好了。这是不可思议的一年。我认为，SpaceX团队是迄今为止地球上组建过的最优秀的太空团队。而过去一年的成就证明了这一点，我认为其程度令人震撼。你们过去一年所取得的成就简直不可思议。终有一天，我们确实会进驻火星。

那么，让我们逐项回顾SpaceX所取得的、由你们完成的一切，顺便说一下，这实际上会花上一些时间。这得花一会儿。

那么首先，凭借贝尔金，我们实现了有史以来任何火箭在单个年份中的最多发射次数。所以下一个最好的成绩是苏联的联盟号，我记得它一年进行了略多于60次发射，而我们进行了96次。

所以。

这，这，是的。所以，没有其他轨道级火箭家族一年发射超过63次。那个纪录属于联盟号，而我们多了50%。就重型运载火箭而言，猎鹰重型也超过了土星5号的纪录，我想，是的，我们凭借去年5次发射，超过了土星5号的纪录。所以这真是相当不可思议。还有猎鹰重型。所以这些图片能让你直观感受到那有多么不可思议。

你知道，有一阵子我会想，当我发些什么东西时，这说的是刚刚发生的那次发射，还是正在进行的那次，或者是，因为短短几天里就进行了大概3次发射。所以，不过这一页上是所有的发射，是的，所以真的、真的不可思议。全都进入了轨道，全都着陆了。所以，请为猎鹰团队热烈鼓掌。那太不可思议了。

所以，其中2/3的任务是星链任务，但1/3是为其他客户执行的，包括NASA和其他通信卫星。所以，这是我们的星链任务加上许多其他任务的组合。因此，即使只看飞行任务中非星链的部分，也远远多于去年的任何其他飞行器。我们发射了NASA的灵神星探测器、欧洲航天局的欧几里得空间望远镜、X37B空天飞机以及多次Transporter任务；我们还为OneWeb、ViaSat发射了任务，而且我们实际上已经签约，将发射亚马逊的柯伊伯星座。

而且我们公平对待所有人。所以，你知道，就一个。而且我们成功让同一枚猎鹰9号助推器执行了19次飞行，在3年半的时间里，这真的不可思议。所以，那枚飞行器确实，那枚助推器，发射了860颗卫星，并将260公吨送入轨道。所以，简直是，哇。所以有很多个“哇”。

而且值得一提的是，你知道，我们让助推器着陆是多久以前？实际上是8年前的12月，大约8年前。从那以后，我们已经着陆了260次。所以是260次着陆，简直让人惊叹。

我是说，当时有很多人说这是做不到的。然后也有很多人说，即使能做到，这也会，这也是个愚蠢的想法，说不，它不会有回报，它不会，你知道，不会有意义。但我们已经证明，事实上这绝对是正确的想法。可重复使用是通往伟大太空未来的关键。它至关重要。我们需要卡车能够重复使用，就像汽车、飞机、自行车和马匹都能重复使用一样。

显然，可重复使用至关重要。而要让人类成为多行星物种，所必需的根本性发明是，是完全且快速地，基本上是可快速重复使用的可靠火箭。

所以，就像太空海盗。

所以，我是说，8年间发生了这么多事情，真是不可思议。所以，你知道，我很好奇8年后会是什么样子？

现在，希望我们已经，我想我们届时已经登陆火星，我想我们会把人送上月球；而且如果运气好的话，我们会在8年内把人送上火星。

你知道，那个，你知道，我对文明思考的某种关键问题是，对文明的关键考验或许是：我们能否通过那个精子般的、从单行星文明迈向多行星文明的“大过滤器”？

而如果我们真的成为多行星文明，我们也许会走向其他恒星系统，并发现许多早已消亡的单行星文明。我们不想成为其中之一。那太逊了。我们并不是要责怪单行星文明，但我认为我们应该始终把文明视为脆弱的，而不是某种，不是一个必然会沿着上升轨迹发展的局面。我读过很多历史，而如果你审视，如果你阅读历史，就会看到文明绝非永恒。

许多文明在这些年里、在数百年和数千年间兴起又衰落，而且。

太阳最终会膨胀，煮沸海洋并摧毁地球上的所有生命。诚然，那是，你知道，未来几亿年后的事，但那大约只相当于地球自身存在时间的10%或20%。如果地球已有45亿年历史，那么再延长10%、10%、20%，生命就不会，或者说智慧生命就不会进化出来，因为我们花了很长时间才走到这一步。

