Elon is MAD. SpaceX Starship HLS Update. Uncensored. Jim Bridenstine lobbies against Elon and SpaceX
November 10, 2025 • 25 mins
With the scale of Starship and the technological breakthroughs it is engineered to achieve, SpaceX is moving at a historically rapid pace. Starship provides unmatched capability to explore the Moon, thanks to its large size and ability to refill propellant in space. One single Starship has a pressurized habitable volume of more than 600 cubic meters, which is roughly two-thirds the pressurized volume of the entire International Space Station, and is complete with a cabin that can be scaled for large numbers of explorers and dual airlocks for surface exploration. For comparison: each of Starship’s two airlocks have a habitable volume of approximately 13 cubic meters, which is more than double the space that was available in the Apollo lander. Cargo variants of the Starship lander will be capable of landing up to 100 metric tons directly on the surface, including large payloads like unpressurized rovers, pressurized rovers, nuclear reactors, and lunar habitats.To return Americans to the Moon, SpaceX aligned Starship development along two paths: development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites — which SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs — and development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA’s requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon. SpaceX is working under a fixed-price contract with NASA, ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs. SpaceX provides significant insight to NASA at every stage of the development process along both paths, including access to flight data from missions not funded under the HLS contract.Both pathways are necessary and made possible by SpaceX’s substantial self-investments to enable the high-rate production, launch, and test of Starship for missions to the Moon and other purposes. Starship will bring the United States back to the Moon before any other nation and it will enable sustainable lunar operations by being fully and rapidly reusable, cost-effective, and capable of high frequency lunar missions with more than 100 tons of cargo capacity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This person was a shithead trying to intimidate me out of
the scene. Little did they know I didn't
care who they were. All I care about is that you're
being a shithead. And of course, because they have
a vested interest in finances. But you have to admit, he did a
great job for what he did at NASA.
But now he's a paid lobbyist. When you get done with the
government role, you become a lobbyist.
You make a bunch of money. Jim is trying to get that extra
(00:22):
something, something in his bankaccount by getting these
companies money. Everybody, including this person
in front of me, was learning about Starship.
So they didn't know anything either.
So nobody really knew. Like we knew stuff.
We didn't know everything, right?
Jim Bridenstein, which we all used to love as the NASA
administrator. But he seemed like a nice guy,
seemed like a good guy. But he's also a politician,
(00:42):
right? So he does things that
politicians do. Of course, they have interest in
money. We have to talk about something
really important today. There's some just bad things
happening on the Internet when it comes to spaceflight and
people involved in this industry.
Somebody who I would call a colleague is going to be
mentioned a little bit later. But also we have to talk about
(01:04):
something that is really interesting here.
Reported by Jeff Faust Spacexes Kiko Donchev says at the
Economist Space Summit this morning that the company's goal
for 2025 is around 170. Falcon 9 launches now the second
part, it's currently 140, but the second part, he adds, the
1st V3 Starship could take placeas soon as January.
(01:27):
A booster will be rolling out tothe pad for tests in days to
weeks. That's number one.
That's number one. That's really cool.
So we have about a month and a half, maybe a little bit more,
maybe two months, maybe 3 months, depending on how much
work they get done in the next 60 to 90 days.
When version 3 Starship will be launching from Starbase Texas.
(01:50):
Now, of course, can't wait to goto the moon.
Gwynne Shotwell, she rarely tweets, but when she does, it's
interesting. It's very interesting.
She just mentioned I can't wait to go to the moon.
Of course, we all want to go to the moon.
We all want SpaceX to go to the moon.
We want them to launch a Starship to the moon.
Now, will they do that or will they not do that?
(02:10):
Depending on what's going on anddepending, of course, on what
NASA decides is the best option for people to go to the moon, to
the moon and beyond. SpaceX is at a inflection point,
as humidity is. They posted this the other day.
You've heard all about it. Probably.
Everything about Starship and the HLS mission is in this page
(02:31):
on the SpaceX website. It's in the updates page, so go
check it out. They have some interiors, which
is really cool. This is really interesting to me
interiors 3D printer, the Landerthey have some this is this is
actually really interesting. This one right here notice the
UI for this really interesting. You can see up here in the top
right the ships, the thrusters at the bottom of the engines.
(02:55):
And I'm not sure exactly what this other stuff is at this
point. It looks like altimeters and
like live screen of what's goingon outside of the rocket as
they're touching down on the moon surface.
That's what it looks like. And Next up we have some actual,
actual drama. OK, So this is what this is.
(03:16):
This is crazy. OK, SpaceX rarely post things
like this, but when they do, they have some, they have some
real actual data to back this up.
So I'm going to take this as a truth from SpaceX.
And we all know Elon Musk is a hype man, right?
He wants to hype things up. He wants to get all the money
(03:38):
for SpaceX so SpaceX can continue doing their job, which
is getting people to Mars. That's what they want to do.
Eventually, we want to get people to Mars.
And that's exactly SpaceX has intended to do since its
inception. Now, there's been Jim
Bridenstine, which we all used to love as the NASA
administrator. Not everybody, just some people.
(04:01):
But he seemed like a nice guy, seemed like a good guy.
But he's also a politician, right?
So he does things that politicians do.
SpaceX tweeted this the other day.
Like many Americans, we are thankful for Mr. Bridenstine's
service. Land leading NASA at one point.
He deserves credit for spearheading the creation of the
Artemis program. And this is where it gets juicy.
That's where it gets nasty. After departing NASA, he created
(04:24):
a lobbying firm called the Artemis Group, representing a
host of aerospace company vying for NASA business.
OK. Mr. Brianstein's current
campaign against Starship is either misguided or
intentionally misleading. SpaceX was selected to design
and develop a human Lander system for Artemis along with
Blue Origin Dynetics during Mr. Breinstein's tenure at NASA.
Starship was then selected by NASA, etcetera, etcetera.
