跟马斯克爬上 SpaceX 抓取 Starship 的机械发射塔

0:00Hi, it's me, Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut. Welcome to Starbase, Texas.

0:04Today, I'm going to be taking you up SpaceX's launch tower, otherwise known as Stage Zero with

0:08Elon Musk. We'll get the ultimate view of Starbase and learn more about just how exactly SpaceX plans

0:15to catch the world's largest flying object with giant robotic chopsticks. This is part two of our

0:21Spring 2022 Starbase Tour with Elon. In the first part, we got up close and personal with the

0:27high bay and starship prototypes and in the next part we'll get really in-depth

0:31with Raptor 2 and Merlin rocket engines so stay tuned and if you happen to find

0:37this video valuable consider dropping a super thanks as a tip below here on

0:41YouTube or become a channel member or patreon supporter for early access and

0:45to show your support that being said let's get up in there

0:49I feel like you always talk about you know how you just want to build an

1:05exciting future a world where people get excited about stuff wake up and want to

1:10do cool things and yeah I gotta tell you standing right here man that's uh

1:16that's pretty hard to not get excited about this yeah I mean this is pretty

1:22crazy I mean there's a custom built tower with arms that'll that are designed to

1:28catch the the largest and heaviest flying object ever made and pluck it out

1:34out of the air.

1:36I mean, that's a theory anyway.

1:38So.

1:42I think it's funny.

1:43People actually forget now that they're actually

1:46meant to lift and stack the rocket.

1:47The crane sets its bad wind capability.

1:49But one time the booster legs were going to weigh a lot.

1:51The one just said, you know, delete the legs, delete.

1:54We're like, well, what's the, you just use arms.

1:57And then set it again.

1:59I mean, go a while.

2:00You're serious.

2:00OK, we better get on this.

2:02And now it's normal.

2:04We think it seems plausible.

2:06It seems plausible.

2:07Yeah.

2:08I mean, it's a little super crazy.

2:10But the more you talk about it, I mean, I think,

2:14you know, at SpaceX, we specialize in converting things

2:18from impossible to late.

2:20Yeah.

2:21So, but it's pretty nutty because you're

2:28going to have this gigantic, you know, booster coming back.

2:33And I mean that's nine meters in diameter not counting the chines or roughly 30 feet in diameter.

2:41And it'll weigh about 250 tons.

2:49Just put on the heavy side, we'll make that lighter of a time.

2:52Wait is that two, fifteen hours every single time?

2:56This is way heavier than I think we can get the...

3:01Well, there's the weight at different points.

3:04So it's like, say like, when the landing tanks are full versus

3:11weight when the landing tanks are empty.

3:14So how much alleys mass do you have?

3:16And there's a ton of-

3:17Dry weight is kind of floating.

3:18You know, there's dry weight is kind of a relative when

3:21it's actually in the air.

3:22Yeah.

3:22I mean, there's several tons of air mass in the vehicle.

3:25Just you just say, like, what's the mass of one atmosphere

3:30in that volume with several tons.

3:34So anyway, I think we'll be able to get the mass well

3:42under 200 tons over time.

3:45It's still pretty heavy.

3:46So you've got like a cool couple hundred tons of plummeting

3:51at, let's see, I think out the velocity at which we start up

4:01the engines is more than half the speed of sound.

4:04So this thing is still coming in really fast.

4:07Yeah.

4:09Pretty much down in a downward direction.

4:11So then the light the engines, like I said,

4:16are on Mach 0.5, give or take.

4:20But it's only several hundred meters in the air.

4:24So it's got to slow itself down very fast,

4:27then correct any error.

4:31So whatever the XY-era is, when the engines land,

4:36it's gonna take out that XY-era

4:38and then drop the velocity to basically zero,

4:43come in between the arms.

4:47The arms will be wide and as is coming in,

4:49the arms will close,

4:51go flush against the side of the vehicle

4:53and the vehicle will be descending through the arms.

4:56And those tiny little, you can barely see them,

4:58little mobs. Those kind of lifting lugs will touch the top of the arms and then it will hopefully not

5:07share often and crumple. Joe, is there anything you want to add there? I don't know if you could

5:13add that, but I was just describing the landing sequence. I was accurate.

5:19I really hope it doesn't hit the tower. Yeah, exactly. And especially not that launch ring,

5:27which is really difficult to make.

5:30The load shrink is very complicated.

5:33We have not found a reason yet why it will not work.

5:36Yes, success is one of the possible outcomes.

