Loading video...

Video Failed to Load

There was a problem loading this video. This could be due to a temporary network issue or the video might be unavailable.

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... show more

X Freeze

278,918 subscribers

461,516 views • 7 months ago •via X (Twitter)

News & Politics Science & Technology

Anya Rossi• Live Now

Private livecam show

34 Comments

Aletheia Pneuma ✨6 months ago

@elonmusk Rockets were treated like disposable prototypes for decades. Treating them like aircraft was the conceptual shift that changed everything. 🚀

Ignorp6 months ago

It was so expensive because it was taxpayer funded

Arne | Bitcoin, Systems & SE Asia6 months ago

@elonmusk A true sci-real ( not sci-fi ) pioneer

Emmanuella | Brand and Content Strategist6 months ago

Woww It’s kind of wild that the whole reusable rocket revolution started with such a simple question of why are rockets thrown away every time Once you hear the fuel is only a tiny fraction of the cost, you’ll will be surprised. Of course reusability changes everything. It’s the difference between burning a plane after every flight and flying it again tomorrow.

Frank6 months ago

This is when visions get born and come true. Thanks for sharing. Reminds me, that you should always question the current status and make changes for the better.

LilHumansBigImpact6 months ago

@elonmusk To the relentless pursuit of reusability 🥂

Dexra6 months ago

That’s the kind of thinking that drove Elon Musk to push the space industry forward, questioning why something was so expensive when the core cost wasn’t actually the main driver. Reusability really changed the economics of rocketry.

Meri Imut6 months ago

I was vibing with the limit mv of Bad Omens, and Uncle Elon popped up again, talking bout rockets?! Wht the heck??? I don't think so Uncle Elon can growl like Noah .

Dave Valleau6 months ago

@elonmusk Right, went right to highest cost of, n said hell even at 30-40% to recover n reuse you just saved 60-70% of cost n wow now its not only time savings but cost way down n its profitable

Maria-Lucia Anderes6 months ago

@elonmusk ❤️👍

Fredericka6 months ago

yo, that's kinda a stretch, right? seriously, rockets reusable like planes? sounds cool, but let's be real

Intel X7 months ago

Elon Musk saw the problem, realized rockets didn’t need to be so costly, and aimed for reusability, the breakthrough that’s changing space forever.

Celisay6 months ago

Has this been achieved? @grok

Payal sharma🌼6 months ago

@GoriPiqueras

Eric6 months ago

@elonmusk

KK6 months ago

@elonmusk Cool 🆒

Pammie R6 months ago

@elonmusk Brilliant 👍💯%

HavenFreihoferDuddy6 months ago

Makes sense to break down. He's a systems person 🛼🛼🛼🛼🛼

ICE Ellis VIK6 months ago

Exactly — Elon realized rockets were insanely expensive mostly because they were disposable, not because of fuel costs. Making them reusable, like airplanes, was the real breakthrough that could slash costs and open up space in a big way.

Acoba May6 months ago

@elonmusk 👍👍❤️

Tom brady6 months ago

@elonmusk Great alpha

Cupcake ♡☮6 months ago

I'm thankful for Elon Musk and all he has accomplished. But I wonder how much he's made in government contracts.

New Hickory6 months ago

@elonmusk 💰💰 that’s why, retard

Rosa Massagué6 months ago

@elonmusk I love you

Jussy6 months ago

@elonmusk Still trying. Being honest, sorry. The universe is inside of us, isn’t it?

Jwice6 months ago

@elonmusk So basically we were paying millions to throw a rocket in the trash

Craig Farte6 months ago

@elonmusk Elon has an egg shaped penis

Natural Sense I Am6 months ago

@elonmusk

Bella6 months ago

@elonmusk

neo6 months ago

@elonmusk The only company

SXM6 months ago

there are even more things that could be made possible only if they allow the ideas come to existence ,

G SenAmala6 months ago

genius

Bud Caruso6 months ago

Brilliant

Ludmila Ilyenko6 months ago

@elonmusk How wonderful that dreams come true

Related Videos

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 be less" From day one, Elon's mission has been crystal clear: make rockets fully reusable, just like commercial airplanes "The cost of space travel would drop dramatically, because the cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2 to 0.5 percent of the cost of the rocket But nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work. So I thought, ‘Okay, if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough for space travel’”

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 be less" From day one, Elon's mission has been crystal clear: make rockets fully reusable, just like commercial airplanes "The cost of space travel would drop dramatically, because the cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from 0.2 to 0.5 percent of the cost of the rocket But nobody had really been able to make a reusable rocket work. So I thought, ‘Okay, if we can do that, then that would really be the key breakthrough for space travel’”

X Freeze

14,066 views • 6 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.

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

24,015,896 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."

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

32,333 views • 4 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

🚀 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 • 4 months 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.