(04:48):
So we all know that part since to select.
Starship was confirmed repeatedly following protest in
litigation from companies not selected, which delayed the
start of work on the contract for many months.
They have all the backup. They have all the data.
Now this is where it gets a little bit more juicy.
Mr. Breinstein's recent musings promoting a new landing system,
going so far as to invoke the Defense Production Act, are
(05:11):
being misreported as though theywere the unbiased thoughts of a
former NASA Edmond. They are not.
They say these not unbiased. OK so to be clear, he is a paid
lobbyist. He is representing his clients
interests and his comments should be seen for what they
are. A paid lobbyist effort to secure
billions of dollars more in government funding for its
(05:33):
clients were already years late and billions of dollars over
budget. Throw in massive shade to Blue
Origin, throwing massive shade to the whole Space Flight
industry because Elon says this is Elon.
I'm sure Elon approved this. A paid lobbyist effort to secure
billions more in government funding for his clients were
already years late and billions of dollars over budget throwing
(05:56):
shades straight at him, right. So that's the juicy bits from
SpaceX. It's that's incredible that they
would call out Mr. Bridenstine like that say that he is a
lobbyist, which he is his lobbyist, but they're saying of
course he's doing this for nefarious reasons, nefarious for
the truth bomb by SpaceX here. He's representing his clients.
(06:16):
Interest in his comments should be seen for what they are, a
paid lobbyist effort. Secure buildings follow the
money. That's all I'm saying.
Everybody has interest in something if it makes them
money. Breidenstein is a politician
first and foremost, Jim, and we had some tweets back and forth
back in the day, but you have toadmit he did a great job for
(06:37):
what he did at NASA. But now he's a paid lobbyist.
When you get done with the government role, you become a
lobbyist. You make a bunch of money.
Jim is trying to get that extra something, something in his bank
account by getting these companies money, getting the
billions of dollars in NASA funding.
So if SpaceX doesn't get the contract, who gets the contract?
(07:00):
The other billionaire. Why doesn't Jeff Bezos just fund
Blue Origin with his own money? He has enough money to fund it
forever. He doesn't need this NASA money.
He can just do it. I don't get it.
I don't get it. He can.
And I know he takes money out ofhis Amazon funds, you know, his
affiliate links. No, the money that he gets from
the stock for Amazon, like he makes money all the time.
(07:23):
He makes billions of dollars. He's worth billions and billions
of dollars, hundreds of billionsof dollars.
Blue Origin doesn't need government money.
They're running it like a business.
I know business can't be charities, people.
We all know that, you know that I know that businesses can't be
charities. But somebody like Jeff Bezos,
who literally has infinite money, found the infinite money
glitch. Him and Elon both have infinite
(07:43):
money. Elon is funding SpaceX.
Elon is going after those government contracts.
Of course, of course they do, because they have to also pay
the people that work there. But if you have infinite money,
why do you jam some of that money into the coffers of Blue
Origin? A little bit more, Jeffy.
And then don't try to take thesegovernment contracts away from
SpaceX. Just land the Lander on your
(08:04):
own. If you think you can beat
SpaceX, go for it. You know, SpaceX got the
contract. Who cares?
Build the Lander, you know, get customers for your Lander.
Send it on a rocket, whether it's yours or procure that from
somebody else. You have enough money to do
that. If you, if it's a competition,
show SpaceX that you're better than them.
And if Bridenstine is trying to make money for that client,
(08:29):
maybe not Jeff particularly or Blue Origin, but other companies
as well. If he's doing lobbyist kind of
work so he can procure money forthese companies.
If it's Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos,come on, man, come on, you got
the money, just do it. If you're going to be the first
person to send a private Lander to the moon and also your own
(08:52):
cargo that could change humanity, why aren't you just
doing that? I never understood that.
But if you're a lobbyist, like Brian said, he's lobbyists and
also politicians, Most of them, most of that I've ever met in my
in my career as a Space Flight and independent journalist,
(09:13):
every lobbyist that I've ever met you spoke with.
Of course they have interest in money.
That's how they make their money.
They're a lobbyist. You know, they don't, they don't
need, they don't need to do thislobbying thing just because it's
fun. They do it because it's a job
and it pays them a lot of money,like millions of dollars worth
of money, not just a regular salary.
(09:34):
Like we don't see that kind of money ever.
Like there's no way, there's no way you're going to see
$1,000,000. But if you're a lobbyist like
Bridenstine, you're not thinkingof this as being fair and
balanced sort of competition here.
What you're thinking of this as,how much money can I make first
and foremost, how am I going to make that money?
And then when you figure out a plan to make that money, you
(09:58):
have to, of course, say it out loud because that's what people
are paying you to do. They're paying you to say it out
loud. Now, there's one more thing that
I have to talk about. And before I do that, it, this
is super juicy and like really nasty too, by the way.
The next one's really juicy and nasty and it's really
disgusting. But before I do that, I'm going
to ask you for one second of your time.
(10:19):
I've been an independent journalist for the last six or
seven years on this channel podcasting at the Elon Musk
Podcast, which is a daily podcast about Elon Musk and all
of his companies, news, reviews,etcetera.
So please take a second hit the subscribe button down below.
That's all I ask from you and I will gladly do the next 10 years
of the show for free for you. So the next part, it's really
(10:41):
nasty. I want, I want you to know and I
have to read this. So I put on my spectacles.
Really nasty. This is a tweet from Felix from
what? From what about it?
Friend of the show as a crater of what about it?
Since 2019, I've seen the onlinespace grow challenging,
especially in the Space Flight community.
A recent post directed at me with false claims alleging
violence and suggesting physicalharm stands out as a troubling
(11:05):
example personal for me. But it's also call for the
community to step up and oppose this kind of behavior.
So we're, you know, we can read the whole tweet, but it would
take a long time. You can go back and check it
out. It's on Felix.
