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Orbit is not space. Elon: “It is actually relatively easy to get to space, but it is very hard to get to orbit. This is easily a hundred times harder… maybe a thousand.” Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne reached the edge of space twice without scorching the paint. Returning from true... show more

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37,302 views • 16 days ago •via X (Twitter)

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Elon Musk: Sub-orbital space requires about 1.5% of the energy needed to get to orbit. Rockets like Virgin Galactic's spacecraft or Blue Origin's New Shepard go to suborbital space, while rockets like Falcon 9 and Starship go to orbit, which is orders of magnitude harder, as Elon explains here. “The general public doesn't understand the difference between getting to space and getting to orbit. It's important to make that distinction. To do a suborbital flight, you need a terminal velocity of around Mach 3. To get to orbit, you need a terminal velocity of Mach 25. It's a huge, huge difference because the energy required to do that scales with the square of the velocity. Suborbital might be nine units of energy. Orbital is 625 units of energy. Only about 1.5% of the energy of orbit is required to get to sub-orbit.” Interview with Charlie Rose, August 11, 2009

Elon Musk: Sub-orbital space requires about 1.5% of the energy needed to get to orbit. Rockets like Virgin Galactic's spacecraft or Blue Origin's New Shepard go to suborbital space, while rockets like Falcon 9 and Starship go to orbit, which is orders of magnitude harder, as Elon explains here. “The general public doesn't understand the difference between getting to space and getting to orbit. It's important to make that distinction. To do a suborbital flight, you need a terminal velocity of around Mach 3. To get to orbit, you need a terminal velocity of Mach 25. It's a huge, huge difference because the energy required to do that scales with the square of the velocity. Suborbital might be nine units of energy. Orbital is 625 units of energy. Only about 1.5% of the energy of orbit is required to get to sub-orbit.” Interview with Charlie Rose, August 11, 2009

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“Starship is fully reusable, but will have twice the payload to orbit of the next biggest rocket that made it to orbit, which is the Saturn V. In fact, without reusability, Starship would have about 400 tons of payload to orbit.”

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Deep space is a far harder destination to get to than anything in low earth orbit. Our team is laser focused on ensuring that that's about to change. Matt, Robin, and Chap break down why in this week's podcast.

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ELON MUSK: "The most obvious one is actually solar powered AI satellites, sort of to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because there you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth. The scaling to Kardashev, which is using some non trivial amount of energy from the sun. You kind of have to do space solar power. Like to even use a millionth of a percent of the sun's energy you you really have to be have your solar power in deep space."

ELON MUSK: "The most obvious one is actually solar powered AI satellites, sort of to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because there you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth. The scaling to Kardashev, which is using some non trivial amount of energy from the sun. You kind of have to do space solar power. Like to even use a millionth of a percent of the sun's energy you you really have to be have your solar power in deep space."

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Ian Miles Cheong

577,629 views • 7 months ago

India has <200 satellites in orbit. The United States has 10,000+. This gap is partially due to launch capacity. Skyroot isn't commercialised yet. But another limitation is satellite manufacturing. Which is why Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space plans to make two satellites DAILY!

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Runtime

102,518 views • 2 months ago

Elon Musk reveals why he believes the cheapest place to put AI will be space within 36 months "The availability of energy is the issue. Everywhere outside of China, electrical output is more or less flat. The output of chips is growing exponentially, but the output of electricity is flat" "How are you going to turn the chips on? Magical power sources? Magical electricity fairies?" "Space is really a regulatory play. It's harder to build on land than it is in space. It's harder to scale on the ground than it is to scale in space" "It's always sunny in space. You don't have a day-night cycle, seasonality, clouds, or an atmosphere. The atmosphere alone results in about a 30% loss of energy" "Any given solar panel can do about five times more power in space than on the ground. You also avoid the cost of having batteries to carry you through the night" "My prediction is that it will be by far the cheapest place to put AI. It will be space in 36 months or less. Maybe 30 months" "The only place you can really scale is space. Once you start thinking in terms of what percentage of the Sun's power you are harnessing, you realize you have to go to space" "Solar cells are already farcically cheap. In China they're around 25-30 cents a watt. Now put them in space, and it's not five times cheaper, it's 10 times cheaper because you don't need any batteries" "The moment your cost of access to space becomes low, by far the cheapest and most scalable way to generate tokens is space. It's not even close" "Those who have lived in software land don't realize they're about to have a hard lesson in hardware. It's actually very difficult to build power plants"