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

32,642 views • 7 months 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

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

“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

“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

57,101 views • 5 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

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

29,439,127 views • 1 year 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"

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 • 1 month ago

Elon Musk explains how to get startup ideas When asked how he comes up with startup ideas, Elon responds: “I tend to think of things from a sort of physics standpoint… what’s the best way to accomplish something? And then pursue that. That’s also a good way to determine if something’s far from its optimum.” He gives rockets as an example: “You could reason by analogy and say the rocket is going to cost a certain amount because that’s what prior rockets have cost. Or you can say, well, what is a rocket made of? What are the material constituents? What do they weigh? What’s the cost per unit mass? And that sets the limit asymptotically for what a rocket can be. So if you can figure out some creative way to rearrange those elements into a rocket shape, then you can achieve a much better outcome.” He also thinks combining ideas from different industries is really helpful for innovation: “What have people discovered in one industry and can that be applied to other industries? That’s I think also a great source of ideas. But usually you just struggle on a solution and try a bunch of things. Most of them don’t work and occasionally one does.” Source: VANITY FAIR (Oct 2014)

Elon Musk explains how to get startup ideas When asked how he comes up with startup ideas, Elon responds: “I tend to think of things from a sort of physics standpoint… what’s the best way to accomplish something? And then pursue that. That’s also a good way to determine if something’s far from its optimum.” He gives rockets as an example: “You could reason by analogy and say the rocket is going to cost a certain amount because that’s what prior rockets have cost. Or you can say, well, what is a rocket made of? What are the material constituents? What do they weigh? What’s the cost per unit mass? And that sets the limit asymptotically for what a rocket can be. So if you can figure out some creative way to rearrange those elements into a rocket shape, then you can achieve a much better outcome.” He also thinks combining ideas from different industries is really helpful for innovation: “What have people discovered in one industry and can that be applied to other industries? That’s I think also a great source of ideas. But usually you just struggle on a solution and try a bunch of things. Most of them don’t work and occasionally one does.” Source: VANITY FAIR (Oct 2014)

Startup Archive

33,984 views • 3 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

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 • 10 months ago

Elon Musk just described the most expensive mistake in engineering history. It lasted 70 years. Musk: “If we had to throw away airplanes every time we flew, flying would be far too expensive and basically no one would be flying airplanes.” That wasn’t a thought experiment. That was the actual business model of spaceflight since 1957. Build a rocket worth billions. Fly it once. Let the ocean swallow it. Then start over from nothing. Ships are reusable. Trains are reusable. Cars are reusable. Planes are reusable. If it can’t fly twice, it’s not transportation. It’s a stunt. For seven decades, spaceflight was a stunt. Musk: “Earth has a deep gravity well and a thick atmosphere, and these make it just barely possible to achieve reusability with a rocket.” Barely possible means it was always possible. The gravity was always light enough. The atmosphere was always thin enough. The margin was always there. “Barely possible” was rounded down to impossible. The entire industry believed the rounding, not the math. Musk: “It’s the first rocket design that is capable of full and rapid reusability. You simply cannot send this to the moon, to Mars, and to the rest of the solar system without a reusable rocket.” Every single-use rocket was a vote to stay grounded. For 70 years, the vote was unanimous. Starship didn’t break a law of physics. It proved “impossible” was a policy, not a constraint.

Elon Musk just described the most expensive mistake in engineering history. It lasted 70 years. Musk: “If we had to throw away airplanes every time we flew, flying would be far too expensive and basically no one would be flying airplanes.” That wasn’t a thought experiment. That was the actual business model of spaceflight since 1957. Build a rocket worth billions. Fly it once. Let the ocean swallow it. Then start over from nothing. Ships are reusable. Trains are reusable. Cars are reusable. Planes are reusable. If it can’t fly twice, it’s not transportation. It’s a stunt. For seven decades, spaceflight was a stunt. Musk: “Earth has a deep gravity well and a thick atmosphere, and these make it just barely possible to achieve reusability with a rocket.” Barely possible means it was always possible. The gravity was always light enough. The atmosphere was always thin enough. The margin was always there. “Barely possible” was rounded down to impossible. The entire industry believed the rounding, not the math. Musk: “It’s the first rocket design that is capable of full and rapid reusability. You simply cannot send this to the moon, to Mars, and to the rest of the solar system without a reusable rocket.” Every single-use rocket was a vote to stay grounded. For 70 years, the vote was unanimous. Starship didn’t break a law of physics. It proved “impossible” was a policy, not a constraint.

Dustin

46,112 views • 2 months 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

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 • 10 months ago

Elon Musk, 13 years ago: A fully and rapidly reusable rocket is barely possible. SpaceX is going to try to do it. We could fail, but we're going to try to do it. “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. It's just a very tough engineering problem. I wasn't sure it could be solved for a while. But then, relatively recently, probably in the last twelve 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. Now, we could fail. I'm not saying we're certain of success here, but we're going to try to do it. And 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, 2011

Elon Musk, 13 years ago: A fully and rapidly reusable rocket is barely possible. SpaceX is going to try to do it. We could fail, but we're going to try to do it. “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. It's just a very tough engineering problem. I wasn't sure it could be solved for a while. But then, relatively recently, probably in the last twelve 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. Now, we could fail. I'm not saying we're certain of success here, but we're going to try to do it. And 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, 2011

ELON CLIPS

43,665,775 views • 1 year ago

When Elon Musk started SpaceX, his closest friends showed him a compilation of rocket failures to talk him out of it The industry joke was brutal: "How do you make a small fortune in the rocket business? Start with a large one” If he had stopped after seeing those failures, we wouldn’t have reusable rockets, Starship, and the multi-planetary dream. All these would be dead in the water humanity would remain a single-planet species forever. Instead, we are on the doorstep of Mars

When Elon Musk started SpaceX, his closest friends showed him a compilation of rocket failures to talk him out of it The industry joke was brutal: "How do you make a small fortune in the rocket business? Start with a large one” If he had stopped after seeing those failures, we wouldn’t have reusable rockets, Starship, and the multi-planetary dream. All these would be dead in the water humanity would remain a single-planet species forever. Instead, we are on the doorstep of Mars

X Freeze

549,090 views • 7 months ago