5:40The probability is uncertain, but it is above zero.

5:44So the arms are off to the side.

5:48So in theory, the bush is going to come back

5:50and then with engine start up, it'll translate over,

5:53slow down and translate over and get in between the arms.

6:00Arms need to close, not, and when they close,

6:02they need to close in such a way

6:04that they don't crush the rocket as well.

6:07We're scored all the way up the whole thing.

6:09Just, yeah, there's a lot of ways for us to fail.

6:14How quickly like, is it gonna close

6:16like almost at the last second?

6:17Like, or it will be mostly closed

6:19and there's a small tolerance there

6:21and it skirts the whole thing by, you know.

6:24It's intended to close on the methane tank

6:26so just smooth upper section

6:27about the top third of the rocket

6:29and then you can keep translating down

6:31and touch on those dogs that stick out of the rocket.

6:35Yeah.

6:37I mean, if things are going right,

6:38it will actually look like the rocket

6:40is descending between the arms for quite a while.

6:45You know, because the length of the thing

6:49It's like basically around 70 meters.

6:52So, if you've got a descent rate of, I don't know,

6:56let's say two or three meters per second,

6:59and you have 20 meters or something like that,

7:04it's okay, you're waiting for like 10 seconds.

7:09So we'll actually be like,

7:10actually this has taken a while.

7:13And now you gotta clear those chines too.

7:16You can't have it be so close down on the...

7:18The chimes will be blocked kind of away from the tower,

7:21so they won't be increasing.

7:24Oh, got the opposite way from the clamps.

7:27Got it.

7:28Yeah, that makes sense.

7:30That's cool.

7:33But you still need to get the rocket has to still fit

7:35in between these arms.

7:37So, it's still gotta come in.

7:45And it's just center up and this arms will slew in.

7:47Yeah.

7:48To meet it wherever it is.

7:49So if it's off to one side,

7:51it's gonna hit one of the arms, which will be quite bad.

7:54Yeah.

7:55Yeah.

7:55Yeah.

7:56Yeah.

7:58Yeah.

7:59Well, cook the arm or, you know,

8:02bunch of bad things can happen.

8:05It's just insane though.

8:06I mean, it's, it's,

8:08it looks big from far away,

8:10but it looks even bigger when you're underneath it

8:13and you start to see almost the,

8:14the atmospheric distortion and the haze,

8:17make it fade into the distance there.

8:21Yeah, I'm told this is the tallest thing

8:22south of San Antonio.

8:25Yeah, because I think the other tallest was on South

8:29Padre.

8:29They have that the hotel was the other tallest thing

8:32in the whole area here.

8:33So yeah.

8:34And that's quite a bit taller.

8:37Actually, booster and rocket are almost identical.

8:40There are at least the 120 meter version

8:42was like exactly the size of the sapphire over there.

8:44people need to know what that feels like just go up in the sapphire and know that's

8:50how big this rocket is which is insane to think about. Obviously you're not too

8:56worried about like the human landing system right now compared to just getting

9:00things into orbit but how is that has any of that stuff solidified yet? Like the

9:06any of the human landing system? Well I mean there's a lot of sort of design

9:11because they're done on the computer level.

9:14But there's some hardware, but our focus is getting to orbit.

9:19If we can...

9:20Because human landing won't work without getting to orbit, obviously.

9:22Yeah, we need Starship to get to orbit because it's also got to...

9:27It's the only thing that can carry the Starlink II satellites.

9:31So we've already produced the first...

9:34And we have onsite the first Starlink II satellite.

9:37And it's seven meters long.

9:38And Falcon has neither the volume nor the mass

9:42to overcapability required for Starlink II.

9:46So even if we shrunk the Starlink II satellite down,

9:48the total up mass of Falcon is not

9:51nearly enough to do Starlink II.

9:54How heavy does one version two weigh?

9:57Well, it's about one and a quarter tons.

10:00There's so wide- electrically huge that.

10:03Yeah.

10:03But if you just say like,

10:07like this, there's a lot of people talk a lot

10:10about how many launches per year there are to orbit,

10:12but this is not really what matters.

10:14I think what really matters is what's the total useful

10:18payload tour per year.

10:20Cause otherwise you could say,

10:22if this were ocean ships,

10:25you'd be like comparing a dinghy to a super tanker.

10:28And it's like they're not the same.

10:29Yeah.

10:31So, for satellite constellation, the thing that really matters is what is your total mass flux,

10:40useful mass flux to orbit.

