{"id":19665,"date":"2015-01-19T19:26:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T11:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-elon-musk-plans-to-get-to-mars-via-seattle-what-the-spacex-founder-said-at-that-private-event\/"},"modified":"2015-01-19T19:26:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T11:26:59","slug":"how-elon-musk-plans-to-get-to-mars-via-seattle-what-the-spacex-founder-said-at-that-private-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-elon-musk-plans-to-get-to-mars-via-seattle-what-the-spacex-founder-said-at-that-private-event\/","title":{"rendered":"How Elon Musk plans to get to Mars, via Seattle: What the SpaceX founder said at that private event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"SpaceX Seattle 2015\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AHeZHyOnsm4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If Seattle needs inspiration to think big, it has&nbsp;arrived&nbsp;in the form of Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>The SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO&nbsp;took the stage at Seattle Center on Friday and&nbsp;delivered&nbsp;his vision for creating an entirely new satellite Internet network&nbsp;that he believes could&nbsp;ultimately lead to the establishment of a city on Mars.<\/p>\n<p>It was a private event, and no media were allowed,&nbsp;but nothing is truly&nbsp;private these days, especially when there\u2019s 400 tech-savvy people in the room. A full&nbsp;video of Musk\u2019s talk, taken&nbsp;by someone in the audience, was posted on YouTube&nbsp;this weekend. We\u2019ve embedded the video&nbsp;above and transcribed the talk below.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_150496\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-150496\" style=\"width: 396px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-150496\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211-620x420.jpg\" alt=\"muskelon121\" width=\"396\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211-620x420.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211-1024x694.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211-200x136.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211-147x100.jpg 147w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/muskelon1211.jpg 1702w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-150496\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX founder Elon Musk speaks in Seattle on Friday evening. (GeekWire Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wearing a black insulated jacket and white shirt, Musk stood alone on stage, speaking and answering questions&nbsp;for nearly 30 minutes.&nbsp;He started by outlining the plans for SpaceX\u2019s new Seattle-area office, and explaining the short-term goal of the satellite venture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to revolutionize the satellite side of things just as we\u2019ve done with the rocket side of things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s just the beginning. Revealing his grand vision, Musk explained that&nbsp;the funds and technology from the Space X satellite Internet venture&nbsp;will ultimately be used&nbsp;to colonize Mars. He later teased ahead to an upcoming announcement, potentially later this year, about a new \u201ctransport architecture\u201d that would&nbsp;ultimately make human travel&nbsp;to the Red Planet economical.<\/p>\n<p>Musk&nbsp;went on to explain why the company picked the Seattle region as the home of the new venture: \u201cThere\u2019s a huge amount of talent in the Seattle area, and a lot of you guys, it seems, don\u2019t want to move to L.A.,\u201d he said, to laughter.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX, which launched the first commercial supply missions to the International Space Station, is based in Hawthorne, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>Musk&nbsp;also talked about lessons learned from the failure of Teledesic, a previous effort to create a satellite Internet constellation, funded by Seattle-area wireless pioneer Craig McCaw and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Previously on GeekWire:<\/strong> Elon Musk reveals new $10B Space Internet plan at Seattle event<\/h4>\n<p>During the question-and-answer period, someone in the audience asked if he\u2019s planning to make the trip himself. \u201cI will eventually go to Mars,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing an important topic for potential SpaceX recruits, he also addressed the question of whether he\u2019s planning to take SpaceX public. The answer: Not anytime soon. However, he explained, the company gives employees stock options and offers&nbsp;twice-yearly buybacks, providing the benefits of liquidity without the challenges of the stock market.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, with Tesla, any given week, it\u2019s like dealing with like a manic depressive,\u201d he said of his electric car company\u2019s stock price. \u201cVery confusing. I\u2019ll say things where, if people understood what I was saying, then the stock should go up, and it goes down. It\u2019s like, what the hell? And vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And he had some fun along the way, making a reference to&nbsp;<em>Terminator<\/em>&nbsp;when talking about the satellite Internet plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will also make sure we don\u2019t create Skynet. Ironically, the server room at SpaceX jokingly was called Skynet,\u201d he said, referencing the artificial intelligence network that turned on humanity in the popular 1980s movie. \u201cFate has a great sense of irony, so we really need to make sure that doesn\u2019t come true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just this morning, a report&nbsp;emerged that Google is close to making a major investment in SpaceX to help fund&nbsp;the new satellite Internet initiative.