所以，那才是真正的关键考验。我们是否会成为一个能够自给自足的多行星文明。

趁文明仍然存在时做到这一点，还是做不到？我认为这才是真正的关键问题。

我认为我们成功的机会很大，但这并非板上钉钉。

所以时间至关重要。我认为我们要尽快让火星实现自给自足。问题不只是把人送上火星，而是要把足够吨位的物资和设备送上火星，从而让，使火星能够自给自足。关键考验是，如果来自地球的补给飞船因任何原因停止抵达，我们，火星是会灭亡，还是会延续下去？那就是，那才是真正需要跨过的基本门槛，费米悖论。

大过滤器。费米悖论就是：外星人在哪里？你知道，如果生命很普遍，如果智慧生命很普遍，我们难道不应该看到大量相关证据吗？其实很多人会问我，你知道，关于外星人的事，而我通常会说我就是一个。嗯，实际上我以前是，根据，你知道，美国国土安全部的说法，那张卡上写着“外侨登记卡”。确实如此。我当时就想，好吧，所以。

但事实是，我确实没有见过任何外星人的证据，而我认为这或许比我见过证据更令人不安。

我一个都没见过，而且我会关注这件事，我几乎可以保证，我会立刻发帖谈论它。好吧。

我当时就说，对，我们发现了一个。

这肯定是一艘宇宙飞船。但我什么都没见过。所以这让我认为，我们更有可能只是浩瀚虚空、无边黑暗中的一支微小意识烛火。你知道，我们拥有的文明其实只是浩瀚黑暗中这支非常、非常微小的烛火。我们必须尽一切可能确保这支烛火不会熄灭。

是的，总之，我认为我们能做到。所以，你知道，但我们必须迅速行动，因为你永远不知道。我是说，可能会有，你知道，在任何时候都有一个，像史蒂芬·霍金实际上，我相信，曾说过，他认为文明在任何一个世纪终结的概率大约是1%。那是他的粗略估计。我认为实际概率甚至可能比这更高。所以我们只想尽快到达那里。

所以这是，回到 Falcon 9，回到现实。

这是，这些是我们完成的所有发射。你们可以看到，随着时间推移，发射节奏是如何迅速加快的。

我想网上其实有人制作了展示每次发射的视频，而当视频推进到2023年时，速度就快得近乎疯狂。

所以，是的，所以我们已经，而且我们已经完成了一次19、3飞行。我们现在正对 Falcon 9 进行资质认证，使其能够完成40次飞行，而我们今年的目标可能高达150次飞行。所以。还有，别忘了整流罩回收，因为实际上很多人没有意识到，我们也会回收整流罩。回收整流罩其实非常困难，所以这投入了极其巨大的努力。但我们现在已经能够相当常规地回收整流罩，而且整流罩已经复飞了300次。

所以祝贺整流罩回收团队。那实际上真他妈难。

哦，当然，我们基本上还运营着一支小型舰队。我觉得人们并不总是知道这一点，不过我们有，你知道，无人船以及各种类型的支援船。所以我们有一支小型船队，而且运营得非常高效。

人们有时也不知道它有多大。比如，你可以通过在船上走动的人看出船的大小。它并不小，所以看起来很酷。我喜欢这种有点达斯·维德式的美学，不过它。反正我喜欢。

所以。而且，而且我们在发射台周转方面也做得越来越好了。我们实现了3天的发射台周转，我想我们的目标是，希望，我觉得，在今年年底前把发射台周转时间缩短到24小时以内。

所以就……而言。是的。发射频率。

对。所以自猎鹰1号第1次飞行以来已经有15年了。抱歉，是猎鹰1号第4次飞行，也就是第一次进入轨道的那次。

所以，距离我们首次把任何东西送入轨道已经过去15年了。

对。而现在我们的目标是今年完成150次左右的飞行。所以。

而且现在这些都是大型火箭。猎鹰1号是一枚小火箭。事实上，现在看到猎鹰1号时，我就会想，天啊，我觉得自己大概能把它夹在胳膊下面，直接带回家，你知道，就像在后院发射它之类的。它看起来太可爱了。