10:41Yeah.

10:42Yeah, so, you know, mass to orbit.

10:46Yeah, so we need Starship to work and to fly frequently or stalling to be stuck on the ground.

10:52So that's your big motivator at this point is like get these things going.

10:56And so they'll, I assume because they're bigger, they'll, well, they'll have to be fewer of those

11:00to service the same amount of like area,

11:03like is it gonna be,

11:04is version two gonna be in a higher orbit,

11:06servicing more people like with per satellite,

11:09or is it just bigger so it has higher capacity,

11:11more bandwidth, more like all of that, I guess,

11:14compared to version one.

11:17The Starlight two satellites are almost in order

11:19of magnitude more capable than Starlight one.

11:21Bandwidth wise or total like throughput?

11:23I just think it would like,

11:26how many useful bits of data can each satellite do?

11:30The Starlink 2 in terms of useful bits of data is almost in order of magnitude better than the Starlink 1.

11:42Wow.

11:43Are those different user terminals too compared to...

11:46The user terminals are on a separate upgrade path.

11:48Okay.

11:49Yeah.

11:50Although user terminals will work with...

11:52user terminals will work with a Starlink 1 or a Starlink 2 satellites, but the Starlink 2's are just much more capable.

12:00Yeah. Is it possible to go up in the tower and he's in runner? I don't know. Can we go up in the tower?

12:08Is the elevator working? As long as the generator is on. Yeah, I can fire it up. Okay.

12:13I mean, just might not be a bad place to watch a sunset at this point.

12:16Yeah.

13:05for the initiative.

13:12Yep, sorry.

13:15I'll let you all go into it.

13:17Should I go up?

13:18Up for you?

13:19Yeah.

13:20Oh, I guess so.

13:22We'll get stuck with the CUNY on and then keep it in.

13:25Yeah, then continue up.

13:28The 50 and then...

13:30Yeah.

13:40Nice tower.

13:41Yeah.

13:42I'm gonna pass it apart.

13:49This view is gonna be insane.

13:50I can already see it.

13:51He has a little sneak beats through the...

13:54Dang!

14:20Wow.

14:22This is epic.

14:23This is so epic.

14:24We're not even at the top.

14:26I don't know if it's worth it.

14:30He's worth it.

14:31He's worth it.

14:32He's wearing a key arm this.

14:35Oh, look.

14:36I think it's top that man.

14:37I think it's top that man better.

14:39Look how beefy all this stuff is, though.

14:41Yeah, I mean this is insane custom designed gigantic hardware.

14:48It's hard to believe this is real.

14:52It genuinely is.

15:05Gee he's.

15:11That's...

15:12Yes.

15:13It's quite the beard.

15:14It's beautiful.

15:15Yeah, it's beautiful.

15:16Look at the top of the booster even right now.

15:19And we are in the sky.

15:31We can't even see South Padre.

15:34Oh wow.

15:36Yeah, really hazy.

15:41Oh, should we go up?

15:42Yeah.

15:43Ha ha ha.

15:44It's even better when there's a vehicle on the off-mount.

15:47Oh, I know.

15:48I know.

15:50I can't imagine.

15:51I'm close and personal.

15:52Seriously.

15:53I'm going to come back.

15:54Oh, yeah.

15:56I missed the one.

15:58I came out here I think the day after you guys stacked.

16:01Well, I guess I came out for the last event.

16:04But I think he stacked on like the forged card. I don't know something. I don't know what day

16:11That's right

16:13Yeah

16:19Emergency skate platter thing

16:41I maybe want to do that once

16:48It probably took like an hour I feel like you're kinda excited.

16:50Really getting up here though.

17:01The craziest thing to me is that none of this was here a year ago.

17:04That's just hard to fathom.

17:06It's like, especially if you were out here three years ago,

17:10and saw quite literally nothing but a feel

17:12that a little RGB-2 can.

17:14You know?

17:24Wow, look at that.

17:31I mean, it's far down there.

17:45If this isn't surreal, I don't know what is.

17:46Yeah, totally.

17:48It's insane.

17:49I mean, the ship looks small from here.

17:51The ship looks tiny from here.

17:55Well, you can, people are like tiny.

17:57It's like, whoa.

17:59How tall is this again at this point?

18:01There are a hundred words we've metered the top.

18:03OK.

18:04What about it?

18:07What, 38, busy?

18:14Oh my god.

18:15And look at how hazy even the production site is right now.

18:19Yeah.

18:26Yeah.

