Elon Musk: Lipstick or a Colony on Mars?

In a wide-ranging “one-on-one” interview today at MIT, Elon Musk easily transitioned from technical to philosophical discussions about rockets, Mars exploration, Tesla cars, and hyperloops.  From asking rhetorically whether buying lipstick is more important than colonizing Mars, to insisting that bringing Mars resources back to Earth is unrealistic even if it was cocaine, it was an entertaining exchange.

Musk’s interview by MIT aeronautics and astronautics department head Jaime Perarie was part of the department’s three-day centennial celebration that featured lectures and panel discussions by illustrious aerospace professionals, including many astronauts and MIT professor Dava Newman, recently nominated to be NASA Deputy Administrator.

Musk’s hour-and-a-half long session was split roughly 50-50 between questions from Perarie and from audience members, many of them students.  He made many quotable comments, including the fact that SpaceX will try to land a Falcon 9 first stage on a floating platform as soon as the next flight, but at least sometime in the next 12 months, with the goal of reflying that stage as a demonstration of reusability.

Among the highlights of the space-related portions of the session are the following:

Reusability

• SpaceX plans to land a Falcon 9 first stage on a floating platform within the next 12 months, perhaps on the next flight.   Musk said they have soft-landed the Falcon 9 first stage in the ocean twice: “it sat there for several seconds, tipped over and exploded.”  The next step is to land it on a floating platform being built in Louisiana.   SpaceX may attempt it on the next Falcon 9 launch to the International Space Station (ISS) – currently scheduled for December 9 – but Musk said there was at best a 50 percent chance of success.  Nonetheless, he added, there are 12 more Falcon 9 flights in the next 12 months and he thinks there’s an 80-90 percent chance of success over that period of time and that first stage will refly.  “We’re close” to demonstrating reusability, he said.
• He has no plans for reusing the Falcon 9 second stage, however.  For full reusability, he is focusing on next generation vehicles using liquid methane and oxygen – his Raptor design – which will be reusable all the way to Mars.  He expects test flights of such a system in 5-6 years.

Propulsive Landing

• The penalty for propulsive landing is low, he said.  One can use less mass if a parachute or water landing is employed, but that negatively impacts reusability.   The key is propulsive landing with precision.   That is needed to land on the Moon or Mars, too.
• In a more humorous moment, he commented that in science fiction aliens land on Earth propulsively, not by splashing down in the ocean or with parachutes.  “Would be weird to see them landing in the ocean,” he remarked with a smile.

Why SpaceX?

• Asked if it was true that he created SpaceX because he, himself, wants to fly in space, Musk said no, if that was all he wanted he could buy a ticket on Russia’s Soyuz as others have done.  He said that before he started SpaceX he wanted to send a small greenhouse to Mars to get people excited about sending people to Mars in an effort to increase NASA’s budget.  But he concluded what was really needed was better rockets so it was not a matter of sending people to Mars once and never doing it again.  His goal is to advance rocket technology to send many people to Mars so a self-sustaining colony can be established.

Why Colonize Mars?

• People focus on the problems here on Earth, he said, but some small amount of money – less than one percent of our resources — should be spent on establishing colonies on Mars and making humanity a multi-planet species.   It’s a matter of priorities, he continued.  It is less important than health care, for example, but more important than cosmetics.  “I’m in favor of cosmetics … but lipstick or a colony on Mars?” he asked with a grin, followed by laughter from the audience.

International Cooperation or Competition?

• Asked if colonies on Mars will be international or American, Musk said he hopes there will be many colonies on Mars.   He favors competition, not cooperation.  If governments all must work “in lockstep” as they do with the International Space Station, he said, “things do not go fast.”  Instead, he favors “positive” competition like in the Olympics where people compete “hard” but the net result is good.

Space Resources Will be Used in Space Not on Earth

• Musk made clear that he thinks that space resources will be used in space, not brought back to Earth.  “Even if you had crack cocaine in pre-packaged pallets” on Mars, it would not make sense to bring it back to Earth, he said.

One Way Trips to Mars

• Musk humorously asked if that meant “one way and you die” or “one way and you’re resupplied,” but more seriously commented that spaceships are expensive and they must be returned to Earth regardless of whether the people want to come back.
• As for MarsOne’s concept of using SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rockets, Musk said that if they want to buy them, he will sell them, but he doesn’t think they have the money for even one and, in any case, the Dragon, with an interior volume of an SUV, is not large enough to accommodate people for such long trips.  He recommends waiting for next generation technology.

NASA

• “I’m a huge fan of NASA,” Musk said.  He is impressed with what the agency is doing in human spaceflight today considering all the constraints it must work under.  If NASA continues to expand on its support of competitive commercial space, that will have the most positive impact on the future of space development, in his view.
• Asked what would happen to his plans if NASA reached Mars using its Space Launch System (SLS) before SpaceX gets there, Musk said that would be great, but as far as he knows, he is the only one trying to develop systems to send lots of people to Mars to establish a colony there.  He is focused on developing better rocket technology.   It would be “cool” to send one mission to Mars, but what will change humanity is sending large numbers of people.  “I don’t see anyone” out there other than SpaceX trying to do that; “not to say we’ll be successful, but I don’t see anyone else trying.”

Other topics included space elevators (he’s skeptical, but happy to be proved wrong), artificial intelligence (which he referred to as “summoning a demon”), hyperloop systems (he offered technical advice to a student who tried to build one as a senior project), and his Tesla cars.  The entire session is available on MIT’s website.