councilor.org
| Source | Louis Proyect |
| Date | 16/07/04/14:06 |
| www.stimson.org
Interview of ELON MUSK, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors Conducted by LINCOLN P. BLOOMFIELD, JR., Chairman of the Board, Henry L. Stimson Center BLOOMFIELD: Well, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the Chairman’s Forum. Thanks for coming to Stimson on a rainy day. I’m Linc Bloomfield. Maybe somewhere in the outer galaxies there’s intelligent life that knows how to come into our orbit and then safely land on the surface of the Earth. But in all of human history only one human being has ever done this without a government sort of leading the way, and he’s sitting next to me. So welcome, Elon Musk. MUSK: Thank you. BLOOMFIELD: It’s an honor. One of America’s real pioneers and entrepreneurs. Here at Stimson we talk a lot about policy. We talk about governments, we come from ... some of us our old enough to come from a 20th century mentality that governments seem to set policy. But in the 21st century we’re realizing that non-governmental actors often are out in front changing things. And as we’ll hear, I’m going to give a little bit of your background before we start to talk about space. You’ve actually changed things in the way we use the internet, you’re changing the game in space, you’re changing the way we use energy, and all of those are things that Washington people find themselves chasing the policy implications. So to have an innovator entrepreneur, I think, fits right into the theme of Chairman’s Forum. So again, we’re honored to have you. Thank you for taking the time. MUSK: Absolutely, thanks for having me. BLOOMFIELD: I know that you made an important announcement an hour ago, and I’m going to get to that. But first let me just introduce our guest. Mr. Elon Musk was born and raised in South Africa, came to Canada as a teenager and then came to the United States, where he is a US citizen. As a youth computer programmer at the age of 12, [he] created and sold the software for a space game, and made a little money off of it. And then, just to quickly touch on the other innovations, a company called Zip2, which created online content publishing software for news organizations, you co-founded X.com which became PayPal Secure E-commerce Logic, which of course is used everywhere now. In 2002 [he] founded Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX. You’re not only the CEO but the Chief Technology Officer which is, I think, very interesting. We’ll talk about the line of rockets, we knew about the Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9, [and] we’re going to hear a little bit more in a moment. And then, in 2004 [he] founded Tesla Motors ... co-founder, chairman, and CEO [of] the electric vehicle company in California. And [he] is also chairman of SolarCity, a photovoltaic products and services company started in 2006. So you see some themes here: internet, video games, e-commerce, energy efficiency technologies, and space. And so before we talk about the announcement, I’m curious: What was it that captured your imagination, as a young person, about space? What did space mean to you? MUSK: Well, when I was very young, space just seemed really cool. But I didn’t expect to be involved in space when I was young. But when I was in college, I decided I wanted to be involved in things that would have a significant impact on the future of humanity. And the three things I could come up with were the internet, sustainable energy (both production and consumption), and space exploration, particularly the extension of life beyond Earth to multiple planets. As it turns out, I’ve been fortunate enough to get involved in all three of those areas. BLOOMFIELD: That’s quite interesting. So there’s a geographic reach to your interest in space. Right now you’re involved in doing contract activities. We can talk about that with the space station and whatnot. But you see a future vision. Do you think that the United States, or even private sector entities, will be accessing outer space at some point in the future? And how far are we from that vision? MUSK: Yeah, I think in order to ... well in order for humanity to become a true space- faring civilization, and ultimately become a multi-planet species, I think we have to harness the power of free enterprise, because otherwise it will simply be unaffordable. It’s important to appreciate that there is a very fundamental cost barrier to life becoming multi-planetary. And if you don’t mind me exploring that issue a little bit, if you break it down and first say: “Why is it important that life become multi-planetary?” If you look at the nature of importance itself, and use the lens of history as a guide ... and generally the lens of history, the further you zoom out, the more the important milestones remain and the less important ones disappear. Things that may seem important in the moment, if you think about them, are not going to be really important in the long-term. On the grander scale, on the evolution of life itself, you can look at the major milestones and say, there’s the advent of single-celled life, multi-cellular life, differentiation of plants and animals, life going from the oceans to land, mammals, consciousness, those are kind of the big ones. But I think, also on that scale, would fit life becoming multi-planetary. It would be at least comparable to life going from the oceans to land. And if there’s something that is important enough to arguably fit on the scale of evolution of life itself, it’s fair to say that it should be considered important, and deserves some small portion of our resources to accomplish. And I’m not talking about a huge portion, but perhaps we can bound it quite easily by saying it should be much less than what we spend on healthcare, but