I'll put a link to it in the description, but look at this
post. This nasty nasty human being,
What about it deserves to be castrated and hanged by his legs
as a punishment for the shit he's been doing to the community
(11:26):
since 2023. Obviously I said he's just going
to hate my friend. We put ourselves in the public
so we can provide inspiration and sometimes the trolls come
out in full force. FM not worth our time.
You're doing great work, please don't let this discourage you.
Now let me preface this with what about It And Felix are a
juggernaut in this space. They're huge channel.
(11:49):
Felix has been at this for a long time.
Felix is a master of his craft. He does great things on his
channel, producing and making good content so the normal
person can enjoy it. If you're a normal person and
you're looking for NASA news or SpaceX news, you have an
(12:09):
entertaining host who's excited about what he does, telling you
about SpaceX, Starship, telling you about HLS, telling you about
NASA, just explaining things in a way that other people can't
do. And for that, I applaud Felix.
Now, some people are purists, right?
And they don't like that Felix gets 300,400 thousand millions
(12:32):
of views per video. I don't care how many views Alex
or Felix gets. What I care about is that he
presents the news in a way that is truthful and honorable.
And he does that for the most part.
Is there click bait? Yes, 100%.
But we're on YouTube. Like, that's what I don't think
(12:52):
people understand. You're on YouTube, so you got to
do things to make your channel get the views so you can
continue doing this as a job. You know, I never really cared
about that. I made thumbnails because I made
thumbnails. I this has always been a hobby
of mine and I really love spaceflight.
So I've never really cared aboutgoing down that path.
I did like a little click baity things, but it's not like crazy.
(13:15):
But what Felix does isn't also wild.
He doesn't do wild things. He's just a guy that likes
spaceflight, right? So why would anybody want to say
that? So right here is where it really
matters. The Space Flight community,
which I cherish for as Curiosity, is deeply divided.
I've had restless nights in question might approach a
struggle. I know other creators you very
(13:37):
likely know share. This isn't how it should be and
it's up to us to change the tone.
So this person that message Alexor Felix, sorry, I I'm thinking
about somebody else while I'm saying this message Felix while
thinking about those horrible things is not the normal Space
Flight nerd that we're all friends with, right?
(13:59):
That Space Flight nerd that we love and cherish is one of our
friends. Not this person that did this,
but like the other friends that we have, the Space Flight nerds
that we that we love and cherish, our friends, our peers,
the people that want to see launches happened.
The people that want to see Falcon Nines fly.
They want to see starships land on the moon and Mars.
They also want to see the SLS goto the moon and to further
(14:21):
destinations. They want to see other countries
succeed. And that's where we're at right
now. How do we as a community come
together and banish this idiot from our community?
You just ignore them. That's the best way to do it.
Ignore them, block them, ban them from your channel, whatever
you got to do. Just don't interact with them.
They're a troll. They're like a nasty person, you
(14:42):
know, just a piece of shit. That's it.
This is a piece of shit. And they did this to Felix
because they can. It's social media.
You can do whatever you want. Now, if you were going to do
that to somebody on social media, of course it should be
reported. You know, if that happened to
me, I'd be like this guy's, you know, this person's trying to
intimidate me by physical violence.
(15:03):
Please look into this. And of course it's on X, so they
don't care. And that's a horrible thing
anyway. Every creator risks facing such
hostility, or even small repeated criticisms build a
tough burden. And it's not enough to ignore
it. But at the same time, look man,
I'm going to tell you a story. And this is a thing that I've
(15:24):
talked about a few times on thischannel.
So I want to revisit this. There's two stories, but I'm
going to revisit one of them foryou.
And the hostility that Felix is seeing on the Internet actually
exists in real life. No one's going to say that to
your face, Of course, like this person is a loser.
And of course they're going to say the things that they say
(15:45):
online because it's easy and they're safe, right?
But I had an incident when I wasat Starbase and I was filming
late at night. Maybe not late, it's like 7:00
at night, but the sun was going down.
It was winter time and I was filming next to Hwy. 4, next to
the Starship, and somebody came up to me and asked me if I'm
(16:08):
will. And I said yeah, how's it going?
And they said, hey, I've seen your channel before.
I said how cool, thank you know,thanks for watching, man.
And they said I don't like the way basically like told me I
don't like the way you do thingsbecause you don't know enough.
I said well, yeah, I mean, I waslike, I'm just learning as I go.
That's basically what I told him.
I was like, I'm just learning asI go, man.
(16:29):
I'm just like you, like I'm learning as I go.
Everybody else has to. This is at the very beginning of
Starship and star base. So I was on the side of the
road. It was like a still 100° out.
It's like 7 whatever o'clock 7/30 8:00 at night.
And when they said that to me, Iwas like, you know what, you're
right, I don't know enough. And I'm that's why I'm learning.
(16:49):
And then they said some of your they didn't say anything like
with Felix. So I'm not going to compare
myself to Felix and what this incident's like, but this stuff
does happen in real life. And when they said that to me,
they also had this look on theirface.
They were like, they were like, who do you think you are, right?
I was like, I don't know, I'm just a guy.
I'm just a guy. I'm doing my thing.
I love Space Flight, I love rockets, and I think it's so
(17:11):
cool and I'm very blessed to be at Star Base right now doing my
thing, filming and also doing live streams from the side of
the road so everyone can see howcool Starship is.
They went on and on about how I don't know about the heat shield
that they're building. They weren't.
The heat shield wasn't even doneyet.
(17:31):
Like they've never flown the ship before.
They've never. They were like 6 months away
from flying the Starship. So everybody, including this
person in front of me was learning about starships.
So they didn't know anything either.
So nobody really knew it. Like we knew stuff, but we
didn't know everything, right? So I knew what I knew.
They knew what they knew. Maybe they knew, maybe they had
a background in, you know, spaceflight or some sort of
(17:55):
flight, but I was just a fan. And by the time I get done
talking with them, they had ripped me apart.