Elon Musk reveals why he believes the cheapest place to put AI will be space within 36 months "The availability of energy is the issue. Everywhere outside of China, electrical output is more or less flat. The output of chips is growing exponentially, but the output of electricity is flat" "How are you going to turn the chips on? Magical power sources? Magical electricity fairies?" "Space is really a regulatory play. It's harder to build on land than it is in space. It's harder to scale on the ground than it is to scale in space" "It's always sunny in space. You don't have a day-night cycle, seasonality, clouds, or an atmosphere. The atmosphere alone results in about a 30% loss of energy" "Any given solar panel can do about five times more power in space than on the ground. You also avoid the cost of having batteries to carry you through the night" "My prediction is that it will be by far the cheapest place to put AI. It will be space in 36 months or less. Maybe 30 months" "The only place you can really scale is space. Once you start thinking in terms of what percentage of the Sun's power you are harnessing, you realize you have to go to space" "Solar cells are already farcically cheap. In China they're around 25-30 cents a watt. Now put them in space, and it's not five times cheaper, it's 10 times cheaper because you don't need any batteries" "The moment your cost of access to space becomes low, by far the cheapest and most scalable way to generate tokens is space. It's not even close" "Those who have lived in software land don't realize they're about to have a hard lesson in hardware. It's actually very difficult to build power plants"

Jaynit

8,361,022 views • 2 months ago

ELON: REFUELING IN ORBIT - A BRAND-NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR SPACE TRAVEL “A crucial technology that we hope to demonstrate next year is orbital refilling, much like aerial refuelling. It’s essential to be able to send a significant payload to Mars. You send a ship to orbit with a few hundred tons of payload, a filled payload bay. Once it gets to orbit, the tanks will be mostly empty. Then you send up additional tanker ships to refill the Mars ship’s tanks so that it can thrust from Earth orbit to Mars and have enough propellant left for landing. This orbital refilling is also not something that’s ever been demonstrated before - so that would be a brand new technology.” Source: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and Bill Riley, August 25, 2025

Mario Nawfal

39,332 views • 11 months ago

Here's Elon Musk explaining why we'll have to move AI to deep space. “I see a path to Starship cost-per-ton-to-orbit being lower than air flight. That opens up a very wide range of possibilities. The most obvious one I think is actually solar-powered AI satellites. So, to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth. To scale to Kardashev, to make any progress on a Kardashev 2 scale, which is using some non-trivial amount of energy from the sun, you kind of have to do space solar power. You could only beam a tiny amount of that back to Earth or you would melt Earth. Earth actually receives a very, very tiny amount of the sun's energy. I mean, Earth is a tiny dust mote. Earth, to scale with the sun, we look like a little crumb. So, to scale civilization, to be at all relevant on a Kardashev 2 scale, like to even use a millionth of a percent of the Sun's energy, you really have to have your solar power in deep space.” Tesla Shareholder Meeting, November 6, 2025

Here's Elon Musk explaining why we'll have to move AI to deep space. “I see a path to Starship cost-per-ton-to-orbit being lower than air flight. That opens up a very wide range of possibilities. The most obvious one I think is actually solar-powered AI satellites. So, to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth. To scale to Kardashev, to make any progress on a Kardashev 2 scale, which is using some non-trivial amount of energy from the sun, you kind of have to do space solar power. You could only beam a tiny amount of that back to Earth or you would melt Earth. Earth actually receives a very, very tiny amount of the sun's energy. I mean, Earth is a tiny dust mote. Earth, to scale with the sun, we look like a little crumb. So, to scale civilization, to be at all relevant on a Kardashev 2 scale, like to even use a millionth of a percent of the Sun's energy, you really have to have your solar power in deep space.” Tesla Shareholder Meeting, November 6, 2025

ELON CLIPS

30,799 views • 9 months ago

$RKLB CEO Peter Beck said some space valuations are “completely untethered to reality” but reliable launch is the exception because almost nobody has actually scaled it. Out of 142 small-launch startups tracked when Rocket Lab was founded, only two reached reliable orbital cadence: $SPCX & $RKLB. Thats why access to orbit carries a premium since its scarce, demand is growing and very few companies can actually deliver it.

$RKLB CEO Peter Beck said some space valuations are “completely untethered to reality” but reliable launch is the exception because almost nobody has actually scaled it. Out of 142 small-launch startups tracked when Rocket Lab was founded, only two reached reliable orbital cadence: $SPCX & $RKLB. Thats why access to orbit carries a premium since its scarce, demand is growing and very few companies can actually deliver it.

Shay Boloor

123,144 views • 2 months ago

Elon Musk on Starship at X Takeover: • Starship is one of the hardest engineering challenges ever attempted — three times the thrust of Saturn V and fully reusable • Starship is late, but not impossible • The biggest current hurdle is developing a fully reusable orbital heat shield — something no one has done before • The long-term goal is to make Starship cheaper per ton than even an expendable Falcon 1 • Next major milestone: orbital refilling — transferring mostly liquid oxygen between Starships in space • No one else is seriously attempting this level of reusability or innovation in rocketry

Elon Musk on Starship at X Takeover: • Starship is one of the hardest engineering challenges ever attempted — three times the thrust of Saturn V and fully reusable • Starship is late, but not impossible • The biggest current hurdle is developing a fully reusable orbital heat shield — something no one has done before • The long-term goal is to make Starship cheaper per ton than even an expendable Falcon 1 • Next major milestone: orbital refilling — transferring mostly liquid oxygen between Starships in space • No one else is seriously attempting this level of reusability or innovation in rocketry

Dima Zeniuk

1,208,439 views • 1 year ago