more than what we spend on lipstick. I like lipstick. [Laughter.] I think lipstick’s very important. But maybe it’s .2 or .3 percent of our GDP, something like that is warranted. And I do think that we should not delay this action, because this is the first time in the 4 billion year history of Earth that it’s been possible—at all—for life to extend beyond Earth. And it’s possible, just barely, for humanity to create a self-sustaining civilization on Mars—extraordinarily difficult, but possible. And it is hard to say how long that window will be open. That window could be open for a long time or it could be open for a short time. But I think the wise thing to do is to not assume it will be open for a long time, and to take action to make life multi-planetary while we can. BLOOMFIELD: Well people who have had a similar aspiration, and a vision, and attachment to the vision of space and the continuum of human and planetary evolution, have generally joined into sort of governmental efforts until this point, because that’s where the action was. If someone were sitting in this audience, a young person who shares a similar aspiration, my expectation is they might think, “can I get a job at NASA?” Or, “can I work for the air force?” You’re a businessman, you have an MBA ... MUSK: I actually don’t have an MBA. I have a dual undergraduate in physics and economics. BLOOMFIELD: Physics and economics. MUSK: [Laughs.] [Laughter.] BLOOMFIELD: Well, I think you’ve, in so many ways, demonstrated the MBA capability. And the question is ... That wouldn’t appear to have been something you would naturally do; do you think that private sector is on a par with the government and their capacity to aspire to these kinds of accomplishments? Where do the government and non-government come together? Which one has the more ... Why would you invest in one more than the other? MUSK: Well, I think that government plays an important role in funding things that have a small amount of benefit to a large portion of the population. Sort of, basic science, the frontiers of exploration, that kind of thing, where there’s not an obvious direct economic feedback loop. But it’s nonetheless an important thing to do that’s helpful to everyone, like the Hubble, for example. We gained a lot of knowledge and understanding of the universe from the Hubble. It didn’t necessarily translate to economics for one particular company, so it made sense that it would be funded by the government. But funded by the government just means funded by the people. Government, by the way, has no money. It only takes money from the people. [Laughter.] Sometimes people forget that that’s really what occurs. So when there is a benefit that accrues to the people as a whole, then it’s fair that the money should be drawn from the people as a whole to match that benefit. But government is inherently inefficient. So it makes sense to minimize the role of government such that government does only what it has to do, and no more. There are obviously very clear examples of this in comparing something like East and West Germany and North and South Korea. Places where you have essentially the same people, but two different systems of government. And East and West Germany, for example, the economic outcome per capita was about five times higher in West Germany —arguably more than five times—but at least five times higher in West Germany than in East. And it’s not as though West Germany was particularly capitalist. I mean, they’re sort of a lot more socialist than we are, and yet they had that huge output difference. Or North and South Korea is an even more stark example, where North Korea, people undergo starvation, and South Korea is incredibly prosperous. And so you want to always watch that dial—that allocation of resources dial—and make sure that government doesn’t become too large a portion of the economy. BLOOMFIELD: Well in the space sector, if you look back in the last ... going back to the 60s, if you will, where NASA was in its heyday, we put a man on the moon in 1969 ... a lot of studies in Washington have talked about how the space industrial base is shrinking in the United States, how we’re sort of losing our lead in space. After certain events in the 90s involving US companies in China, there was more restrictive export controls on satellites, commercial satellites, which remain, I believe, under review in the White House, as they were under the previous administration. ... but restrictive. And so there’s an international space industry. Do you have a view on whether the industrial base ... are we shrinking? Is America’s lead shrinking, in your view, and where does your activity fit into that picture? MUSK: Well it’s certainly true that over the past few decades America’s lead has really ... well it went away like 20 years ago and returned last year, thanks to SpaceX. In the 80s ... America used to do almost all the commercial launches. And with the former Soviet Union and their action becoming, in a lot of ways, more capitalist than we were ... and then, between Europe and Russia and, to a lesser degree China and India, they absorbed almost the entire commercial launch market. There are a lot of commercial satellites launched every year. There are more commercial satellites launched every year than there are US government satellites, by at least a factor of two or three. And yet the United States has assured that market has been, sort of, negligible to zero. But last year, the United States won more launch contracts—commercial launch contracts—than any other country, due almost entirely to SpaceX. Now there’s a lead time of anywhere from two to four years between when you win the contract and when you do the launch. So in about two to four years, we’ll be doing more commercial launches than any