And I sat there and talked with them for about 10 minutes.
I was being very rational. They were ripping me apart like
why are you, why are you using a200 millimeter lens on my
camera? So they were talking about
camera gear, but they were also talking about how I didn't know
(18:17):
about spaceflight. And I was like, well, This is
why I use the camera that I do. This is why I use the gear that
I do, and the reason why I live stream from here is because I
think people should know about this.
So it was some drama. The person was visibly pissed
off. Like not even like a little bit
upset at all. They were pissed off.
They were in my face, like yelling at me the whole time.
(18:39):
And I'm trying to downplay it because I don't care about this
person. They're just some idiot, right?
Come to find out after all of this, and here's the twist, they
were from another spaceflight channel, a huge spaceflight
channel, and they decided it wastheir duty to tell me how to do
what I was doing. And I agreed with them at some
of the things. I was like, look, man, I could
(19:01):
probably use a bigger lens, but I don't have money to buy a
bigger lens. You know, I could be using a
different whatever, but I didn'thave the means to do that.
I was just barely scraping by itat that point.
So I was doing what I could do. And of course, like, I don't
care about this person. I know who they are now.
I I've seen them in the community and what they were
(19:21):
trying to do is intimidate me toleave star base.
So them and their channel didn'thave competition back then
because there were only a few ofus doing that back then, right?
It was me and like a few other bigger channels, Jessica Kirsch
and a couple other people back in the day doing this.
And because it was such a small all community down there,
(19:44):
there's not many people. Not many people down there,
dude. Like, I'm not going to figure
out who you are. Coffee.
It's a pretty cool Tumblr, by the way.
Anyway, the whole story turned into giant drama behind the
scenes. I called the person out.
I said, hey, why are you being this way?
Like, what do you care? I'm just some guy.
I'm not taking massive amounts of views from you.
(20:06):
I was getting like. 3040 thousand views per per stream,
mind you. And I was making good money
doing streaming. Not like good, not good money.
I was just saying like I'd make money to like pay rent and get
gas money to get down to Starbase.
And they're like, I was like, yeah, I'm making enough money to
survive. And that was it, you know, And I
had people that were supporting me on Patreon and that was
really wonderful. But thing is, this person was a
(20:29):
shithead straight up trying to intimidate me out of the scene.
Little do they know, I didn't care who they were.
I didn't care. I was like, look, bro, I don't
care if you're a photographer, Idon't care if you're a
videographer. All I care about is that you're
being a shithead. And that was it.
I was like, and for my, for the most part, I kept it cool.
I was like, all right, dude, cool, you just go do your thing.
(20:52):
Just leave me alone. I'm just trying to do my thing.
And of course, because they havea vested interest in finances,
they need to make money for their channel and their friends
channel and the conglomerate that they had.
There was, of course, something behind it all.
So you look to the money, of course, behind everything that
(21:13):
somebody's doing. Jim Bridenstine, look to the
money with with Jimmy Jam over there.
I've always had good things to say about Jim.
But now I think he's kind of, you know, I don't know, he's
probably a great guy, but he's just trying to fend for himself
and make as much money as he canwhile he's here, you know,
making money for his family. And that's what you do.
And as a grown up, that's what you do.
You make money for your family so your kid can go to college,
(21:35):
you can buy a better house. So you're not like it.
I'm sure Jim isn't hard up for money, but if you can make as a,
you know, as somebody who's going to lobby for Blue Origin
or Boeing or something, they're going to pay millions of dollars
to do that. Millions of dollars every single
year and by you doing the the least amount of work, I'm not
(21:55):
saying Jim doesn't work, but I'mjust saying like you're going to
lobby. So you're basically going to put
ideas out there. You're going to be a content
creator literally, but you're going to put the content in
front of people who matter in Washington, not on YouTube.
But when you trace it back to the beginning, it all goes back
to money. So Jimmy Jam Bridensten, not my,
(22:17):
my friend Jimmy Jam, but Jimmy Jam the other Jimmy Jam the the
other guy, he is not the best for SpaceX right now is SpaceX
can land this and they have an idea of how to do this as a
simpler approach, right? They have a simpler approach.
According to space News, simplified approach.
They've they've done a new approach this the moon and
(22:40):
before here we go. So this is the whole approach.
They have plenty of things that they can do in order to make it
easier for them to dock. They make it easier for them to
go to the moon, for them to landon the moon.
Not a bunch of transports, just refueling in orbit.
Not 20 times like some NASA officials have said.
(23:01):
Anywhere between 10 and 20 is what people think.
But we don't know yet. We don't know Elon and his crew
over here at SpaceX. And I'm going to do it in like
maybe 5 * 5 refill tankers. And that's one of the things,
right? And this is new footage that
SpaceX has released. But this whole blog post shows
all the ways that they're going to make it to the moon in a
(23:23):
cheaper fashion, like an easier way.
So my understanding is SpaceX was thinking 15, the 10 to 15
tankers to begin with. What happened between Jim
Bridenstine and this post, this blog post?
When did this all happen? When was the engineering going
to be laid out for the normal person?
(23:45):
So this is damage control from SpaceX.
NASA selected Starship in 2021 to serve as the Lander for
Artemis return to humans and then the the selection was made
through fair and open communication with which
determined the SpaceX bid utilizing Starship had the
highest technical in management ratings while being the lowest
cost by a wide margin. Yeah.
(24:06):
So they this is where they statetheir case.
They're sending it to the public.
Look at all these M dashes by the way, did AI write this?
No, I'm sure they didn't. Sure AI didn't because there's
only two M dashes two or three, but the other ones for boil off.
But they're calling Jim out. They're saying look man, you are
(24:26):
owned by Washington now you've always been owned by Washington.
That's where the money goes right into your pocket, Jim.
So I want, I want you to think about this the next time Elon
Musk goes on a little rant and he says something about the
government or Washington or something like that.
I think about where that other person's money comes from.