18:27But this is not a good place to give a fair of heights,

18:30that's for sure.

18:31You better go get over them real quick.

18:35Yeah.

19:12We should get like a hang glatter and jump over something.

19:15That's weird.

19:16It's so rides as a zip line over to the high bay.

19:23You could probably zip line pretty far.

19:25Yeah.

19:28I can't believe how small the boosters look from here even.

19:30Yeah.

19:34It just looks like so fake right now.

19:38This is insane.

19:41Just we how does that feel whoa

19:46Where to go oh my god

19:49You see the ocean out there

19:54We really like out on the yeah on the night the Gulf I guess

20:04insane

20:07It is gorgeous

20:10I think this is the time to be

20:12Philosophical almost it's just so inspiring out here, you know, it's

20:15I mean, in your heart of hearts, like in the very depths of your soul, do you really believe this is like the start of making humans multi-planetary?

20:25I believe we have a... I think for the first time it is possible, that it's possible outcome to make life multi-planetary.

20:35The key to making life multi-planetary is a fully reusable rocket. That's the key.

20:43So, full and rapid reusability, like an aircraft.

20:48So it's just very hard to achieve full reusability given the strength of Earth's gravity field

20:57and the density of the atmosphere.

21:00Full reusability is like relatively easy on Mars, which has around 37-38% of Earth's gravity

21:10and about 1% atmospheric density, but it's just barely possible to achieve

21:16reusability on Earth.

21:19Like, it's not as though, you know, all the rocket engineers in the past, it's not as

21:25though the reusability never occurred to them.

21:26They're well aware of aircraft and other things.

21:30It's just that it's an incredibly difficult technical problem and they just thought it

21:40was impossible or the probability of success was so low that it was not worth doing.

21:47So I feel like, yeah, I feel like you almost had a bit of a Noah's arc esque, you know,

21:56if you're to get biblical aspect of the, at the last talk was saying how, you know, if

22:00you care about life, then, and the true continuation of life on earth and continuation of life is

22:06a consciousness, then you have to have a sustained planet, you know, another sustained

22:12playing it often. Exactly. I mean, I think, you know, if you think really long term, then

22:20you realize that eventually there will be some national disaster, even if it is not made by

22:27humans, that destroys all life on Earth. So eventually the Sun will expand and evaporate

22:33the oceans and and when we'll be like Venus you know just so hot that no

22:41life can really exist or maybe some chemotropic bacteria but eventually

22:45even they will they will die. So the only way to prolong life as we know it is

22:51for us to become multi-planetary and ultimately multi-stellar and if we do not

23:00do that, or life on Earth will die. So those who care about life on Earth should really

23:07care a lot about life becoming multi-planetary and ultimately multi-seller.

23:12When I think there's a lot of people get attached to this idea that for some reason, you know,

23:18SpaceX or other aerospace companies are trying to escape Earth and escape Earth's problems.

23:23And I think you put it into a really good perspective that, you know, currently specifically

23:27like NASA's budgets, you know, 0.3% of the federal budget.

23:33And then a let alone, you know, the entire cost of

23:37and how much we're investing so far in making,

23:40you know, getting humans off of Earth

23:42and protecting our planet even with asteroid defense

23:44and stuff is still relatively small.

23:46I think people don't understand that.

23:48Yes, Earth does not currently have any ability

23:52to stop asteroids.

23:55Now with Starship,

23:57that we then have some ability to stop an asteroid.

24:02Actually, technically, a comet would be the real danger

24:05because there are billions, if not more than billions,

24:08maybe trillions of objects that are in the outer solar system,

24:14some of them with their very long period comets.

24:19An example that most people are probably aware of

24:21is Haley's comet.

24:23So, I think it's the exact periodicity,

24:25but it's slightly under one's per century

24:27that Halley's Comet comes by.

24:30So there's, there are probably many objects,

24:36many comets that have very long periods

24:38that we are on, simply don't know exist.

24:42And for example, the comet Shumae Gilevi,

24:46when that hit Jupiter,

24:49it made a hole in Jupiter the size of Earth.