other country. But I think that’s because at SpaceX we’re really harnessing the power of American free enterprise, which is the most competitive system in the world, and applying a mode of operation that is closer to Silicon Valley than typical government contractors. BLOOMFIELD: So in economic terms, who are the bigger users, looking forward a few years? Is it commercial use of space? Is it government and military use, or scientific use? Where’s the market, looking forward in the near- to mid-term? MUSK: Well, like I said, there are actually more commercial launches even today than there are US government launches. So I expect that, as we are able to lower the cost of access to space, which we’re doing in a very significant way, that there will be more commercial satellite business plans that work than was previously the case. We will see some market expansion occur. So I would expect that the percentage of SpaceX activity that is commercial will increase over time. Government will still play a very important role, particularly permissions, like I said earlier, that have a small amount of benefit to a large number of people, but where isn’t the direct economic feedback loop. So government will still play a very important role, also in pushing the frontier of exploration. But in terms of market size, I would expect the commercial market to actually increase, on a percentage basis. BLOOMFIELD: You’ve just come from an announcement. We knew about the Falcon 1 Rocket, the Falcon 9 was just depicted in the film. Can you tell us what’s coming next? MUSK: Yeah, so the big announcement we just made today was for our Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle, which is going to be the most capable vehicle of any kind on Earth. It’ll put more than twice the payload capability of the space shuttle into orbit, and has twice the thrust of the biggest Russian rocket and the biggest US rocket. So, [it’s] twice as big as the Russian Proton and Boeing Lockheed Delta IV Heavy. So it’s really quite an epic vehicle. In fact, it’ll have more payloads to orbit than any rocket apart from the Saturn V Moon Rocket. BLOOMFIELD: And what kind of a payload do you expect to be launched off of this vehicle? I mean, what are the potential uses? MUSK: There’s a wide range of potential uses. Certainly Falcon Heavy can launch the largest government and commercial satellites with ease. In fact, you could arguably do two of the largest satellites at a time. BLOOMFIELD: Is that conceivable, technologically? MUSK: Oh yeah, we expect this to be on the launch pad at [unclear] next year, and then launch probably in 2013. So this is not speculative, or ... BLOOMFIELD: But could you deploy two satellites with one launch? MUSK: Oh sure, absolutely, no problem. We can deploy ... Well in fact, we have the launch contract to do the next generation Iridium Constellation, where we’re doing eight or nine satellites per flight. BLOOMFIELD: Per flight? MUSK: Yeah. BLOOMFIELD: Well you’re the Chief Technology Officer. I’m curious, because I have a bit of a background in export controls, and wish I had known a lot more about the fine details. How sensitive is the information that your engineers have when they marry a bus to a rocket launch, a payload to a launch vehicle? How much do they need to know about what’s on the bus in order to make sure that they don’t destroy it, or that they deploy it properly? Is it highly sensitive information? MUSK: Well ... I think ... It’s only providing enough information to know how to integrate the satellite onto the rocket. I don’t think that necessarily reveals anything particularly proprietary. However, certain countries have a track record of absconding with intellectual property. And so I think it’s perhaps not a good idea to put them in close proximity to anything that’s any advanced US space technology. BLOOMFIELD: So there needs to be ... I mean the export control regime looks at the nationalities of the workers, their access to certain work areas, there are monitors often ... And so after the space shuttle endeavor takes its mission at the end of this month, there’ll be no more space shuttle. Your company will be the cargo delivery vehicle to the international space station, if I’m not mistaken, you’ll do twelve resupply missions. And so that’s been somewhat privatized. Does the US, from a policy standpoint, need to worry a little bit about whether it has ... whether it can control its technology and still get it launched reliably? MUSK: Well, I think ... I wouldn’t worry about US satellites being launched on any vehicles except maybe China is a bit dodgy. So that’s really the only meaningful concern. And I’m not releasing the Russians, [who] tried to steal US rocket technology. And actually, that’s because, at least until SpaceX, their rocket technology has been better than ours, so I’m not sure exactly what they would steal. In fact, the Boeing Lockheed’s Atlas V vehicle uses a Russian main engine, and they’ve not yet figured out how to make that engine themselves. So the Russians are obviously not too worried about that. With the advent of SpaceX and our Falcon family of rockets, there’s now for the first time in a long time, a vehicle that is better than the Russians. So we would certainly be cautious about exposing our technology to the Russians, but there’s little danger of that. BLOOMFIELD: If your engineers in California can come up with a bigger and better launch vehicle, are there entities around the world who could be doing the same thing, and doing it within a cost-level that competes as well with SpaceX and with others? Is this a one-off, a unique situation, or might there be a new baseline, if you will, of competitive launch technologies emerging? MUSK: I’m not aware of anything that has the potential to beat our technology. As