<\/p>\n<p>See the video above, and continue reading for the full transcript of his remarks, including the audience Q&amp;A.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-150487\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691-620x413.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4691\" width=\"399\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691-620x413.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4691.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 399px) 100vw, 399px\">ELON MUSK:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u201cWhat this represents is the official opening of SpaceX Seattle. [Cheers.] It\u2019s intended to be a significant engineering campus, and it\u2019s going to be the focus of SpaceX\u2019s satellite development activities. In L.A. we have the rocket development, and our Dragon spacecraft, but this is going to be the center of our satellite development activities.<\/p>\n<p>We want to revolutionize the satellite side of things just as we\u2019ve done with the rocket side of things. It\u2019s possible to do them both, so if you end up working at SpaceX Seattle, you can end up working on rockets and manned spacecraft as well as satellites. But the center of gravity for satellites will be here in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for it is pretty straightforward. There\u2019s a huge amount of talent in the Seattle area, and a lot of you guys, it seems, don\u2019t want to move to L.A. [Laughter] which has its merits, by the way. So we\u2019re going to establish a significant operation here. [Cheers, applause].<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"icon-quotes-left\"><\/span>&nbsp;The focus is going to be on creating a global communication system. This is quite an ambitious effort. In the long term, it will be like rebuilding the Internet, in space.<span class=\"icon-quotes-right\"><\/span>But I want to tell you a bit about what we want to achieve with the satellites, and why that\u2019s important. The satellites constitute as much or more of space-based activity as the rockets do. Very often satellites are more expensive than the rocket. So in order for us to really revolutionize space, we have to address both satellites and rockets. We\u2019re going to start off building our own constellation of satellites, but that same satellite technology that we develop can also be for science \u2014 Earth science and space science \u2014 as well as other potential applications that others may have. We\u2019re definitely going to build our own, but also it\u2019s something we would be able to offer to others.<\/p>\n<p>The focus is going to be on creating a global communication system. This is quite an ambitious effort. In the long term, it will be like rebuilding the Internet, in space. The goal will be to have a majority of long-distance Internet traffic go over this network, and about 10 percent of local consumer and business traffic. Still, 90 percent of people\u2019s local access will still come from fiber, but we\u2019ll do about 10 percent business and consumer direct, and more than half of the long-distance traffic.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_150493\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-150493\" style=\"width: 411px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-150493\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838-620x413.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4838\" width=\"411\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838-620x413.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4838.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 411px) 100vw, 411px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-150493\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX brought a Dragon space capsule to show off to potential engineering recruits at the Seattle event.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As you guys may know, the speed of light in a vacuum is somewhere around 40 to 50 percent faster than in fiber. So you can actually do long-distance communication faster if you route it through a vacuum than you can if you route it through fiber. You&nbsp;can also go through far fewer hops. Let\u2019s say you want to communicate from Seattle to South Africa. If you look at the actual path that it takes, it\u2019s extremely convoluted, and it will follow the outline of the contents, it will go through 200 routers and repeaters, and the latency is extremely bad. Whereas if you did it with a satellite network, you could actually do it in two or three hops. Maybe four hops. Basically, with at least an order of magnitude fewer repeaters or routers, and then going through space at 50 percent faster speed of light.<\/p>\n<p>From a physics standpoint it\u2019s inherently better to do long-distance Internet traffic through space. And then space is also really good for sparse connectivity. So if you\u2019ve got large swaths of land where there\u2019s a relatively low density of users, space is actually ideal for that. It would also be able to service 10 percent of people in relatively dense urban and suburban environments. So in cases where people are stuck with Time Warner or Comcast or something this would provide an opportunity \u2026 [big&nbsp;applause].<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s something that would both provide optionality for people living in advanced economies, as well as people in poor countries that don\u2019t even have electricity, or fiber, or anything like that. So it\u2019s a real enabler for people in poor nations in the world and it gives optionality for people in wealthier countries. So I think it\u2019s something that definitely needs to be done, and it\u2019s a really difficult technical problem to solve. So that\u2019s why we need the smartest engineering talent in the world to solve the problem.