但在当时，猎鹰1号确实显得极其，它极其困难。我们用了4次飞行才进入轨道，而且当时它看起来确实有点大，但现在它就像个可爱的小东西。

所以。对。

所以我认为，最深刻的指标，或者说真正体现SpaceX在2023年所取得成就之规模的指标，是入轨质量。所以。你可以看到，仅仅逐年相比就发生了不可思议的变化。所以2021年，我们略低于世界其他地区，22年，我认为我们大约是世界其他地区的2倍。而去年，我们占全部入轨质量的80%。所以我们所说的世界其他地区，是指美国其他同行，你知道，还有欧洲、印度、中国、日本，所有人。

所以，没有多少行业会由一家公司完成全部工作中的大约80%。

然后真正令人难以置信的是，这个数字今年应该还会增长50%。所以我估计，大约会占全部入轨质量的90%，这还不算星舰。所以如果我们开始，当我们开始发射星舰时，星舰每次飞行大约能把100吨送入轨道。有一条路径可以让星舰在完全可重复使用的情况下做到超过200吨，在完全可重复使用的情况下把200吨送入实用轨道。

而且，对，这确实是一个不可思议的数量。去年送入轨道的有效载荷达到1200吨。

对，这简直令人震惊。所以我认为这确实值得一轮掌声。哇。我的意思是，这最令人难以置信。

而且增长速度简直惊人。未来这些数字实际上会显得非常小。为了在火星上建造一座城市，我们需要达到大约100万吨入轨质量的水平。

所以也许要稍微高一些，理想情况下稍微高一些。但如果你只是想把数值确定在正确的数量级上，比如不是试图得到确切数字，而是试图把数量级估对，那么我认为大约需要把100万吨送入地球轨道。这能让你把大约200,000吨送到火星表面。所以，你送入地球轨道的任何东西，大约有20%能够送到火星表面。

所以，可以设想一下，为了这件事，为了实现自给自足，我们也许至少需要把100万吨有效载荷送到火星表面。那个自给自足的门槛其实非常难以达到，因为即使你缺少一件微小的东西，最终那个火星也会消亡。所以你不仅要能制造比如计算机芯片，还需要能够建造计算机芯片工厂。

因为你无法建造计算机芯片工厂。你确实建造出来的工厂最终会损坏，然后你就没有芯片了，然后你就。到此为止了。所以这有点像漫长的海上航行，如果你唯独缺少维生素C。对。你还能继续航行一段时间。但随后，你知道，你的牙齿会掉光，然后你会死。所以在过去，这确实是一个问题。所以总之，这是一个相当高的门槛，而且火星，火星是一颗需要修缮的星球，你知道，需要做些工作，但你不可能只是在户外到处跑，然后，你知道，捕鱼或者靠土地生活，你知道，你无法在火星上靠土地生活。

所以，要让那件事实现，确实需要做大量工作。

所以，龙飞船取得了惊人的进展，也有着不可思议的成功记录。

所以截至去年，龙飞船舰队的在轨时间已经超过了航天飞机舰队。所以截至去年，我们的累计在轨时间是1300天，超过1300天。所以这非常令人难以置信，龙飞船如今的在轨天数已经超过了整个航天飞机舰队。简直是，哇。所以，是的，而且现在龙飞船造访空间站的次数也已经超过了航天飞机。这是龙飞船团队取得的一项不可思议、不可思议的成就。

所以，再一次。

正如我刚才所说，这确实是不可思议的一年，2023年可能是公司历史上最好的一年。我的意思是，实际上这就是公司历史上最好的一年。所以有很多了不起的事情要讲。

所以，我不是那种会虚假赞美别人的人，因此你们所取得的，所取得的成就确实令人难以置信。

所以去年的所有任务都使用了经过飞行验证的龙飞船。所以这些全都，这些龙飞船此前全都飞过，而今年我们计划执行大概7次或8次龙飞船任务。所以，龙飞船团队确实取得了，是的，极其出色的成功。