(24:47):
Think about Elon's interests as well, because Elon is always
interested in padding Elon's pocket and also his company's
pocket. He wants to keep his money in
his companies of course he doesn't want to spend extra
money or have other people beat him to the punch.
He doesn't want other people to get to the moon before him
because he'd look like a loser after beating his chest for so
(25:09):
long. The SpaceX is the best what a
small company like Blue Origin might beat him there doesn't
want that either. So that all being said let me
know in the comments. But you 2 are I got to say it,
right? Let me know in the comments.
Let me know the comments what you think.
I want to know what you feel about this because it is an
intense situation between Elon, SpaceX, Jim Bridenstine,
(25:31):
Washington DC. But now that we have somebody
else who's an Elon ally as the head of NASA, I mean, I think
things are going to be a lot smoother.
This person was a shithead trying to intimidate me out of
the scene. Little did they know I didn't
care who they were. All I care about is that you're
being a shithead. And of course, because they have
a vested interest in finances. But you have to admit, he did a
great job for what he did at NASA.
But now he's a paid lobbyist. When you get done with the
government role, you become a lobbyist.
You make a bunch of money. Jim is trying to get that extra
(00:22):
something, something in his bankaccount by getting these
companies money. Everybody, including this person
in front of me, was learning about Starship.
So they didn't know anything either.
So nobody really knew. Like we knew stuff.
We didn't know everything, right?
Jim Bridenstein, which we all used to love as the NASA
administrator. But he seemed like a nice guy,
seemed like a good guy. But he's also a politician,
(00:42):
right? So he does things that
politicians do. Of course, they have interest in
money. We have to talk about something
really important today. There's some just bad things
happening on the Internet when it comes to spaceflight and
people involved in this industry.
Somebody who I would call a colleague is going to be
mentioned a little bit later. But also we have to talk about
(01:04):
something that is really interesting here.
Reported by Jeff Faust Spacexes Kiko Donchev says at the
Economist Space Summit this morning that the company's goal
for 2025 is around 170. Falcon 9 launches now the second
part, it's currently 140, but the second part, he adds, the
1st V3 Starship could take placeas soon as January.
(01:27):
A booster will be rolling out tothe pad for tests in days to
weeks. That's number one.
That's number one. That's really cool.
So we have about a month and a half, maybe a little bit more,
maybe two months, maybe 3 months, depending on how much
work they get done in the next 60 to 90 days.
When version 3 Starship will be launching from Starbase Texas.
(01:50):
Now, of course, can't wait to goto the moon.
Gwynne Shotwell, she rarely tweets, but when she does, it's
interesting. It's very interesting.
She just mentioned I can't wait to go to the moon.
Of course, we all want to go to the moon.
We all want SpaceX to go to the moon.
We want them to launch a Starship to the moon.
Now, will they do that or will they not do that?
(02:10):
Depending on what's going on anddepending, of course, on what
NASA decides is the best option for people to go to the moon, to
the moon and beyond. SpaceX is at a inflection point,
as humidity is. They posted this the other day.
You've heard all about it. Probably.
Everything about Starship and the HLS mission is in this page
(02:31):
on the SpaceX website. It's in the updates page, so go
check it out. They have some interiors, which
is really cool. This is really interesting to me
interiors 3D printer, the Landerthey have some this is this is
actually really interesting. This one right here notice the
UI for this really interesting. You can see up here in the top
right the ships, the thrusters at the bottom of the engines.
(02:55):
And I'm not sure exactly what this other stuff is at this
point. It looks like altimeters and
like live screen of what's goingon outside of the rocket as
they're touching down on the moon surface.
That's what it looks like. And Next up we have some actual,
actual drama. OK, So this is what this is.
(03:16):
This is crazy. OK, SpaceX rarely post things
like this, but when they do, they have some, they have some
real actual data to back this up.
So I'm going to take this as a truth from SpaceX.
And we all know Elon Musk is a hype man, right?
He wants to hype things up. He wants to get all the money
(03:38):
for SpaceX so SpaceX can continue doing their job, which
is getting people to Mars. That's what they want to do.
Eventually, we want to get people to Mars.
And that's exactly SpaceX has intended to do since its
inception. Now, there's been Jim
Bridenstine, which we all used to love as the NASA
administrator. Not everybody, just some people.
(04:01):
But he seemed like a nice guy, seemed like a good guy.
But he's also a politician, right?
So he does things that politicians do.
SpaceX tweeted this the other day.
Like many Americans, we are thankful for Mr. Bridenstine's
service. Land leading NASA at one point.
He deserves credit for spearheading the creation of the
Artemis program. And this is where it gets juicy.
That's where it gets nasty. After departing NASA, he created
(04:24):
a lobbying firm called the Artemis Group, representing a
host of aerospace company vying for NASA business.
OK. Mr. Brianstein's current
campaign against Starship is either misguided or
intentionally misleading. SpaceX was selected to design
and develop a human Lander system for Artemis along with
Blue Origin Dynetics during Mr. Breinstein's tenure at NASA.
Starship was then selected by NASA, etcetera, etcetera.
(04:48):
So we all know that part since to select.
Starship was confirmed repeatedly following protest in
litigation from companies not selected, which delayed the
start of work on the contract for many months.
They have all the backup. They have all the data.
Now this is where it gets a little bit more juicy.
Mr. Breinstein's recent musings promoting a new landing system,
going so far as to invoke the Defense Production Act, are
(05:11):
being misreported as though theywere the unbiased thoughts of a
former NASA Edmond. They are not.
They say these not unbiased. OK so to be clear, he is a paid
lobbyist. He is representing his clients
interests and his comments should be seen for what they
are. A paid lobbyist effort to secure
billions of dollars more in government funding for its
(05:33):
clients were already years late and billions of dollars over
budget. Throw in massive shade to Blue
Origin, throwing massive shade to the whole Space Flight
industry because Elon says this is Elon.