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, we will also make sure we don\u2019t create Skynet. Ironically, the server room at SpaceX jokingly was called Skynet. Fate has a great sense of irony, so we really need to make sure that doesn\u2019t come true. For our technically aware audience,&nbsp;if there\u2019s some AI apocalypse, it\u2019s going to come from some collections of vast server farms, terrestrially based, not via the space-based communication system. I did think about that!<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>PREVIOUSLY ON GEEKWIRE:<\/strong> SpaceX\u2019s new Seattle-area office is in Redmond, permit filings reveal<\/h4>\n<p>Anyway, I think this is a fundamentally good thing to do. I can\u2019t think of any major downsides. I seems like&nbsp;it\u2019s an important thing to do \u2014 it\u2019s something that should happen, and I think it\u2019s something where, properly designed, it can give people gigabit-level access, 20-30 millisecond latency everywhere. That would be pretty great.<\/p>\n<p>And that same system we could leverage to put into a constellation on Mars, because Mars is going to need a global communication system, too, and there\u2019s no fiber-optics or wires or anything on Mars. So we\u2019re definitely going to need that, we\u2019re going to need high bandwidth communication between Earth and Mars, so I think a lot of what we do in developing an Earth-based communications is going to be leveraged for Mars, as well.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the basic story. So I\u2019d encourage you to spread the word and tell people about it that you think are great. The office is going to grow slowly at first. We\u2019re not going to hire a zillion people. So if at first SpaceX doesn\u2019t respond to you or something, please come back again in the future. It\u2019s really hard to add 500 people all at once and have that be good. We are going to grow this and make this a very significant SpaceX Seattle campus, but we are going to do so very carefully, adding the right expertise at the right time. If for whatever reason you don\u2019t get a response, because our recruiting team is deluged or something like that, please reapply in like six months. Don\u2019t take any offense by that. We\u2019re just trying to grow in a&nbsp;carefully considered way.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-150488\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692-620x413.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4692\" width=\"366\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692-620x413.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4692.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 366px) 100vw, 366px\">Alright, I\u2019m happy to take some questions from you guys if you just want to yell out questions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about space junk]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> We aren\u2019t too worried about the space junk thing. Actually, we should worry about us creating the space junk, but at the altitude in question, there\u2019s really not a lot out there. We\u2019re talking about the 1,100-km level, and there\u2019s just not a lot out there. The thing we need to make sure of&nbsp;is we don\u2019t want to create any issues, so we\u2019re going to make sure that we can deal with the satellites effectively and have them blown up on re-entry \u2026 that\u2019s basically what we need to make sure of. The number of satellites we\u2019re talking about here ultimately is around 4,000. Actually, technically today, in our discussion, it was 4,025, but that\u2019s probably false precision there, but that\u2019s kind of what we\u2019re thinking right now. And there\u2019s less than half that number in active satellites currently in existence. So this will be more than double the number of currently active satellites.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about timeline]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> Well, in the past I\u2019ve been a little optimistic on schedule. [Laughter] So I\u2019m trying to recalibrate, but I think we should be able to get Version 1 active in about five years. That wouldn\u2019t be the full, doing half of long distance and 10 percent of Earth\u2019s connectivity, but a useful Version 1 that has global coverage \u2026 aiming for about five years. And then there would be successive versions every two or three years after that. To get to where the system is really at its full capability is probably 12 to 15 years. But major revisions certainly every five years, maybe a little sooner than that. You figure, in terms of major revisions: Version 1, five years; Version 2, maybe five years after that; Version 3, five years after that is the rough timeline.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about software vs. hardware engineering]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> It\u2019s going to be, I think, quite a lot of software. I think, all in, software and firmware is probably half the office. Half software\/firmware, half hardware. Over time, software might actually exceed the hardware number. If we have something that\u2019s highly configurable, then it tends to over time wait toward the software.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about satellite design]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> This would be not using CubeSat. The satellites that we have in mind are going to&nbsp;be quite sophisticated. They would be a small-ish satellite but with a big satellite\u2019s capability. By small-ish, I mean within the few-hundred kilogram range.