far as I can tell, we’re better than anything else that exists, or anything else that’s under development by a significant margin. There could be some secret development that I’m not aware of, or there could be some organization that starts up that’s new, but at least I’m not aware of anything that poses a threat to SpaceX. Particularly given that our rate of evolution of our technology is very fast. I mean, in Silicon Valley, you’re sort of very used to this mentality of “you innovate fast, or die.” If you think of the national champions—or the international champions—that have grown out of Silicon Valley: Google, Facebook, Intel, Cisco, Apple ... Who are their international competitors? Can you name one? BLOOMFIELD: No. MUSK: Exactly. [Laughter.] BLOOMFIELD: That’s a different language. In this town, it’s “you innovate fast, and die.” MUSK: [Laughs.] [Laughter.] BLOOMFIELD: There’s a bit of a cultural difference here. MUSK: Right. BLOOMFIELD: Your operations are just outside of Los Angeles. Roughly, how big is the work force at SpaceX? MUSK: We’re just under 1,300 people. BLOOMFIELD: 1,300. And where do you find space capable engineers? How do you grow a space company in America? MUSK: I was in Silicon Valley for ten years before moving down to L.A. to start SpaceX. And the reason I did it in Southern California is because Southern California has the biggest concentration of space engineers in the world. BLOOMFIELD: Who have been laid off? Or who are moving from one thing to another? MUSK: SpaceX hires at the top two or three percent of the space profession. So think of SpaceX like special ... you have regular army, and then there are the Special Forces. BLOOMFIELD: Special operations... MUSK: SpaceX is Special Forces. BLOOMFIELD: I see. MUSK: So, it’s possible that we’d hire someone who was laid off if they were laid off for reasons of seniority and not merit. But not otherwise. BLOOMFIELD: I mean, it’s curious to me ... it strikes one as a high-risk profession. If a rocket goes awry ... we’ve seen films of Chinese launches in the past, and others. And while they make fascinating viewing, they’re probably highly expensive, they make insurance companies very nervous. Is it high risk to have a rocket company? Do you test launch things and let them blow up just to find things out? MUSK: [Laughs.] No, we never intentionally blow up a rocket. [Laughter.] BLOOMFIELD: Or does it all just come down to one vehicle, and it’s supposed to work, and hope it does? MUSK: We always aim for success. And we’ve been fortunate in that; our last four missions have been four consecutive successes. And particularly, the last one was particularly complex because it was a test of our Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle and our Dragon Spacecraft, which orbited the Earth a couple times and then touched down just off the coast of California. That was the first time that a private company has brought something back from orbit. And that’s tough; there are only half a dozen nations that have achieved that. BLOOMFIELD: Right. That’s where we began. I want to just mention the military side of space, and get your view on this. A lot of work is done in the Pentagon, in the Congress, in the Executive Branch, and there’s been doctrinal development that says space is a domain, we have security interests in space, our economy is tied to space, our ability to conduct military operations is integrally tied to space, there’s no going back. And so, some will say space must be defended, it must be protected. There’s a lot of effort that is—that is not irreversible—but it’s to prepare for contingencies in which we are threatened in space. And I guess my question is, as a private sector space player, do you have a view on what’s happening with the military reliance on space, and sort of the substantial effort that’s put into it in Washington? Is that something SpaceX would potentially contribute to, the air force effort? MUSK: Yeah, absolutely. We certainly see the launching of air force NRO-type satellites as an important part of our future business. We don’t have any air force under our launch contracts yet, but I’m very optimistic that we will soon have such contracts. They’re just a very conservative organization. But now that we’ve had two successes with our Falcon 9 vehicle, and now that we’re coming out with Falcon Heavy ... And Falcon Heavy is twice as powerful as anything the air force currently has access to. It allows them to launch bigger satellites, or potentially do multiple satellites on a single flight. And then as far as civil space missions, in terms of sending probes to outer planets, perhaps doing something like a Mars sample return, these are really enabled by our Falcon Heavy capabilities, since it is a capability the world doesn’t have yet, and hasn’t had since Saturn V. BLOOMFIELD: So it’s both a civil and potentially military and intelligence use. MUSK: Yes, civil, military, and commercial. I think it’s really going to open up a world of possibilities in all of those arenas. BLOOMFIELD: Well, one of the things military planners talk about is, sort of, the worse case in which assets are either being degraded or denied or, in the worst case, destroyed, which can obviously create debris in orbit with very long term consequences. And they talk about the ability to reconstitute a capability very quickly, in these fast- moving crises. If you have a launch vehicle that could potentially put several assets up quickly, is that something you would look at from a SpaceX perspective? MUSK: Yeah, absolutely. At SpaceX we’re very supportive of national security goals as well as civil space and commercial goals. I think in terms of, sort of, anti-satellite capability, I think we really need to pay closer attention to having defense systems on the