long term where they themselves may be able to go to over tool beyond or to the Moon or Mars I think their interest level increases dramatically and it may not be even that that they want to go but they have a son or daughter or other brand that really wants to do it and and they want to support their friends and family in that in that ambition but it really needs to be something ultimately that looks like it could be accessible to a large number of people and then I think we'll get a large number of people engaged and one of the things about engagement too I think for the u.s. anyway will be we have it people launch from the United States oh absolutely I can't tell young people around the world said oh you know you guys are still flying well absolutely never stop flying yeah we've had people lives on board is s you know for almost 17 years and but they don't see the smoke in the fire right I see that days I they knew the eternal TV and there's a shuttle going and it's got seven people on board and they see it and nowadays at least in the u.s. it's half a world away you know here in a week a week from Friday we'll be launching three people yeah but it doesn't feel the same as if it was happening in our backyard and yeah in Florida absolutely so so we're looking forward to to that happening very soon here in in the US and we wish you the best of luck okay thanks very much for being here today thanks for for joining the conference [Music] we're a big part of ISS and a big part of the research and development that goes on on ISS so thanks very much I'm glad you've been able to help be helpful thanks having me I'd like just to I send my thanks also for a I'm incredibly insightful and frank discussion that you guys have had with the group so we really truly appreciate it and as my take away I since we are at the ISS R&D conference I loved your quote of I don't think people understand how cool is s is so I hope we all go and spread that word and tunnels are cool too appreciate it we're running a little bit late so if you're going to the technical sessions if you could kind of walk quickly to them we'll begin them as soon as the rooms fill up and for those of you that are going to the Congressional reception that will start at six o'clock this evening at the Rayburn house office building and then we will start again tomorrow at 8:15 so thank you all very much [Applause] you you

Channel: Space Policy and Politics

Views: 149,803

Rating: 4.8789916 out of 5

Keywords: Elon Musk, SpaceX, NASA, International Space Station

Id: BqvBhhTtUm4

Length: 87min 11sec (5231 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/bitesports]

unrelated, but I hate conferences where people is eating. All I can hear are the forks and knifes clicking