24:51So if that did hit us the game over everything's dead. So, anyways, there's

25:03always some risk of such a thing occurring and the probable lifespan of

25:13life is just much greater if we're a multi-planets and ultimately multi-cell

25:18or civilization. Well I think people also don't tend to realize that it's not a

25:23zero-sum game that if we're working on rockets and space flight and aerospace

25:28technology and all of these things, life support for these things, it's not just

25:32that you, you know, this company spent $100 million on a rocket and that $100

25:35million went into space. It's that that $100 million went into the economy, you

25:41know, invested in our own technology, our terrestrial technology, you know, look at

25:45all the spin-offs of NASA and what you know what NASA had done in the 60s and

25:4970s to create the society that we live in today, you know, I mean, I think people

25:53are shortsighted sometimes on the implications

25:58that you don't immediately see, those things

25:59that you don't immediately grasp because they're just

26:02kind of unknowns at this point.

26:05I mean, in general, the economy is very much a positive sum

26:13game, a kind of a growing-the-pie situation.

26:20When people examine their understanding

26:22beliefs of the economy, if they have an implicit assumption that the economy is zero sum, then

26:34the only way for one person to get ahead is by taking things from another.

26:40But obviously the economy today is much, much greater than it was in the past.

26:45And we have the economic output per person is massively greater than the past.

26:56And so obviously what has happened is that the pie has grown and has grown much faster

27:01than the population has grown.

27:05So essentially, if one creates wealth, or creates great products and services, that is something

27:19that should be applauded.

27:21That is effectively increased the standard of living of the country and perhaps of the

27:33world. And sometimes people will conflate or, you know,

27:41essentially think of consumption and wealth is the same thing, but they're

27:46obviously not the same thing. So, you know, this is a sort of long argument of

27:53sort of capital allocation is a job. Consumption is fun, but capital allocation

28:00job. So anyway, I don't think a ton of people want to say Warren Buffett's job,

28:08which is to read through very tedious annual reports of companies, including the

28:13minutia of the accounting and decide whether to invest in co-corpepsi. Like I

28:21don't want that job. So I think aerospace in general kind of still follows the same

28:28like you know back in the day at one point no one had electricity running water

28:33air conditioning all of moderns life conveniences but of course at first it

28:37started off as something that only a few people could get and now it's you

28:40know pretty common standard of living across the world and yeah you know you

28:44got to start somewhere same with air travel you know yeah exactly travel

28:48used to be accessible to almost know very few people was insanely expensive and

28:52dangerous and now it is commonplace to fly somewhere. And TV's used to be rare and expensive

29:03and then you know big glass screen plasma's used to be extremely expensive and now you

29:09can buy you know good Walmart and buy an amazing glass screen plasma for 500 bucks. It's amazing.

29:15Yeah. It really is. Yeah. I don't want to add the conversation on Walmart plasma at the same time.

29:26Yeah. So, hell of a lot of progress. I mean, again, not to bring up the past, but three years

29:38ago, I think the first time I ever came out here was March 2019. So, almost exactly three years ago.

29:44And all you had was a little hoppy. He had just made it out here. I was starting to do some of the

29:49initial static firing. That was three years ago.

29:54The hopper is sold. It's there. Looking over us all. The grandfather. We all need.

30:01Yeah. But even, I mean, even the tank farm was like three tanks of those smaller,

30:07you know, for the first tassel. It was so tiny and there was literally just a dirt mound

30:12and three tanks. And now, you know, it's, and there was a tent out there and that was about it.

30:17Yeah, the propellant storage for the whole vehicle was actually that was a really that was quite difficult

30:27put a lot of effort into that propellant storage.

30:33How?

30:34Okay, so if you have to scrub if you're trying to do like your the first static fires and stuff, how long does it take to recycle?

30:41Because you're probably how's it what's that look like?

30:44because you have to drain the propellants back into the tanks and say at the

30:48comm

31:08Yeah, but I mean obviously the first the first booster static fires will be probably

31:12Yeah, no, I mean it's gonna be very bumpy at first. I mean for Falcon 9 in the beginning

31:20We have we'd have like a dozen

31:22Recycles like we're scrub the launch like a dozen times. Yeah

31:26I mean as a while there for a while there I was living out at the Cape basically just

31:30working on

31:32getting the damn rocket to take to you know getting all nine engines to start and take off and

31:37and we just have one launch board after another.

31:40So, I brought the kids with me and I went to Disney

31:46with a lot in Harry Potter land.

31:55I think you can probably get out of here.

31:56Hopefully that will be as good.

31:58Thanks again to Elon for all of your generous time

32:13and thanks to Ryan Schielinski with Causic Perspective

32:15for helping to capture and share this conversation.

32:18And I have a huge thank you to my Patreon supporters

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32:36Thanks everybody, that's gonna do it for me.

32:38I'm Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut.

32:40Bringing space down to Earth for Everyday People.