satellite. Basically being able to dodge missiles, you know? Because I think you can build ground-based anti satellite missiles a lot faster than you can launch satellites. So just replacing them fast is not going to really do the trick. You really need to have satellites up there that can effectively dodge incoming missiles. BLOOMFIELD: I’m a little concerned about laser beams, which can be turned on on very short notice. MUSK: Yeah, there’s a solution to that, too, which is to have a powerful heat shield. So that’s something that can ... because I agree, you need to deal with missiles as well as directed energy weapons. It’s a little harder to do the directed energy weapon technology. I’m not sure that other countries have that yet. They probably will at some point in the future. But it’s much easier to just have a ... BLOOMFIELD: ASAT. MUSK: Yeah, some sort of kinetic interceptor. But like I said, I think you can ... if you have a satellite with a powerful heat shield, that can be a good defense against a laser or something like that. In fact, our Dragon Spacecraft has a powerful heat shield for reentering, where it’s got to resist tremendous heat to prevent getting vaporized on reentry, so that’s something we suggested to the defense problem, that could be an interesting technology in defending against anti-satellite weapons. BLOOMFIELD: It seems like the Pentagon has, because of the decline of the US space sector, which you sort of marked at a very low point, even starting 20 years ago, you know, now suggests the possibility there could be more of a competitive space sector back in the United States. Do you agree with that, and do you think competition and the increase to provide solutions like more resilient satellites, or to sort of have a technological race, if you will, to solve problems, as opposed to the sole source methodology? MUSK: Yeah, I think competition is always a good thing. Now, the US has actually done relatively speaking, much better in the satellite ... competing in terms of the satellite market than in the launch market. So the US actually does have a dominant share—or at least a substantial share—in the commercial satellite market with Loral Space Systems in Silicon Valley, and Boeing Space Satellites, which used to be used in Southern California, Orbital Sciences here in Virginia, so the US has done reasonably well in the commercial satellite front, and does very well in the defense satellite side of things. But I think the US needs to look at this as a constantly evolving market where European, Chinese, and other satellite makers certainly want to take that market share away from the American companies. BLOOMFIELD: We’ve been talking about what the US can do, and some of it on a sensitive unilateral kind of basis, but do you have a view as to what the future could hold in terms of international space cooperation? Because certainly the national space policy, NASA’s mission, are very much geared to international cooperation, peaceful cooperation in space. How does a private entity that specializes in launch services ... what do you see as the road ahead in terms of potential involvement with non-US players in space? MUSK: Do you mean in civil space missions? Sort of like science missions, that kind of thing? BLOOMFIELD: Or governmental, even, manned space missions. If there were a failure of a national program, and they saw an opportunity they could afford to use your launch service, I mean I’m just making this up, but ... MUSK: I think SpaceX will, probably in about three years or so, be carrying astronauts to the space station. As you mentioned a moment ago, the space shuttle retires this year, SpaceX takes over for the space shuttle as far as the cargo transport to and from the space station. But on an interim basis, the Russian Soyuz will carry American astronauts to the space station until we’re ready to take over. But I think at that point, SpaceX will take both American astronauts, astronauts from other countries, as well as private individuals to space. BLOOMFIELD: That’s very interesting. I’m sure there are a lot of people who want to ask you questions. But before we turn to those questions, I hope you don’t mind if I turn to energy efficiency, because you’ve got a lot of people driving electric vehicles, and probably more to come. Can I ask you, sort of, what your view is on energy? Is there a purpose, a mission behind the Tesla Motors? People sometimes focus on the sports car and what fun it is. I’ve driven it, and I agree it’s fun. But is there a larger view that you’re trying to change policy and change societal behavior on energy? MUSK: Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, in college I thought there were three areas that would most impact the future of humanity: internet, sustainable energy (both production and consumption), and then space. So, what Tesla’s about is trying to help solve the consumption of energy problems. So, we must have sustainable consumption of energy and production, because if it’s unsustainable, well, it’s unsustainable. In fact, even if you ... even if there were no negative environmental consequences to the use of fossil fuels, and even if there were national security consequences ... Let’s say we owned all the oil, and it had no negative impact on the environment. It’s still finite, we must still find a solution, or we will face economic collapse when the resources become scarce. So obviously we must find alternatives. I believe in electric transport, because it allows for energy to be produced in a wide range of sustainable means, and then you just charge the car. You know, electricity’s sort of like cash. You can generate it in multiple ways; you can spend it in multiple ways. So electric vehicles are something that is a long term sustainable option, and