这个没有音频，太空中没有声音。

是的，这是一套很棒的，那是一套看起来很棒的宇航服，还有龙飞船内部。

所以，是的，所以准确地说，我们现在已经把42人送入轨道。进入太空相对容易，但进入轨道非常困难。所以我们现在已经把42人送入轨道并带了回来。

而且我得说，就像。

是的，如果说我有什么愿望，那就是我们把他们全都安全带回来。就像有些人会觉得，比如说，你唯一的愿望是什么？我说，我希望我们把这些宇航员安全带回来。这就是一个愿望。如果我能有一个愿望，那就是这个。

所以我们现在还在佛罗里达州完成了第2条载人通道臂。所以我们有了2座塔架，也就是有2个发射台，能够将宇航员送入，送入轨道。这将非常有利于在40号发射台和39A号发射台之间调配任务。

今年我们将进行首次太空行走。

所以我们必须重新设计宇航服，让你真的能穿着它活动，而不是就像，你知道的，一下子鼓出来，因为如果你只是给宇航服充气，你知道的，基本上，你知道的，你就有点像派对上的那种气球之类的东西，你知道的。所以，要让充气后的宇航服仍然可以活动，让关节能够活动之类的，是相当困难的。而且，而且之后我们实际上会抽空整个航天器。

所以所有人，即使是那些不参加太空行走的人，也仍将处于真空中。所以显然，让它正常工作非常重要。

你知道的，我们不能让宇航服上有个小洞之类的，或者有什么东西四处乱飞。

所以。但是我认为，你知道，显然我们会对此进行大量测试，而且，但这将是另一个重大里程碑，也就是拥有一套宇航服，让你可以置身于太空真空中，周围什么都没有，完全什么都没有，就待在那里。

很难，这种虚无的概念实际上很难想象。而且严格来说也不是什么都没有，比如每立方米还是有少量粒子，但已经他妈的非常接近什么都没有了。

你知道，如果你失去太多、太多空气，太多氧气，那就完了。没有地方可以获得氧气。所以就像飞机，即使在高空，也可以加大增压泵的功率，并从中获得更多大气。因为它处于大气层中，龙飞船发生氧气泄漏，而氧气泄漏又过于严重。那就没有地方可以获得氧气。你只会死掉。所以，让一切都做到完美，其要求高得离谱。

这，一切都必须绝对完美才能运行。

我的意思是，我们并没有，你知道，进化成能在太空中生活的样子，显然，所以这很难。但这，这真的将是另一个伟大的里程碑，也就是实际上能让某个人漂浮在那里，你知道，在太空真空中，然后回来。

而且我们确实想要有，我们想要有一套你可以穿着四处走动的宇航服，因为如果你在月球上，你在，你会想要能在月球上四处走动，在火星上四处走动。所以，拥有一套高机动性的宇航服，它最好不要贵得离谱，而且你能穿着它舒适地四处走动，这是一件大事。这实际上是需要开发的一项重要事物，并且最终要大批量制造，因为如果我们把比如100万人送往火星，那么你就需要100万套宇航服，或者说100万套火星服。

所以我们将不得不制造很多这种东西。而且我们还会在那次飞行中发射星链。那么接下来谈星链，这，这只是另一家完全独立的公司，但我们基本上正在太空中建设、重新建设互联网，这相当疯狂。而现在它是，我想强调，是对地面互联网的补充。有时人们会想，嗯，星链是不是要直接接管并摧毁所有地面互联网？

它肯定不会。但它会做的是，星链将让那些无法接入互联网，或是接入费用极其昂贵，或接入质量非常、非常差的人能够使用互联网。因此，这将极大地推动并帮助偏远地区的人们学习任何东西。比如说，现在你基本上可以在互联网上免费学到几乎任何东西。举例来说，MIT 把所有课程都放在了 YouTube 上。

只要有互联网连接，你就能、你就能学到几乎任何东西。但如果你没有互联网连接，你就只能依靠，我想，书，你知道，也许你有一些书之类的。但不是，它、它是，基本上，星链在改善世界各地人们的生活质量方面是一个改变游戏规则的事物。比如，它可能是最……嗯，当然是其中之一，我认为随着时间推移，它可能会成为改善世界各地人们生活水平的头号技术。