I'm sure Elon approved this. A paid lobbyist effort to secure
billions more in government funding for his clients were
already years late and billions of dollars over budget throwing
(05:56):
shades straight at him, right. So that's the juicy bits from
SpaceX. It's that's incredible that they
would call out Mr. Bridenstine like that say that he is a
lobbyist, which he is his lobbyist, but they're saying of
course he's doing this for nefarious reasons, nefarious for
the truth bomb by SpaceX here. He's representing his clients.
(06:16):
Interest in his comments should be seen for what they are, a
paid lobbyist effort. Secure buildings follow the
money. That's all I'm saying.
Everybody has interest in something if it makes them
money. Breidenstein is a politician
first and foremost, Jim, and we had some tweets back and forth
back in the day, but you have toadmit he did a great job for
(06:37):
what he did at NASA. But now he's a paid lobbyist.
When you get done with the government role, you become a
lobbyist. You make a bunch of money.
Jim is trying to get that extra something, something in his bank
account by getting these companies money, getting the
billions of dollars in NASA funding.
So if SpaceX doesn't get the contract, who gets the contract?
(07:00):
The other billionaire. Why doesn't Jeff Bezos just fund
Blue Origin with his own money? He has enough money to fund it
forever. He doesn't need this NASA money.
He can just do it. I don't get it.
I don't get it. He can.
And I know he takes money out ofhis Amazon funds, you know, his
affiliate links. No, the money that he gets from
the stock for Amazon, like he makes money all the time.
(07:23):
He makes billions of dollars. He's worth billions and billions
of dollars, hundreds of billionsof dollars.
Blue Origin doesn't need government money.
They're running it like a business.
I know business can't be charities, people.
We all know that, you know that I know that businesses can't be
charities. But somebody like Jeff Bezos,
who literally has infinite money, found the infinite money
glitch. Him and Elon both have infinite
(07:43):
money. Elon is funding SpaceX.
Elon is going after those government contracts.
Of course, of course they do, because they have to also pay
the people that work there. But if you have infinite money,
why do you jam some of that money into the coffers of Blue
Origin? A little bit more, Jeffy.
And then don't try to take thesegovernment contracts away from
SpaceX. Just land the Lander on your
(08:04):
own. If you think you can beat
SpaceX, go for it. You know, SpaceX got the
contract. Who cares?
Build the Lander, you know, get customers for your Lander.
Send it on a rocket, whether it's yours or procure that from
somebody else. You have enough money to do
that. If you, if it's a competition,
show SpaceX that you're better than them.
And if Bridenstine is trying to make money for that client,
(08:29):
maybe not Jeff particularly or Blue Origin, but other companies
as well. If he's doing lobbyist kind of
work so he can procure money forthese companies.
If it's Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos,come on, man, come on, you got
the money, just do it. If you're going to be the first
person to send a private Lander to the moon and also your own
(08:52):
cargo that could change humanity, why aren't you just
doing that? I never understood that.
But if you're a lobbyist, like Brian said, he's lobbyists and
also politicians, Most of them, most of that I've ever met in my
in my career as a Space Flight and independent journalist,
(09:13):
every lobbyist that I've ever met you spoke with.
Of course they have interest in money.
That's how they make their money.
They're a lobbyist. You know, they don't, they don't
need, they don't need to do thislobbying thing just because it's
fun. They do it because it's a job
and it pays them a lot of money,like millions of dollars worth
of money, not just a regular salary.
(09:34):
Like we don't see that kind of money ever.
Like there's no way, there's no way you're going to see
$1,000,000. But if you're a lobbyist like
Bridenstine, you're not thinkingof this as being fair and
balanced sort of competition here.
What you're thinking of this as,how much money can I make first
and foremost, how am I going to make that money?
And then when you figure out a plan to make that money, you
(09:58):
have to, of course, say it out loud because that's what people
are paying you to do. They're paying you to say it out
loud. Now, there's one more thing that
I have to talk about. And before I do that, it, this
is super juicy and like really nasty too, by the way.
The next one's really juicy and nasty and it's really
disgusting. But before I do that, I'm going
to ask you for one second of your time.
(10:19):
I've been an independent journalist for the last six or
seven years on this channel podcasting at the Elon Musk
Podcast, which is a daily podcast about Elon Musk and all
of his companies, news, reviews,etcetera.
So please take a second hit the subscribe button down below.
That's all I ask from you and I will gladly do the next 10 years
of the show for free for you. So the next part, it's really
(10:41):
nasty. I want, I want you to know and I
have to read this. So I put on my spectacles.
Really nasty. This is a tweet from Felix from
what? From what about it?
Friend of the show as a crater of what about it?
Since 2019, I've seen the onlinespace grow challenging,
especially in the Space Flight community.
A recent post directed at me with false claims alleging
violence and suggesting physicalharm stands out as a troubling
(11:05):
example personal for me. But it's also call for the
community to step up and oppose this kind of behavior.
So we're, you know, we can read the whole tweet, but it would
take a long time. You can go back and check it
out. It's on Felix.
I'll put a link to it in the description, but look at this
post. This nasty nasty human being,
What about it deserves to be castrated and hanged by his legs
as a punishment for the shit he's been doing to the community
(11:26):
since 2023. Obviously I said he's just going
to hate my friend. We put ourselves in the public
so we can provide inspiration and sometimes the trolls come
out in full force. FM not worth our time.
You're doing great work, please don't let this discourage you.
Now let me preface this with what about It And Felix are a
juggernaut in this space. They're huge channel.
(11:49):
Felix has been at this for a long time.
Felix is a master of his craft. He does great things on his
channel, producing and making good content so the normal
person can enjoy it. If you're a normal person and
you're looking for NASA news or SpaceX news, you have an
(12:09):
entertaining host who's excited about what he does, telling you
about SpaceX, Starship, telling you about HLS, telling you about
NASA, just explaining things in a way that other people can't
do. And for that, I applaud Felix.