it is fundamentally very energy efficient to use electric vehicles. In fact, although our Tesla Roadster is a fast sports car—fast, and almost better acceleration than almost any other sports car—it uses less energy per mile than a Prius. In fact, the battery pack only has the equivalent of two gallons of gasoline worth of energy. And even if you take power from a coal power plant, so it’s entirely coal, and you take into account transmission losses and charging losses and so forth, and say how much CO2 you generate per mile, it’s still less than a Prius, because stationary power plants are actually quite energy-efficient. So the point of Tesla was to make a viable electric car that broke the paradigm of what people thought of as an electric car, because people used to think of electric cars as these sort of ugly, slow-moving golf carts. So by making a sports car that was aesthetically pleasing, very fast, great handling, long range—as much range as you’d get from a gas tank—that really helped break people’s perception of what an electric car could be. And it had a powerful catalytic effect, in that when General Motors—when Bob Lutz of General Motors—saw the announcement about the Tesla Roadster, he took the press release, went down to his development team, and said if a small company in California can do it, so can we. And that’s what generated the GM Volt, and in turn the Nissan Leaf and the Chrysler move to electric vehicles. Because at the time they were, they used to be the world’s largest car company. And so, when the world’s largest car company announces they’re going to go do an electric program, others tend to follow. So I think it’s had a good effect in that direction. Of course, we need to keep up the momentum. And so Tesla is coming out with the step two, which is a mid-price, mid- volume car, that really shows what is possible when you design the whole car as a system around electric power, and just how much more compelling it can be than a gasoline car. I think people will be quite pleasantly surprised by the Model S that’s coming out next year. BLOOMFIELD: And there’s a longer-term vision of a third vehicle? MUSK: Yes, yes. So the simple three step strategy of Tesla was, come out with a high- priced car at low volume, mid-priced car at mid-volume, low-priced car at high volume. Three major technology iterations and then stepping up production volume by an order of magnitude in each case, which is damn fast for a small company to grow at that rate. BLOOMFIELD: Well, I should say, I saw a news clip last week that a major Wall Street bank predicted that Tesla Motors will become the fourth American major automobile company, after GM, Ford, and Chrysler, so that’s pretty amazing. I do want to ask you, as a technology person, about battery storage. MUSK: Sure. BLOOMFIELD: Because, the question is, batteries can do what they can do today. How fast is the power density improving in either the lithium chemistries or alternative? The military is looking at battery-based energy efficiency in both the operational theatre, but also in facilities. They’re a big consumer of energy, as you know. MUSK: Yep. BLOOMFIELD: And lithium ion is expensive—it’s lightweight, but it’s expensive—and so, the question is: How fast is this moving, and how fast can we expect leaps and bounds in battery storage? MUSK: Well, it’s moving pretty fast. If you look at the Tesla Roadster, that has a 56 kilowatt hour (kWh) battery pack, the Model S will have a 90 kWh battery pack at about the same volume, and with a dramatically lower cost per kWh. So the Model S, despite being a good-sized sedan (the external dimensions are roughly that of a 5 Series BMW or an E Class Mercedes), it will do 300 miles of range on a single charge, versus the Roadster, which is 245 miles, and a much smaller car. So the Model S is 50 percent bigger, heavier than the Roadster, and yet does more than 20 percent greater range, and costs much less than the Roadster. BLOOMFIELD: Can I just ask whether the tragic events in Japan have impacted the supply of batteries from ... global supply? MUSK: No, we had about a one week or so slight interruption, but we had special buffer inventory on hand, that it did not change our production at all. BLOOMFIELD: I see. Well, with that, are you ready to face the crowd? I’m sure there are a lot of questions. Would you please identify yourself, and state your question clearly? Thank you. ATTENDEE: [Off mic.] I’m [unheard], a Founder of the Arthur C. Clark Foundation, 1983. BLOOMFIELD: [Pointing to mic.] Here we go. ATTENDEE: [On mic.] I’d like to congratulate you on receiving the Innovators Award this evening. MUSK: Oh, thank you. I’m honored to receive it, thank you. ATTENDEE: Just two quick questions, if I could: One of the Moon vs. Mars in terms of a colony, and also the issue of sustainability of space and space debris. What thoughts do you have about avoiding the Kessler syndrome? MUSK: Sure. Well, the reason I favor Mars over the Moon is that Mars has really got the potential for a true planet-class civilization, because it’s a planet. The moon is not a planet. The moon is much smaller; it’s much weaker in terms of natural resources. It’s harder for us to adapt to because it’s got a much lower gravity. The day-night cycle is 28 days. So you really effectively have a fairly small habitable zone near the poles of the moon, and water ice is very rare there. So I consider the moon to be, kind of, analogous to the Arctic. The Arctic is very close to Europe, but it sucked. [Laughter.] That’s why America isn’t there. But Mars is a real planet, and we can become a true multi-planetary civilization on Mars, which I don’t think that’s realistic on the Moon. And also, when one thinks of preserving the future of life as we know it, Mars is sufficiently far