它无疑有可能成为真正改善世界各地人们生活质量的最具深远影响的事物。显然，这会是一件真正值得自豪的事情。

那么让我们看看。我们现在正在引入 V2 mini。所以，这是我们正在引入星座的下一代卫星。对，这些卫星的容量是去年的 2 倍、2 倍。因此，从每秒 88 太比特提高到每秒 165 太比特。

而从技术角度看，我们对星链最大的单项目标，是将平均延迟降至 20 毫秒以下。所以这会，这实际上会带来即时性，也就是实际互联网体验的质量。这其实是一件非常重要的事。另外，如果你像我有时那样玩电子游戏，这也很重要，否则你就会输。所以，所以无论如何，这其实是一个非常、非常困难的问题。

但因为我们是一个近地轨道星座，光速，它是，你们觉得光速是多少？

每毫秒 300 公里。所以，如果我们位于 550 公里的高度，向上大约要 2 毫秒，向下 2 毫秒。因此，如果你上、下、上、下，就是 8 毫秒。这是光速的限制。然后，几乎所有其他方面我们其实都可以解决。比如，我们还不能超过光速，你知道，不过可能永远也不能。

但我认为，我们可以把其余时间降到 10 毫秒以下。这样一来，它在大多数情况下基本上会比地面互联网的响应速度更快，这其实正是我们在这里追求的目标。

所以，对，这真的是非常了不起的工作。我们现在也已经发射了氩洞推进器，这种推进器成本非常低，而且使用储量丰富的氩。因此，我们已经不再使用氪，氪也没有那么稀有。我的意思是，如果超人真的来到这里，那就像，弄点氪，你知道，水枪之类的东西。好，现在是什么？

所以氪是一种稀有气体。也就是说，它算是比较稀有，但如果我们随第 2 代卫星发射时使用氪，我们实际上会消耗全世界很大比例的氪。因此，我们改用了阿贡。而氩实际上储量极其丰富。事实上，此刻你呼吸的气体中大约有 1% 是氩。所以氩，氩有很多，而且。但这确实是，我认为，第一个具有重要意义的氩洞推进器，而且当然是迄今为止成本效益和功率效率最高的。

星链团队打造这款推进器，并对这个进行了许多其他升级，确实做得非常出色。然后还有太空激光方面的东西。我的意思是，就这一点而言，我认为我们现在通过太空中的激光链路发送的数据量，至少是以往任何其他系统的 1,000 倍，或许是 10,000 倍。我认为，通过卫星之间的星链激光互连，我们传输的数据量很快就会达到 100 万倍，或许还不止。

所以我们现在有 9,000 个活跃的太空激光器。所以这有点隐约让我想起邪恶博士，你知道，实际上，是来自太空的激光。嗯，我想我很久以前就开过这个玩笑。就像 Dragon 确实装有激光雷达。它有一个类似激光器的东西，用于，你知道，与空间站对接。所以就像带激光的龙。我的意思是，比如，这比带激光的电击要好。

每条链路、每条激光链路都能达到每秒 100 吉比特，我们还在设法提高这个数字。

那么让我们看看，这是展示星链所有已启用地区的动画。

显然，星链在很多地方启用服务都取决于各国的批准。因此，当我们能够获得一个国家的批准时，你就会看到它在该国迅速普及；希望我们能获得大多数国家，大多数，其余国家的批准，希望是在今年，这样我们就能够覆盖几乎全球。一些国家可能不太可能批准我们的系统，但我们认为，我们应该能够进入大多数、大多数国家。

所以，我们今年的目标是在覆盖世界一半以上人口的地区启用服务。那会非常棒。但我确实想强调，因为我们要把这场演示放到网上，星链是地面互联网的补充。它不会取代地面互联网。星链，它在低人口密度地区之类的地方表现得非常好，但它在高密度城市确实不会有竞争力，或者说，它真正适合人口密度很低的情形，而那里也正是真正存在需求的地方。

所以无论如何，我想说的是，它能与其他互联网服务提供商很好地协同运作。

然后我们有社区网关。有人告诉我，这是阿拉斯加州一座名叫乌纳拉斯卡的小镇，所以那是一个真实存在的地方。

所以我们正在部署更多网关。随着网关数量增加，延迟会得到改善。我们现在已经交付了下一代硬件，那是第 4 版用户终端。所以这让我们能够降低星链的成本。我们还将在今年晚些时候推出可以装进背包的 Starlink mini。所以，对于任何想要非常实惠的星链的人来说，那会非常酷。