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about pricing]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> Well, it can\u2019t be free, because then we would go out of business. Can\u2019t be free to the user, I don\u2019t think so, because this would cost a lot to build. Over time, to build a full version of the system, we\u2019re talking about something that would be $10 or $15 billion to create, maybe more, and then the user terminals, would be at least $100 to $300 depending on which type of terminal. This is intended to generate a significant amount of revenue, and help fund a city on Mars. So in looking in the long term, and saying what\u2019s needed to create a city on Mars, well one thing\u2019s for sure: a lot of money. So we need things that will generate a lot of money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about wireless spectrum]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> For spectrum that is omnidirectional and wall-penetrating, that spectrum is extremely rare, and limited. Spectrum that is not wall-penetrating and that is very directional is not rare. It\u2019s sort of the difference between a laser beam and a flood light. \u2026 There is high scarcity for cellular bandwidth, there is not high scarcity for space to Earth bandwidth, as long as it\u2019s not roof-penetrating. So I don\u2019t see bandwidth as being a particularly difficult issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about differences with the&nbsp;Iridium&nbsp;satellite network design]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> Compared to the Iridium satellites, which was a mere 70, we\u2019re talking an order of magnitude larger volume. There may be some similarities to the way that the Iridium network was done, but in terms of the production and way it\u2019s&nbsp;produced, it would be closer to the way that a car is produced, or consumer electronics. So we\u2019d take things a step further, and if a satellite didn\u2019t work, you just basically take it out of the constellation and de-orbit it, as opposed to going through this super-intense&nbsp;procedure to make sure the satellite works. Because normally the way satellites are done is they\u2019re like Battlestar Galactica, it\u2019s&nbsp;like one of them, and it\u2019s really&nbsp;giant, and if this thing doesn\u2019t work, it\u2019s terrible \u2014 the whole business collapses. But if you have a large constellation, you can afford to lose individual satellites, and it doesn\u2019t affect the constellation very much. The analogy might be between mainframes and PCs. If you want to have a big data center serving millions of people, it\u2019s way better to have an array of cheap PCs than it is to have a few mainframes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about&nbsp;partnering with other companies, apparently alluding to Boeing\/Blue Origin]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> Teaming with local propulsion companies? Uh, not really. [Laughter] I don\u2019t think so. I mean, we\u2019re going to build our propulsion unit. People in the space industry have a really difficult time manufacturing things. They\u2019re pretty good at designing them in the first place, but they don\u2019t actually know how to make them in volume. It\u2019s possible we could license some technology or something, but the main propulsion system we have in mind for the satellite is a Hall effect thruster, which, not to trivialize it too much, but it\u2019s&nbsp;basically like a loudspeaker. It\u2019s like a magnetic field, accelerating ions, it\u2019s pretty easy to make. There\u2019s degrees of Hall thruster, how good it is, but at the end of the day it\u2019s not that hard, so it\u2019s not clear that would make sense, to outsource something that\u2019s not that hard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about regulatory environment]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> Well, there\u2019s multiple elements to the regulatory things. There\u2019s the ITU filing, the International Telecommunications Union, and we\u2019ve done the filings associated with that. That says whether you can actually put the satellite network up. Then there\u2019s whether it\u2019s legal to have a ground link. Any given country can say it\u2019s illegal to have a ground link, and then from our standpoint we could conceivably continue to broadcast and then have a choice of whether they would shoot our satellites down or not. [Laughter] China can do that. So probably we shouldn\u2019t broadcast there. [Laughing] If they get upset with us they can blow our satellites up. I\u2019m hopeful we can structure agreements with first countries to allow communication. But it is a country-by-country basis.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a something that would affect the timeline. It\u2019s not going to take longer than five years to do that. Not all countries will agree, at first \u2014 there will be some countries that don\u2019t agree. It\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about base station technology]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> The base station would have a phased-array antenna with a switching time that\u2019s at the microsecond to low millisecond level. So it will only take a few more seconds to switch from one satellite to the next. As opposed to having a dish.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about power source]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> With solar panels, and then batteries. Low-Earth orbit satellites, because they go through Earth\u2019s shadow, then you have batteries to handle when they\u2019re in shadow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about biggest obstacles to success]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> It\u2019s important to assume that terrestrial networks will get much better over time. One of the mistakes that, say, Teledesic made was not assuming that terrestrial networks would get much better over time. So we need to make sure that the system we design is good even taking into account significant improvements in the terrestrial systems. But I do think there are important differences between what we\u2019re doing and, say, Teledesic. In the case of Teledesic, they were trying to talk to phones and that gets back to that problem of a roof-penetrating situation. Particularly when stuff&nbsp;is coming from space, if you\u2019re in a skyscraper, it\u2019s got to go through 27 floors to reach you. It\u2019s not going to happen. There\u2019s nothing short of a neutrino (that would work for that). So in the case of Teledesic there were some environmental issues there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about network security]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, I think we\u2019re going to have to pay a lot of attention to security. It would really be unfortunate if we got hacked and taken over. That would be bad. Whether it was by an AI or some group of whatever. So I think it\u2019s going to be important to have some sort of low-level roundtrip that\u2019s via&nbsp;code that you can always go into a safe mode. \u2026 We could always trigger a safe mode situation to regain control of the system. But it\u2019s going to require a lot of thought to make sure we are able to protect it from any hacking attempts. It\u2019s much like Google or Facebook, and how they handle these kinds of issues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about SpaceX IPO plans]<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_150502\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-150502\" style=\"width: 422px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-150502\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4844.jpg\" alt=\"spacex-tesla\" width=\"422\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4844.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4844-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4844-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_4844-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 422px) 100vw, 422px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-150502\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A quintessential Elon Musk scene, with a Tesla Model S and SpaceX logo under the Space Needle in Seattle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> We won\u2019t take SpaceX public for quite a long time. What I\u2019ve said is, when we\u2019re doing regular flights to Mars, that might be a good time to go public. But not before then, because the long-term goals of SpaceX are really long term. \u2026 That doesn\u2019t match with the short-term timeframe of public shareholders and portfolio manager who are looking at two- or four-year time horizons. So we\u2019ll need to hold off going public for a while. Now, that said, we do offer stock options and restricted stock, and we do liquidity events every six months, so we have the company valued by an outside firm every six months, and then we will do stock buybacks every six months. It gets the best of both worlds, where you have stock liquidity, but you don\u2019t have the massive fluctuations that you have with a public company.<\/p>\n<p>For example, with Tesla, any given week, it\u2019s like dealing with like a manic depressive. [Laughter]. Very confusing. I\u2019ll say things where, if people understood what I was saying, then the stock should go up, and it goes down. It\u2019s like, what the hell? And vice versa. So I think it\u2019s actually quite distracting to have public stock. And the time to go public, ideally, is when things are fairly stable. But I think we\u2019ll get the benefits of stock appreciation over time, without the downside of going public, and then maybe 20 years from now or something like that, go public.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question about Mars colonization]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> There needs to be some sort of architecture for establishing a city&nbsp;on Mars, which means huge numbers of people, and ultimately millions of tons of cargo. How do we do that? It really comes down to an economic question \u2014 which is there\u2019s some economic activation&nbsp;energy, a cost per unit mass to&nbsp;the surface of Mars at which point we would have a self-sustaining civilization&nbsp;there, but&nbsp;beyond which we would not. There\u2019s some debate as to what that might be, but I think at a personal level, there needs to be enough of an intersection of sets of people who could afford to move to Mars, and people who want to move to Mars. So if those two coincide, then there will be a colony. Otherwise there will not be a colony.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Question: Are you willing to go?]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSK:<\/strong> I will eventually go to Mars. But to put that in concrete terms, I think it needs to be a half-million dollars or less to move to Mars. Ideally much less, but if it\u2019s much more than that, then probably there won\u2019t be a colony. So that\u2019s the basic idea. What I\u2019ll present, hopefully towards the end of this year, is a transport architecture that could achieve that number. There\u2019s a big difference between thinking about how to achieve that number and actually achieving that number. There\u2019s lots of people who suggested, hey, wouldn\u2019t it be a good idea to go to the Moon. But much harder to actually go to the Moon. With most ideas, the execution is really the hard part, and order to make that happen you need to have lots of talented people working together towards a common goal to achieve that. And that\u2019s what we want to put together at SpaceX.<\/p>\n<p>Alright, thanks everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Seattle needs inspiration to think big, it has&nbsp;arrived&nbsp;in the form of Elon Musk. The SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO&nbsp;took the stage at Seattle Center on Friday and&nbsp;delivered&nbsp;his vision for creating an entirely new satellite Internet network&nbsp;that he believes could&nbsp;ultimately lead to the establishment of a city on Mars. It was a private event, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1045,316],"class_list":["post-19665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-elon-musk","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}