away that if something terrible happened to Earth, it would not be affected. The Moon might still be affected. That’s the reason I’d pick Mars. In terms of all the debris, there’s a certain zone, which is sort of the medium Earth orbit altitudes, where all the debris is. Long-term it becomes a problem. It’s not a problem today, but long-term it becomes a problem. In lower orbit, the atmosphere is still there to a certain degree, and actually ends up being like a cleaning ... it will sweep out orbital debris and eventually bring it back in, and slow it down, it’ll reenter and burn up. So there’s not really a lower orbit debris problem, and if you go out to geosynchronous orbit, that’s just so far out there that it’s really ... you don’t have to worry about it there either. So it’s kind of just in that medium zone that’s maybe 800 to a few thousand miles ... that’s the orbit that we need to pay attention to. But I do think it’s something that’s really only a very long-term problem. It’s not something we need to worry about in a short period of time. BLOOMFIELD: Another question? Sir. One moment, wait for the mic. ATTENDEE (Bill Sweetman): Bill Sweetman, Defense Technology International Magazine. You talk about needing to continue innovating fast. With SpaceX, beyond Falcon 9 Heavy, which is an extension of the original architecture, what directions are you going to take that in? Are you going to go further into reusability? What do you think that space exploration needs as the next phases of innovation from SpaceX? MUSK: Yeah, I’m a big believer in reusability, and that remains a fundamental long-term objective of SpaceX. In fact, a fully reusable rocket system, I think, is the pivotal, fundamental invention necessary to make life multi-planetary. I do not think it will occur in the absence of a fully reusable system. And the reason for that is, if you look at the cost of a propellant on a Falcon 9, it’s maybe 150,000 dollars, maybe 200,000 dollars at most. But the cost of the vehicle is 50 million. So when you have the cost of the propellant .3 percent of the cost of a flight, then clearly there are a lot of efficiencies to be had if you can use that rocket more than once. And really, it’s no different than air flight. A Boeing 747 costs maybe a quarter of a billion dollars, you need two of them for a round trip, so why doesn’t your air ticket cost half a billion dollars? It’s because they can use that plane thousands of times. So it’s incredibly fundamental to have a reusable system. And going back to the founding of America, if ships had not been reusable in the days of the Mayflower, the United States would not exist. Nobody could afford the journey. And, you know, they might have sent a few people as an exploratory thing. And of course, since ships would be expendable you would need to tow your return ship behind you. [Laughter] So they might have said, oh yes, turns out there is a continent out there, but of course, we can’t afford to go there, because it costs two ships every time we make the return journey. But in fact, ships can be used repeatedly, airplanes can be used repeatedly, and in fact, every mode of transport can be used repeatedly, and if that were not the case, we would not use that mode of transport, whether it’s plane, train, automobile, bicycle, or whatever. And I think we can establish a self-sustaining civilization on Mars for something like .3 percent of our GDP, but I don’t think we’re willing to spend 100 percent of our GDP on it. And that’s the difference between reusability, and not reusability. So it remains a fundamental goal of SpaceX. BLOOMFIELD: Madam in the front row. ATTENDEE (Andrea Maléter): Andrea Maléter with Futron. You made some really interesting comments about some of the protective systems; you talked about the heat shields on the Dragon, and so on. Can we see a possibility that you would take some of that technology, and some of those innovations, to apply to the spacecraft manufacturing world, where there’s a lot of interest both in terms of military satellites and commercial satellites, and having awareness and protection on that? Can we see it moving in that area? MUSK: Yeah, and I think with our Dragon R program, which we’re starting to see a fair bit of interest in, which is to take the Dragon Spacecraft that will be used for space station servicing, and adapting that to commercial and other government applications, I think we’ll start to see a fair bit of that happening. So certainly that’s an area of interest to us. Dragon is basically a sophisticated satellite. More sophisticated than most satellites, because it’s got multiple redundant systems, it’s got the ability to duck with another ... you know, duck with the space station, or duck with anything, and reenter. And, actually, Dragon can be reused. We recovered Dragon, and we were actually able to fire Dragon’s engines, no problem. The heat shield can take several reentry events. So, even the first Dragon that we recovered in December from orbit can be flown many times. So that’s a step in the right direction of reusability. BLOOMFIELD: Questions? Sir? ATTENDEE (Justin Manger): Hi, Justin Manger with Sojitz Corporation. I was just wondering if you’re worried as the SpaceX and Tesla grow, you talk about innovation all the time, Google is now having trouble, some people say, innovating, and want to stay young, have that start-up feel. Are you running into that problem, or do you think you will, as you grow? BLOOMFIELD: That’s what we call a high-class problem. MUSK: Right, that is the high-class problem. I actually think our rate of innovation is increasing. We’re doing more things faster; we also have a lot more employees, so there’s another question as to whether our productivity per person is increasing. I do think it gets difficult