Elon Musk talks next generation Starships in SpaceX update at Starbase

Nasa Space

Elon Musk talks about the next generation of Starships at a SpaceX update at Starbase in Texas. .

Transcript

00:00So we're developing some next-generation Starships which are have a number of

00:19improvements versus our current gen. So it's Troller, for example, and has a better, kind of a, the

00:32interstage between the ship and the booster. You can see that sort of, the sort of struts there,

00:39that makes it easier for the flame, like right there. When doing hot staging, which is when we

00:46light the ship's engines, while the booster's engines are still firing, the flame from the,

00:51from the ship engines can more easily exit through the, the open struts of the, of the

01:00new interstage. And in this case, we'll bring the struts interstage back with us instead of throwing

01:06it away. So a little more height here, 72 meters from around 69. Repellent capacity, I think we'll

01:21probably push that up a little, maybe 3,700 tons. Long term, my guesses were maybe around 4,000 tons,

01:29and about just sort of, you know, sort of 8,000, probably like 8,300. This will keep getting up.

01:39My guess is ultimately we're 4,000 tons here, close to 10,000 tons of thrust, but this is kind of the

01:46next, the next level, or the next version of the super heavy. So the booster will look a little naked on

01:57the bottom because the, the Raptor 3 engines don't require a heat shield. So it looked like, it looks

02:03like there's kind of parts missing, but that's just because the, the Raptor heat shield does not,

02:08the, the Raptor 3 does not need a heat shield. So it's just, it's just, they're standing there,

02:16they're, they're in a bathed in flaming plasma. But it's a lot lighter. Yep. Integrated hot stage. I think

02:35it looks amazing. And then the shift's a little, little more, little longer, a little more capable,

02:44moving to 1,550 tons of propellant capacity. And my guess is this probably ends up 20% more than this

02:53long-term. And yeah, you can see it, the, the heat shield is sleeker. So much smoother boundaries,

03:06as, as the, the boundary of the heat shield going to the leeward side is, is very smooth. No more

03:17jagged tiles. I think it looks very sleek. So, and this version, we still have six engines, but a

03:30future version will have nine. But with the Raptor 3, again, we have improved, reduced mass, higher

03:41specific impulse. It's, this is, the, the, Starship version 3 is really the, it's, the version that is,

03:52I think, achieves all of the, the key elements. I mean, generally with any new technology, it takes

03:58three major, three major iterations of any major technology, of any new technology to have it really,

04:03really, really work well. And this, with Raptor 3, with, and Starship, and Booster version 3,

04:09we, it should be able to achieve all of the things that I just mentioned, which is a rapidly

04:14reusable, reliable rocket with orbital refilling. Basically, all of the ingredients necessary to make

04:23life multi-planetary will be achieved with version 3 of Starship, which we're aiming to launch for the

04:29first time at the end of this year. Yeah, so you can see this is kind of where things are on the left,

04:45where things will be end of this year in the middle. And as I was saying, kind of where things

04:51will be probably long-term. Yeah, 142 meters. So, but the one in the middle is, is, will be fully

05:03capable of, of doing Mars. And thereafter, we'll, it'll be a lot of performance improvements. And as,

05:14as has been the case with Falcon 9, we always end up making the rocket longer, and increasing

05:20payload. So, that's, that's, that's the, that's the game plan. Pretty straightforward. But it's

05:28important to emphasize, even with the rocket that will be launching just at the end of this year,

05:32it will be capable of making life multi-planetary. And thereafter, it's, it's, it's just about

05:37continuing to hone the efficiency and capability of the rocket, and, and reduce the cost per ton,

05:43and reduce the cost per person to Mars. And, and like I said, ultimately make it so that anyone who

05:48wants to move to Mars, and help build a new civilization, can do so. So, anyone out there,

05:55like how cool will that, would that be? And even if you don't want to do it, maybe that you have a son or

06:02daughter who wants to do that, or a friend who wants to do it. And I think it would be the adventure,

06:09that the best adventure that one could possibly do, is to go and help build a new civilization on a new

06:16planet. So yeah, ultimately, we'll, we'll have 42 engines, which, it was inevitable. As, as the prophecy

06:34foretold, uh, by the great prophet, uh, Douglas Adams, in his, uh, you know, book, The Hitchhiker's Guide

06:44to the Galaxy, uh, the answer to the meaning of life is 42. Um, and so inevitably, the Starship stack

06:53will have 42 engines. And in terms of payload to orbit, what's remarkable is that it's 200 tons of,

07:08you know, Starship will have 200 tons payload to orbit with full reusability. So this is twice the

07:14capability of the Saturn V Moon rocket. The Saturn V Moon rocket was fully expendable, uh, Starship is

07:21fully reusable, but will have twice the payload to orbit, um, of the next biggest rocket that made it

07:29to orbit, which is the Saturn V. Um, in fact, if, without reusability, Starship would have about 400

07:37tons of payload to orbit. So this is a, this is a very big rocket is what I'm saying. So, but you need

07:46a big rocket, you know, to, you know, make life multi-planetary. Um, and then along the way we

07:53could do very cool things like have a moon base, um, like moon base alpha. Like, long ago, there was a

08:00TV show about moon base alpha. Um, you can't, couldn't think about the physics of that too much

08:06because apparently, like, the moon base was like drifting away from Earth. Uh, but, uh, anyway, we should

08:12have a moon base alpha, which is the next step after the Apollo program would be to have a base on the

08:16moon. Um, so you could like, you could have a, like a gigantic, um, you know, science station, uh, doing

08:25research about the nature of the universe on the moon would be very cool.

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