Now, some people are purists, right?
And they don't like that Felix gets 300,400 thousand millions
(12:32):
of views per video. I don't care how many views Alex
or Felix gets. What I care about is that he
presents the news in a way that is truthful and honorable.
And he does that for the most part.
Is there click bait? Yes, 100%.
But we're on YouTube. Like, that's what I don't think
(12:52):
people understand. You're on YouTube, so you got to
do things to make your channel get the views so you can
continue doing this as a job. You know, I never really cared
about that. I made thumbnails because I made
thumbnails. I this has always been a hobby
of mine and I really love spaceflight.
So I've never really cared aboutgoing down that path.
I did like a little click baity things, but it's not like crazy.
(13:15):
But what Felix does isn't also wild.
He doesn't do wild things. He's just a guy that likes
spaceflight, right? So why would anybody want to say
that? So right here is where it really
matters. The Space Flight community,
which I cherish for as Curiosity, is deeply divided.
I've had restless nights in question might approach a
struggle. I know other creators you very
(13:37):
likely know share. This isn't how it should be and
it's up to us to change the tone.
So this person that message Alexor Felix, sorry, I I'm thinking
about somebody else while I'm saying this message Felix while
thinking about those horrible things is not the normal Space
Flight nerd that we're all friends with, right?
(13:59):
That Space Flight nerd that we love and cherish is one of our
friends. Not this person that did this,
but like the other friends that we have, the Space Flight nerds
that we that we love and cherish, our friends, our peers,
the people that want to see launches happened.
The people that want to see Falcon Nines fly.
They want to see starships land on the moon and Mars.
They also want to see the SLS goto the moon and to further
(14:21):
destinations. They want to see other countries
succeed. And that's where we're at right
now. How do we as a community come
together and banish this idiot from our community?
You just ignore them. That's the best way to do it.
Ignore them, block them, ban them from your channel, whatever
you got to do. Just don't interact with them.
They're a troll. They're like a nasty person, you
(14:42):
know, just a piece of shit. That's it.
This is a piece of shit. And they did this to Felix
because they can. It's social media.
You can do whatever you want. Now, if you were going to do
that to somebody on social media, of course it should be
reported. You know, if that happened to
me, I'd be like this guy's, you know, this person's trying to
intimidate me by physical violence.
(15:03):
Please look into this. And of course it's on X, so they
don't care. And that's a horrible thing
anyway. Every creator risks facing such
hostility, or even small repeated criticisms build a
tough burden. And it's not enough to ignore
it. But at the same time, look man,
I'm going to tell you a story. And this is a thing that I've
(15:24):
talked about a few times on thischannel.
So I want to revisit this. There's two stories, but I'm
going to revisit one of them foryou.
And the hostility that Felix is seeing on the Internet actually
exists in real life. No one's going to say that to
your face, Of course, like this person is a loser.
And of course they're going to say the things that they say
(15:45):
online because it's easy and they're safe, right?
But I had an incident when I wasat Starbase and I was filming
late at night. Maybe not late, it's like 7:00
at night, but the sun was going down.
It was winter time and I was filming next to Hwy. 4, next to
the Starship, and somebody came up to me and asked me if I'm
(16:08):
will. And I said yeah, how's it going?
And they said, hey, I've seen your channel before.
I said how cool, thank you know,thanks for watching, man.
And they said I don't like the way basically like told me I
don't like the way you do thingsbecause you don't know enough.
I said well, yeah, I mean, I waslike, I'm just learning as I go.
That's basically what I told him.
I was like, I'm just learning asI go, man.
(16:29):
I'm just like you, like I'm learning as I go.
Everybody else has to. This is at the very beginning of
Starship and star base. So I was on the side of the
road. It was like a still 100° out.
It's like 7 whatever o'clock 7/30 8:00 at night.
And when they said that to me, Iwas like, you know what, you're
right, I don't know enough. And I'm that's why I'm learning.
(16:49):
And then they said some of your they didn't say anything like
with Felix. So I'm not going to compare
myself to Felix and what this incident's like, but this stuff
does happen in real life. And when they said that to me,
they also had this look on theirface.
They were like, they were like, who do you think you are, right?
I was like, I don't know, I'm just a guy.
I'm just a guy. I'm doing my thing.
I love Space Flight, I love rockets, and I think it's so
(17:11):
cool and I'm very blessed to be at Star Base right now doing my
thing, filming and also doing live streams from the side of
the road so everyone can see howcool Starship is.
They went on and on about how I don't know about the heat shield
that they're building. They weren't.
The heat shield wasn't even doneyet.
(17:31):
Like they've never flown the ship before.
They've never. They were like 6 months away
from flying the Starship. So everybody, including this
person in front of me was learning about starships.
So they didn't know anything either.
So nobody really knew it. Like we knew stuff, but we
didn't know everything, right? So I knew what I knew.
They knew what they knew. Maybe they knew, maybe they had
a background in, you know, spaceflight or some sort of
(17:55):
flight, but I was just a fan. And by the time I get done
talking with them, they had ripped me apart.
And I sat there and talked with them for about 10 minutes.
I was being very rational. They were ripping me apart like
why are you, why are you using a200 millimeter lens on my
camera? So they were talking about
camera gear, but they were also talking about how I didn't know
(18:17):
about spaceflight. And I was like, well, This is
why I use the camera that I do. This is why I use the gear that
I do, and the reason why I live stream from here is because I
think people should know about this.
So it was some drama. The person was visibly pissed
off. Like not even like a little bit
upset at all. They were pissed off.
They were in my face, like yelling at me the whole time.
(18:39):
And I'm trying to downplay it because I don't care about this
person. They're just some idiot, right?