然后，我们刚刚在得克萨斯州巴斯特罗普启用了星链工厂。所以那里只是离奥斯汀，你知道，大约 20 分钟路程。而这，这将会是。对，我想你们当中有些人就是那里的一员。

对。总的来说，我们得给星链来一轮热烈的掌声。那是肯定的，因为那里的成就水平实际上令人惊叹。让我们就来一轮热烈的掌声吧，真他妈厉害。

对，抱歉，在这东西上很难鼓掌。

是的，椋鸟取得的成就真的令人难以置信。

所以，就好像星链系统是矩阵中的一个异常。

然后，我们最近还刚刚发射了第一批手机直连卫星，而且我们能够直接从手机向卫星发送短信，然后再传回地面。顺便说一下，我们确实是故意把这些内容拼错的。所以，尽管其实我第一次看到时，我还在想，这是真的吗？

结果它确实是真的。这是。对，基本上是一些狗狗币笑话。

所以，是的，总之，你手中的手机居然能与数百英里外的卫星建立链路，这有点不可思议。

而且卫星能听到你的手机发出的微弱信号，就像极其轻微的低语。这太离谱了，但它不知怎么真的能听到那微弱的低语，并且能够与手机通信是。我觉得这属于那种我曾想过这在物理上真的可行吗的事情，但现在已经可行了。我确实想强调，这也不是电话公司的竞争对手。这是一种补充性的东西。

所以，它对没有蜂窝网络连接的偏远地区会非常有帮助，或者偶尔在城市里，如果城市中有某个地方没有网络连接，那么星链将能够与手机通信。但它是。我想，一个蜂窝小区内大约是 7 Mbps。而这些小区的面积大概有数百平方英里或平方公里。所以它确实，它适合，你知道，短信。

严格来说，如果只有你一个人，或者那个小区里只有几个人，你可以进行视频通信。比如你在太平洋中央之类的地方，那么。但这会是非常有帮助的东西，而且我认为，它将挽救人们的生命。你知道，如果有人在偏远地区徒步旅行，然后迷路了，那么现在他们的手机实际上可以用了。我认为它确实会挽救很多生命，这很酷。

所以。

然后，我们已经公布了 7 项合作关系。所以我们有美国的 T Mobile、加拿大的 Rogers、澳大利亚的 Optus、新西兰的 one、瑞士的 SALT、日本的 KDI，以及智利和秘鲁的 intel。所以。而且我们预计今年还会公布多项其他电信运营商合作关系。所以，这绝对是我们再次与电信运营商合作的事情。我基本上只是不想让电信运营商真的对我们非常生气。我是说，你知道，我们想支持电信运营商，然后当然。

这里放慢了一点，所以。

但第一次发射确实花了。花了好一阵子才离开发射台。有那么一会儿我有点担心。它。

我是说，当它起飞时，我当时想，哇，我简直不敢相信它起飞了。那就是我的反应。

所以我觉得，我们去年起飞了 2 次，这太不可思议了。

我是说，尽管我从一开始就一直非常，你知道，密切地，你知道，参与 Stasher 项目。

其实我曾住在这里，这里是我3年来的主要住所。

这里以前是一片沙洲，基本上就是我们现在看到的这个地方。

而现在这里有了一座先进的火箭工厂和一个巨大的发射台。外面还有一大批火箭。

但它真的组装起来并起飞了，我仍然感到惊讶。我当时就想，哇。我的意思是，星舰的推力是土星5号的2倍多。它绝对是有史以来最大的飞行物体。

而且，你知道，随着未来的一些升级，我认为它的推力实际上可能会超过2000万磅。土星5号则是750万磅。所以它最终会达到土星5号推力的3倍。

而且它会大量飞行。它必须大量飞行。所以它最终会从世界各地许多不同的地点每天飞行数次。我认为它也很有可能用于地球上的点对点运输，因为在地球上从一个地方前往另一个地方的最快方式，你知道，要从这里前往地球另一端，就是洲际弹道导弹。不过只要确保去掉核弹，加上着陆部分就行。

基本上，这是前往某个地方的最快方式。

对。哇。

然后在第1次和第2次飞行之间，我们进行了多项重大升级。所以这个。发射台显然进行了一次重大升级。所以我们这里就像有很多个尼亚加拉瀑布。

我的意思是，水压大到如果水直接向上喷，实际上会摧毁火箭。水压就是这么大。

所以就像，哇。而且它奏效了，就像真的去看了。第2次发射后，我最先去看的东西之一就是发射台，因为显然在第1次发射后，我们挖出了一个相当大的坑。

老实说，看起来你完全可以直接。看起来根本没有任何损坏。就像基本上可以再次发射，以完整的发射台本身。

所以团队一夜之间彻底改进发射台，做得非常出色。对，人们总喜欢拿自由女神像来作比较。自由女神像没那么大。我当时就像，我当时就像，我去过那里。很久以前，我真的沿着那条狭窄的楼梯爬上过自由女神像。不过不管怎样，这是一枚巨大的火箭，而且随着时间推移，它还会变得更大。所以，对，所以那就是。我不知道你们有没有看过《金刚大战哥斯拉》，那就像是我看过的最疯狂的电影之一。

但它纯粹疯狂到某种程度，倒也挺有娱乐性的。

疯狂的是，我们的发射塔比机械哥斯拉还大，而且它基本上会做同样的事，不过是用机械臂，你知道，就像接住火箭。当我告诉人们，对，我们要用巨型机械臂接住有史以来最大的飞行物体时，他们会说，这不可能是真的。

我的意思是，我们也可以给它装上腿。

就给它装上腿，让它四处跺着走。那会很酷。

所以，然后我们还要建造第2座塔。

所以我们真的会进行大量发射，而且会在从一座塔发射的同时升级另一座塔。所以2座塔很重要。

第1次和第2次飞行之间实际上有太多升级，要把它们全部讲完，真的得花上好几个小时。但最大的升级之一，是将发动机的驱动方式从液压改为电动。所以这实际上节省了大量质量，也降低了复杂性。所以，对，电动TVC，我的意思是，它。它就是。这是最大的升级之一。我们还大幅升级了隔热罩。发动机本身也得到了大幅升级。

火箭上的每样东西简直都像是。第1次和第2次飞行之间可能进行了数千项升级。所以第1次和第2次飞行之间确实有了巨大的改进。而且第2次和第3次飞行之间显然也有许多改进。然后我们还有一整套开发计划，就像我说的，最终要实现完全可重复使用的火箭，能够经常将超过200吨送入轨道。完全可重复使用。

对，热分级。

我的意思是，热分级是一项改动，基本上，我不知道，真的只用了大约3或4个月，也许更短，从。或者大概是这样。从之前只是什么都不做、直接把火箭分离，到。在第1级发动机仍在产生推力时实际点燃上面级的发动机，同时没有让飞船爆炸，这。这是一项惊人的成就。所以我当时就像，哇，那真是。

而且它奏效了。所以我当时就像，哇。那么接下来让我们看看第2盏灯。

所以，对，大家热烈鼓掌。哇。

所以第2次飞行实际上差一点就进入了轨道。事实上，具有讽刺意味的是，如果它带有有效载荷，它本来就能进入轨道，因为它实际上没能完全进入轨道的原因，是我们排放了液氧，而液氧最终引发了火灾和爆炸，因为我们想排放液氧，因为如果带有有效载荷，我们通常不会有那些液氧。所以具有讽刺意味的是，如果它带有有效载荷，它本来就会进入轨道。

所以我认为第3次飞行很有希望抵达轨道。然后以快速的节奏实现完全且快速的重复使用。我的意思是，某种令人难以置信的事情是，我们确实正走在一条让生命实现多行星化的道路上。你他妈能相信吗？就，什么？

对，我们只需要在文明终结之前把它完成。但我认为这会实现。

对，就在这里。

所以不管怎样，就如何实现这一目标而言，我们显然希望加快生产和测试，达到很高的频率。你知道，对于任何特定的技术开发，关键就在于，你知道，你能进行多少次迭代，以及每次迭代之间的间隔有多长？所以每次发射我们都会有所了解，每次发射或进行测试，我们都会了解更多东西。所以要提高发射和测试的频率。