for companies to maintain a high productivity per person as they grow, because companies initially improve productivity per person due to specialization of labor, and then productivity per person tends to decline as companies get beyond a certain scale, due to communication issues. So we do our best, at SpaceX, to minimize communication issues. We have anyone-to-anyone communication, instead of, say, chain-of-command communication, which is extremely inefficient. So I think we’re a little lower on productivity per person though, like I said, we’re trying to fix that. But since we have a lot more people, our total productivity and pace of innovation is faster than it has ever been. BLOOMFIELD: Sir? ATTENDEE (Frank Mooring): Frank Mooring with Aviation Week. MUSK: I know. [Laughs.] ATTENDEE (Frank Mooring): You mentioned this morning that you’re thinking about taking SpaceX public before the end of next year, possibly, but that you would like to retain a personal controlling interest in it because of some things that you want to do. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit about those personal objectives that tie you to keeping the controlling interest. MUSK: Yeah, absolutely. It’s really ... What I want SpaceX to keep doing is working on the technologies necessary to create a self-sustaining civilization on Mars. And while I do think there’s likely to be some economic payoff by transporting large numbers of people and cargo to Mars, it requires a bit of long-term thinking. [Laughter.] That maybe goes beyond the quarterly cycle of Wall Street, that’s for sure. Some people on Wall Street will think that’s just crazy, and what I should actually just do is milk the government and various commercial companies, and try to charge them as high as possible, which we will not do. So I want to make sure that I can ignore such things, which I can only do if I’m the controlling shareholder. BLOOMFIELD: Can I just piggyback on that with a Washington question? The mood in Washington is a bit grim. We’ve got a lot on our plate, there’s a lot of discussion of unaffordability, we’re going week-to-week with continuing resolutions. The long-term discussion is about what’s going to happen to this country if we can’t change the trajectory of debt. No one is talking about new things to spend a lot of money on. What advice, or what message would you give to the Congress and the Executive Branch in this tough time that everyone’s slogging through, with a very short-term focus? What would you say to them, as someone who is really operating against a different vision and a different sort of time cycle? MUSK: Well, I think, first of all, people ought to have some sense of perspective, and realize that things are actually really freaking great. The United States is actually doing quite well, and we all live really great lives here in the US. And we shouldn’t lose sight of that. And the US is still the world’s largest manufacturer, and it has been since it took over from England, I don’t know, a hundred and some odd years ago. The unemployment rate is decreasing ... I think there are lots of reasons to be positive, actually, without being complacent. We certainly need to decrease the amount of government spending. I think that that’s really important. There seems to be some movement afoot to reign in government spending. And it can’t be a little bit here, around the edges, there needs to be a meaningful decrease in government spending such that we do not have trillion dollar deficits, because that’s obviously unsustainable. The trillion dollar deficit thing, I liken it sort of to ... it’s like toddlers with a cupcake. Have you ever seen these delayed gratification tests? Apparently you can predict somebody’s future success by the degree to which they can partake in delayed gratification, where you can say, “here’s this cupcake, it’s on a table. If you eat it now, that’s all you get. But if you wait ten minutes, you can have three cupcakes.” And some toddlers, they just go, and they eat that cupcake. They basically sacrifice tomorrow for today, effectively. That’s kind of what Congress often behaves like. And to some degree the American people are responsible for this, because we ought to vote people out who engage in such behavior. So running trillion dollar plus deficits ... that is going to come back to haunt us like there’s no tomorrow. We do not want to be Greece, or Portugal, or any such country. So we must make the hard decisions of reigning in government spending, and probably increasing the tax burden as well, but we need to do both, we can’t solve it either by simply increasing taxes or by just cutting deficit. That’s like saying, you know, the sky is blue. It’s so freaking obvious. So I think, hopefully Congress can display sufficient maturity and fortitude to make the right decision in this regard. I applaud, for example, the UK is taking the appropriate austerity measures, and cutting 25 percent of spending, and that kind of thing. We have to do that here. And it’s just going to get harder and harder if we don’t do it soon, because our interest burden is going to ... the amount of money we spend on interest is going to start getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it’s going to make that austerity even worse down the road. BLOOMFIELD: Well, I must say, for all of the debate about how to spend less in Washington, we now know, after an hour of conversation, that there are people out there who are pursuing a long-range vision that points to a lot of interesting and more sustainable vistas. So on behalf of the Stimson Center, I would like to thank you very much for being my guest at Chairman’s Forum. It was wonderful to have you. Thank you, Mr. Musk. MUSK: Thanks for having me. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho