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How a single, obvious question led Elon Musk to create SpaceX and changed space travel forever: “I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive, and that they could be a lot less Even in an expendable format they could...

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14,066 views • 4 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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The reason why Elon Musk started working on reusable rockets "I started reading quite a bit about rockets to try and understand why they're so freaking expensive If one could make them reusable like airplanes, then the cost of rocketry would drop dramatically The cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2% to 0.5% of the cost of the rocket I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive and that they could be a lot less even in an expendable format "Nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work... but if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough" - Elon Musk
1:20

The reason why Elon Musk started working on reusable rockets "I started reading quite a bit about rockets to try and understand why they're so freaking expensive If one could make them reusable like airplanes, then the cost of rocketry would drop dramatically The cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2% to 0.5% of the cost of the rocket I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive and that they could be a lot less even in an expendable format "Nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work... but if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough" - Elon Musk

X Freeze

458,307 views • 5 months ago

Elon Musk: I started reading about rockets to understand why they're so freaking expensive. “I started reading quite a bit about rockets to try to understand why they're so freaking expensive. Where does the $60 million go for the Delta II? Now Delta II, I think, is $100 million or something, some crazy number. And Delta II is a relatively small rocket. If you go to one of the bigger rockets, it's anywhere from $200 to $400 million. Anyway, so I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive, and that they could be a lot less. Even in an expendable format, they could be less. And that if one could make them reusable, like airplanes, then the cost of rocketry would drop dramatically, the cost of space travel would drop dramatically. Because the cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2% to 0.5% of the cost of the rocket. It's like a plane. How much is the cost of the fuel in the plane versus the plane itself? It's at least a two-order-of-magnitude difference. But nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work. So I thought, if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough for space travel.” Interview at the Computer History Museum, 2013
1:20

Elon Musk: I started reading about rockets to understand why they're so freaking expensive. “I started reading quite a bit about rockets to try to understand why they're so freaking expensive. Where does the $60 million go for the Delta II? Now Delta II, I think, is $100 million or something, some crazy number. And Delta II is a relatively small rocket. If you go to one of the bigger rockets, it's anywhere from $200 to $400 million. Anyway, so I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive, and that they could be a lot less. Even in an expendable format, they could be less. And that if one could make them reusable, like airplanes, then the cost of rocketry would drop dramatically, the cost of space travel would drop dramatically. Because the cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2% to 0.5% of the cost of the rocket. It's like a plane. How much is the cost of the fuel in the plane versus the plane itself? It's at least a two-order-of-magnitude difference. But nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work. So I thought, if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough for space travel.” Interview at the Computer History Museum, 2013

ELON CLIPS

1,208,721 views • 1 year ago

ELON MUSK: Starship will let anyone travel to the Moon or Mars. The key breakthrough is fully reusable rockets. Like cars and planes, rockets will be reused every flight. This cuts the cost of space travel massively and makes regular trips to space affordable.
1:32

ELON MUSK: Starship will let anyone travel to the Moon or Mars. The key breakthrough is fully reusable rockets. Like cars and planes, rockets will be reused every flight. This cuts the cost of space travel massively and makes regular trips to space affordable.

DogeDesigner

32,627 views • 6 months ago

“Starship will let anyone travel to the Moon or Mars. The key breakthrough is fully reusable rockets. Like cars and planes, rockets will be reused every flight. This cuts the cost of space travel massively and makes regular trips to space affordable.” 一 Elon Musk
1:32

“Starship will let anyone travel to the Moon or Mars. The key breakthrough is fully reusable rockets. Like cars and planes, rockets will be reused every flight. This cuts the cost of space travel massively and makes regular trips to space affordable.” 一 Elon Musk

DogeDesigner

56,962 views • 4 months ago

ELON IN 2010: FULLY REUSABLE ROCKET NEEDED TO MAKE LIFE MULTI-PLANETARY "The really big breakthrough, the fundamental invention that's needed to make life multi-planetary, is a fully reusable orbit-class rocket system. The Space Shuttle is partly reusable, but the main tank is thrown away every time, and even the parts that are supposed to be reusable are so difficult to reuse or refurbish that the Space Shuttle costs about four times as much per flight as an equivalent expendable vehicle. There have been many attempts to build a reusable rocket system, but they have always been canceled once they discovered that success was not one of the possible outcomes. But this is fundamentally something that has to be solved if life's got to become multi-planetary. At SpaceX, we're hoping to make some progress in that direction." Source: Elon Musk lecture at Yale University. October 14, 2010.
2:14

ELON IN 2010: FULLY REUSABLE ROCKET NEEDED TO MAKE LIFE MULTI-PLANETARY "The really big breakthrough, the fundamental invention that's needed to make life multi-planetary, is a fully reusable orbit-class rocket system. The Space Shuttle is partly reusable, but the main tank is thrown away every time, and even the parts that are supposed to be reusable are so difficult to reuse or refurbish that the Space Shuttle costs about four times as much per flight as an equivalent expendable vehicle. There have been many attempts to build a reusable rocket system, but they have always been canceled once they discovered that success was not one of the possible outcomes. But this is fundamentally something that has to be solved if life's got to become multi-planetary. At SpaceX, we're hoping to make some progress in that direction." Source: Elon Musk lecture at Yale University. October 14, 2010.

Mario Nawfal

24,015,573 views • 2 years ago

Elon Musk on Starship today: "The fundamental breakthrough of Starship is that it will be the first orbital rocket that is fully reusable, so this might sound like an obvious thing, but because in every other mode of transport, whether that's aircraft, cars, bicycles, horses, ships, these are all we take it for granted that they are reusable, an aircraft journey would be very expensive if you had to throw the plane away every time, and that's how rockets have been in the past, but it's very difficult from a technology standpoint to achieve full reusability for a rocket. We've got part of the way there with Falcon 9, but we'll get all the way there with Starship, and once you achieve full reusability, then it's simply a cost of access to orbit is just the cost of propellant, because now you can reuse all aspects of the vehicle, and the propellant we used for Starship is liquid oxygen and liquid methane, which is the cheapest propellant you could possibly get. The cost of propellant for Starship will be less than the cost of jet aviation fuel, which means that you should be able to actually send cargo to space for less than the cost of cargo on an airplane going on a transoceanic trip."
1:27

Elon Musk on Starship today: "The fundamental breakthrough of Starship is that it will be the first orbital rocket that is fully reusable, so this might sound like an obvious thing, but because in every other mode of transport, whether that's aircraft, cars, bicycles, horses, ships, these are all we take it for granted that they are reusable, an aircraft journey would be very expensive if you had to throw the plane away every time, and that's how rockets have been in the past, but it's very difficult from a technology standpoint to achieve full reusability for a rocket. We've got part of the way there with Falcon 9, but we'll get all the way there with Starship, and once you achieve full reusability, then it's simply a cost of access to orbit is just the cost of propellant, because now you can reuse all aspects of the vehicle, and the propellant we used for Starship is liquid oxygen and liquid methane, which is the cheapest propellant you could possibly get. The cost of propellant for Starship will be less than the cost of jet aviation fuel, which means that you should be able to actually send cargo to space for less than the cost of cargo on an airplane going on a transoceanic trip."

DogeDesigner

32,300 views • 2 months ago

🚀 Starship will be the 1st fully reusable orbital rocket in history. Liquid oxygen, liquid methane, and a cost-per-launch that could drop below trans-oceanic air freight. Elon put it simply: "The cost of access to orbit is just the cost of propellant." If that holds, the economics of space will get rewritten entirely. Source: SpaceX, Elon Musk
1:43

🚀 Starship will be the 1st fully reusable orbital rocket in history. Liquid oxygen, liquid methane, and a cost-per-launch that could drop below trans-oceanic air freight. Elon put it simply: "The cost of access to orbit is just the cost of propellant." If that holds, the economics of space will get rewritten entirely. Source: SpaceX, Elon Musk

Mario Nawfal

51,520 views • 2 months ago

Elon Musk: Starship 3 will cost less per flight than Falcon 1 but has 400 times the payload. “One of the most profound things is that Starship 3 will cost less per flight than Falcon 1. That's the difference between a fully reusable rocket or an expendable rocket. The fully reusable rocket with low-cost propellant and autogenous pressurization actually costs less than a tiny expendable rocket. Falcon 1 is about half a ton to orbit. The Starship 3 will be 400 times more payload for less than the cost of a Falcon 1. Ultimately, I think we might be able to get the cost per flight to Earth orbit down to around $2 or $3 million. These are unthinkable numbers. Nobody ever thought this was possible but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this.” SpaceX Update, April 4, 2024
0:52

Elon Musk: Starship 3 will cost less per flight than Falcon 1 but has 400 times the payload. “One of the most profound things is that Starship 3 will cost less per flight than Falcon 1. That's the difference between a fully reusable rocket or an expendable rocket. The fully reusable rocket with low-cost propellant and autogenous pressurization actually costs less than a tiny expendable rocket. Falcon 1 is about half a ton to orbit. The Starship 3 will be 400 times more payload for less than the cost of a Falcon 1. Ultimately, I think we might be able to get the cost per flight to Earth orbit down to around $2 or $3 million. These are unthinkable numbers. Nobody ever thought this was possible but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this.” SpaceX Update, April 4, 2024

ELON CLIPS

29,437,361 views • 1 year ago

“The goal is to radically improve the cost of transport to space. If aircraft were not reusable, if aircraft were single use, then you would have to buy a new aircraft with every flight and air travel would be prohibitively expensive.” — Elon Musk
0:22

“The goal is to radically improve the cost of transport to space. If aircraft were not reusable, if aircraft were single use, then you would have to buy a new aircraft with every flight and air travel would be prohibitively expensive.” — Elon Musk

Dima Zeniuk

16,094 views • 8 months ago

ELON: THE ESSENCE OF REVOLUTIONIZING SPACE TRAVEL IS REUSABILITY “It’s mostly not disruption, it’s creation. With SpaceX and reusable rockets, there really weren’t any reusable rockets, but the essence of revolutionizing space travel is reusability. If you throw the rocket away every time, the cost of access to space is extremely high. With respect to electric cars, there weren’t any electric cars when we started making them. You couldn’t buy any, to the best of my knowledge. So with Tesla we wanted to make electric cars compelling and affordable. That was the goal. And with respect to humanoid robotics, there are no useful humanoid robots at this point.” Source: ELON CLIPS
0:57

ELON: THE ESSENCE OF REVOLUTIONIZING SPACE TRAVEL IS REUSABILITY “It’s mostly not disruption, it’s creation. With SpaceX and reusable rockets, there really weren’t any reusable rockets, but the essence of revolutionizing space travel is reusability. If you throw the rocket away every time, the cost of access to space is extremely high. With respect to electric cars, there weren’t any electric cars when we started making them. You couldn’t buy any, to the best of my knowledge. So with Tesla we wanted to make electric cars compelling and affordable. That was the goal. And with respect to humanoid robotics, there are no useful humanoid robots at this point.” Source: ELON CLIPS

Mario Nawfal

46,979 views • 9 months ago

DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis: Elon is doing amazing things with SpaceX “I think there will be a solution to the energy problem. So free, pretty much free, renewable, clean energy one way or another, fusion or better solar. And then that will unlock us to really travel the stars. Because the main cost, Elon does amazing work with SpaceX and those things, but the main cost is still the rocket fuel, right? The energy cost. So if that's sort of zero somehow, because we can just make infinite rocket fuel out of seawater once we’ve cracked fusion.” Source: Muskonomy
1:18

DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis: Elon is doing amazing things with SpaceX “I think there will be a solution to the energy problem. So free, pretty much free, renewable, clean energy one way or another, fusion or better solar. And then that will unlock us to really travel the stars. Because the main cost, Elon does amazing work with SpaceX and those things, but the main cost is still the rocket fuel, right? The energy cost. So if that's sort of zero somehow, because we can just make infinite rocket fuel out of seawater once we’ve cracked fusion.” Source: Muskonomy

Mario Nawfal

215,453 views • 4 months ago

ELON: REUSABILITY TO REDUCE SPACEFLIGHT COSTS 100-FOLD “The goal is to radically improve the cost of transport to space. If aircraft were not reusable, if aircraft were single use, then you would have to buy a new aircraft with every flight and air travel would be prohibitively expensive. If you can do that, then it's potentially a hundredfold reduction in cost of spaceflight.” Source: Danish TV DR, February 2018
0:22

ELON: REUSABILITY TO REDUCE SPACEFLIGHT COSTS 100-FOLD “The goal is to radically improve the cost of transport to space. If aircraft were not reusable, if aircraft were single use, then you would have to buy a new aircraft with every flight and air travel would be prohibitively expensive. If you can do that, then it's potentially a hundredfold reduction in cost of spaceflight.” Source: Danish TV DR, February 2018

Mario Nawfal

81,615 views • 9 months ago

Here's Elon Musk back in 2010 announcing that SpaceX is going to try to build a fully and rapidly reusable orbit-class rocket. “The pivotal breakthrough that's necessary, that some company has to come up with to make life multiplanetary is a fully and rapidly reusable orbit-class rocket. This is a very difficult thing to do because we live on a planet where that is just barely possible. If gravity were a little lower, it would be easy. If it was a little higher, it would be impossible. Even for an expendable launch vehicle where you don't attempt any recovery, you get maybe 2% to 3% of your liftoff weight to orbit. Now you say, okay, let's make it reusable. Which means you've got to strengthen the stages, you've got to add a lot of weight, a lot of thermal protection, you've got to do a lot of things that add weight to that vehicle and still have a useful payload to orbit. Now, you're saying, of that meager 2% to 3% and maybe if you're really good, get it to 4%, you've got to add all that's necessary to bring the rocket stages back to the launchpad and be able to refly them and still have useful payloads to orbit. So, a very difficult thing. This has been attempted many times in the past and generally what's happened is when people have concluded that success was not one of the possible outcomes then the project's been abandoned. It's just a very tough engineering problem. It wasn't something that I thought I wasn't sure it could be solved, for a while, but then relatively recently, probably in the last 12 months or so, I've come to the conclusion that it can be solved. And I think SpaceX is going to try to do it. We could fail. I'm not saying we're certain of success here, but we're going to try to do it. We have a design that on paper, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, it does work. And now we need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree because generally when they don't, reality wins.” National Press Club, September 29, 2010
2:51

Here's Elon Musk back in 2010 announcing that SpaceX is going to try to build a fully and rapidly reusable orbit-class rocket. “The pivotal breakthrough that's necessary, that some company has to come up with to make life multiplanetary is a fully and rapidly reusable orbit-class rocket. This is a very difficult thing to do because we live on a planet where that is just barely possible. If gravity were a little lower, it would be easy. If it was a little higher, it would be impossible. Even for an expendable launch vehicle where you don't attempt any recovery, you get maybe 2% to 3% of your liftoff weight to orbit. Now you say, okay, let's make it reusable. Which means you've got to strengthen the stages, you've got to add a lot of weight, a lot of thermal protection, you've got to do a lot of things that add weight to that vehicle and still have a useful payload to orbit. Now, you're saying, of that meager 2% to 3% and maybe if you're really good, get it to 4%, you've got to add all that's necessary to bring the rocket stages back to the launchpad and be able to refly them and still have useful payloads to orbit. So, a very difficult thing. This has been attempted many times in the past and generally what's happened is when people have concluded that success was not one of the possible outcomes then the project's been abandoned. It's just a very tough engineering problem. It wasn't something that I thought I wasn't sure it could be solved, for a while, but then relatively recently, probably in the last 12 months or so, I've come to the conclusion that it can be solved. And I think SpaceX is going to try to do it. We could fail. I'm not saying we're certain of success here, but we're going to try to do it. We have a design that on paper, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, it does work. And now we need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree because generally when they don't, reality wins.” National Press Club, September 29, 2010

ELON CLIPS

14,920 views • 1 year ago

Here's Elon Musk in 2011 announcing he believes full and rapidly reusable rockets are achievable. “The pivotal breakthrough that some company has to come up with to make life multiplanetary is a fully and rapidly reusable orbit-class rocket. This is a very difficult thing to do because we live on a planet where that is just barely possible. If gravity were a little lower, it would be easy. If it was a little higher, it would be impossible. It's just a very tough engineering problem. I wasn't sure it could be solved for a while. But then, relatively recently, in the last twelve months or so, I've come to the conclusion that it can be solved. SpaceX is going to try to do it. We could fail. I'm not saying we're certain of success, but we're going to try to do it. We have a design that, on paper, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, does work. We need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree, because generally when they don't, reality wins.” National Press Club, 2011
1:04

Here's Elon Musk in 2011 announcing he believes full and rapidly reusable rockets are achievable. “The pivotal breakthrough that some company has to come up with to make life multiplanetary is a fully and rapidly reusable orbit-class rocket. This is a very difficult thing to do because we live on a planet where that is just barely possible. If gravity were a little lower, it would be easy. If it was a little higher, it would be impossible. It's just a very tough engineering problem. I wasn't sure it could be solved for a while. But then, relatively recently, in the last twelve months or so, I've come to the conclusion that it can be solved. SpaceX is going to try to do it. We could fail. I'm not saying we're certain of success, but we're going to try to do it. We have a design that, on paper, doing the calculations, doing the simulations, does work. We need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree, because generally when they don't, reality wins.” National Press Club, 2011

ELON CLIPS

19,955,019 views • 1 year ago

ELON: I DON’T DISRUPT—I CREATE “With SpaceX, with reusable rockets, there really weren't any reusable rockets. But the essence of revolutionizing space travel is reusability. If you throw the rocket away every time, the cost of access to space is extremely high. With respect to electric cars, there weren't any electric cars when we started making them. You couldn't buy any to the best of my knowledge. So, with Tesla, we wanted to make electric cars compelling and affordable. That was the goal. With respect to humanoid robotics, there are no useful humanoid robotics robots at this point. There are sort of gimmicks, but there are no actually useful robots. I think Tesla's going to make the first actually useful humanoid robots. This will be quite a revolution.” Source: U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, November 19, 2025
0:57

ELON: I DON’T DISRUPT—I CREATE “With SpaceX, with reusable rockets, there really weren't any reusable rockets. But the essence of revolutionizing space travel is reusability. If you throw the rocket away every time, the cost of access to space is extremely high. With respect to electric cars, there weren't any electric cars when we started making them. You couldn't buy any to the best of my knowledge. So, with Tesla, we wanted to make electric cars compelling and affordable. That was the goal. With respect to humanoid robotics, there are no useful humanoid robotics robots at this point. There are sort of gimmicks, but there are no actually useful robots. I think Tesla's going to make the first actually useful humanoid robots. This will be quite a revolution.” Source: U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, November 19, 2025

Mario Nawfal

53,253 views • 9 months ago

Elon Musk breaks down the first-principles math that told him rockets were massively overpriced "How much should a rocket cost? The typical approach people take is they look historically at what rockets cost and assume any new rocket must be similar to the prior cost" "A first-principles approach: you look at the materials the rocket is made of. Aluminum, copper, carbon fiber, steel. What are the constituent elements, how much do they weigh, and what's the material price per kilogram? That sets the actual floor on what a rocket can cost" "Then you realize the raw materials of a rocket are only maybe 1 or 2% of the historical cost of a rocket. So the manufacturing must necessarily be very inefficient"
1:54

Elon Musk breaks down the first-principles math that told him rockets were massively overpriced "How much should a rocket cost? The typical approach people take is they look historically at what rockets cost and assume any new rocket must be similar to the prior cost" "A first-principles approach: you look at the materials the rocket is made of. Aluminum, copper, carbon fiber, steel. What are the constituent elements, how much do they weigh, and what's the material price per kilogram? That sets the actual floor on what a rocket can cost" "Then you realize the raw materials of a rocket are only maybe 1 or 2% of the historical cost of a rocket. So the manufacturing must necessarily be very inefficient"

Jaynit

28,509 views • 14 days ago