Come to find out after all of this, and here's the twist, they
were from another spaceflight channel, a huge spaceflight
channel, and they decided it wastheir duty to tell me how to do
what I was doing. And I agreed with them at some
of the things. I was like, look, man, I could
(19:01):
probably use a bigger lens, but I don't have money to buy a
bigger lens. You know, I could be using a
different whatever, but I didn'thave the means to do that.
I was just barely scraping by itat that point.
So I was doing what I could do. And of course, like, I don't
care about this person. I know who they are now.
I I've seen them in the community and what they were
(19:21):
trying to do is intimidate me toleave star base.
So them and their channel didn'thave competition back then
because there were only a few ofus doing that back then, right?
It was me and like a few other bigger channels, Jessica Kirsch
and a couple other people back in the day doing this.
And because it was such a small all community down there,
(19:44):
there's not many people. Not many people down there,
dude. Like, I'm not going to figure
out who you are. Coffee.
It's a pretty cool Tumblr, by the way.
Anyway, the whole story turned into giant drama behind the
scenes. I called the person out.
I said, hey, why are you being this way?
Like, what do you care? I'm just some guy.
I'm not taking massive amounts of views from you.
(20:06):
I was getting like. 3040 thousand views per per stream,
mind you. And I was making good money
doing streaming. Not like good, not good money.
I was just saying like I'd make money to like pay rent and get
gas money to get down to Starbase.
And they're like, I was like, yeah, I'm making enough money to
survive. And that was it, you know, And I
had people that were supporting me on Patreon and that was
really wonderful. But thing is, this person was a
(20:29):
shithead straight up trying to intimidate me out of the scene.
Little do they know, I didn't care who they were.
I didn't care. I was like, look, bro, I don't
care if you're a photographer, Idon't care if you're a
videographer. All I care about is that you're
being a shithead. And that was it.
I was like, and for my, for the most part, I kept it cool.
I was like, all right, dude, cool, you just go do your thing.
(20:52):
Just leave me alone. I'm just trying to do my thing.
And of course, because they havea vested interest in finances,
they need to make money for their channel and their friends
channel and the conglomerate that they had.
There was, of course, something behind it all.
So you look to the money, of course, behind everything that
(21:13):
somebody's doing. Jim Bridenstine, look to the
money with with Jimmy Jam over there.
I've always had good things to say about Jim.
But now I think he's kind of, you know, I don't know, he's
probably a great guy, but he's just trying to fend for himself
and make as much money as he canwhile he's here, you know,
making money for his family. And that's what you do.
And as a grown up, that's what you do.
You make money for your family so your kid can go to college,
(21:35):
you can buy a better house. So you're not like it.
I'm sure Jim isn't hard up for money, but if you can make as a,
you know, as somebody who's going to lobby for Blue Origin
or Boeing or something, they're going to pay millions of dollars
to do that. Millions of dollars every single
year and by you doing the the least amount of work, I'm not
(21:55):
saying Jim doesn't work, but I'mjust saying like you're going to
lobby. So you're basically going to put
ideas out there. You're going to be a content
creator literally, but you're going to put the content in
front of people who matter in Washington, not on YouTube.
But when you trace it back to the beginning, it all goes back
to money. So Jimmy Jam Bridensten, not my,
(22:17):
my friend Jimmy Jam, but Jimmy Jam the other Jimmy Jam the the
other guy, he is not the best for SpaceX right now is SpaceX
can land this and they have an idea of how to do this as a
simpler approach, right? They have a simpler approach.
According to space News, simplified approach.
They've they've done a new approach this the moon and
(22:40):
before here we go. So this is the whole approach.
They have plenty of things that they can do in order to make it
easier for them to dock. They make it easier for them to
go to the moon, for them to landon the moon.
Not a bunch of transports, just refueling in orbit.
Not 20 times like some NASA officials have said.
(23:01):
Anywhere between 10 and 20 is what people think.
But we don't know yet. We don't know Elon and his crew
over here at SpaceX. And I'm going to do it in like
maybe 5 * 5 refill tankers. And that's one of the things,
right? And this is new footage that
SpaceX has released. But this whole blog post shows
all the ways that they're going to make it to the moon in a
(23:23):
cheaper fashion, like an easier way.
So my understanding is SpaceX was thinking 15, the 10 to 15
tankers to begin with. What happened between Jim
Bridenstine and this post, this blog post?
When did this all happen? When was the engineering going
to be laid out for the normal person?
(23:45):
So this is damage control from SpaceX.
NASA selected Starship in 2021 to serve as the Lander for
Artemis return to humans and then the the selection was made
through fair and open communication with which
determined the SpaceX bid utilizing Starship had the
highest technical in management ratings while being the lowest
cost by a wide margin. Yeah.
(24:06):
So they this is where they statetheir case.
They're sending it to the public.
Look at all these M dashes by the way, did AI write this?
No, I'm sure they didn't. Sure AI didn't because there's
only two M dashes two or three, but the other ones for boil off.
But they're calling Jim out. They're saying look man, you are
(24:26):
owned by Washington now you've always been owned by Washington.
That's where the money goes right into your pocket, Jim.
So I want, I want you to think about this the next time Elon
Musk goes on a little rant and he says something about the
government or Washington or something like that.
I think about where that other person's money comes from.
(24:47):
Think about Elon's interests as well, because Elon is always
interested in padding Elon's pocket and also his company's
pocket. He wants to keep his money in
his companies of course he doesn't want to spend extra
money or have other people beat him to the punch.
He doesn't want other people to get to the moon before him
because he'd look like a loser after beating his chest for so
(25:09):
long. The SpaceX is the best what a
small company like Blue Origin might beat him there doesn't
want that either. So that all being said let me
know in the comments. But you 2 are I got to say it,
right? Let me know in the comments.
Let me know the comments what you think.
I want to know what you feel about this because it is an
intense situation between Elon, SpaceX, Jim Bridenstine,
(25:31):
Washington DC. But now that we have somebody
else who's an Elon ally as the head of NASA, I mean, I think
things are going to be a lot smoother.
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