而且牺牲硬件总是好过牺牲时间。因为时间才是真正的、唯一真正的货币。

所以这算是实现我之前所说的快速、快速重复使用且可靠的火箭的最快路径。

对，所以我们有，对，一个区块，算是第2版飞船，它会更加可靠，性能和续航更好。我们还有第3版飞船的设计，它会拉长，会变得更高。等全部尘埃落定时，可能最终会达到，我不知道，140米。也许最终长度会达到150米。

所以对，它会比目前还要更高。

对。所以第1次飞行的目标是不把发射台炸毁，并且最好能飞出一段距离，我们在第2次飞行中做到了。那次是要通过级间分离。所以我们实现了通过级间分离的目标，并且几乎进入轨道。然后第3次飞行，我们，嗯，我们想进入轨道，而且想利用顶置贮箱进行一次太空中的发动机点火，并证明我们可以可靠地离轨。我们想进行一次临界点顶置域推进剂转移。

这对NASA的阿耳忒弥斯计划很重要。我们还想演示用于那种PEZ糖果分配器的有效载荷舱门，以便把星链、V2非mini版，实际上可能，我猜严格来说是V3，但确实是那些非常非常巨大的卫星送入轨道。

对，所以就像我说的，星舰最终的质量轨道将会是，你知道，随着时间推移，我认为会把数百万吨有效载荷送入轨道。

所以，我的意思是，与当今的主轨道相比。它会超过、超过1000倍，我是说，你知道，比目前的主轨道大1000多倍。这就是它最终会达到的程度，或者说必须达到的程度。

所以我们还想演示在轨加注。这对NASA的阿耳忒弥斯计划非常重要。所以我们非常自豪能成为NASA阿耳忒弥斯计划的一部分。我一直无比感激NASA的支持，以及他们信任我们去做。把宇航员送入轨道，把货物送到空间站，并成为让宇航员重返月球不可或缺的一部分。

我经常被问到的另一个问题是，我们真的去过月球吗？很多人都问过我这个问题，我就说，是的，我们去过月球，事实上不止一次。但疯狂的是，距离我们上一次登上月球已经过去半个多世纪了。所以，你知道，我想这也许就是人们产生怀疑的原因。比如，为什么我们现在不能去月球？

从莱特兄弟于1903年首次实现有控制的动力飞行，到69年登上月球，相隔66年。只有66年。但你知道，距离我们上一次登上月球已经过去了大约50年。

但现在我们要回到那里，而且很快就会回去。而且我想，我们不会只是去一趟，就像我们想要的那样。下一步，我认为，是建造一个月球基地，比如月球基地阿尔法。让科幻成为现实，去掉科幻中的“火”那部分。

所以，但是现在，但是为了前往月球并在那里着陆，我们必须解决的技术挑战之一是轨道加注，即让星舰对接，在轨道上对接并转移推进剂。现在，我们已经非常擅长对接了，因为我们让龙飞船与空间站对接，而这实际上比与我们自己的航天器对接更复杂。所以我们在对接方面拥有大量专业经验。因此，我相信我们会解决这个问题。

而且理想情况下，我们希望能在今年年底前解决它，但肯定会在明年、明年之内解决。这是一件大事。这是建造火星城市以及拥有一个火星、一个月球基地所必需的基础技术之一。

然后，是的，我们还会发射一些非常大的卫星。

世界上最大的农民事业。

我们确实希望在今年年底前做到这一点。

然后，是的，再多谈谈NASA载人着陆系统。所以，正如我所说，我们极其感谢NASA将阿耳忒弥斯计划的一个基础部分托付给我们，我们希望确保为NASA以及诸如此类的方面出色地完成工作。我们是阿耳忒弥斯计划中一个非常基础的组成部分。所以，如果我们没有成功——我们会成功的——但要让阿耳忒弥斯计划取得成功，我们就必须凭借星舰取得成功。而且正如我所说，我们实际上希望远远超越NASA要求我们完成的目标。

所以，我们希望远远超越NASA的要求，并且实际上能够以足够高的频率将足够多的有效载荷送上月球，从而真正建立一个永久有人驻留的月球基地。这是继阿波罗计划之后下一个真正重大的门槛，也就是拥有一个真正的月球基地。

我记得很久以前看过一部有点儿，我想算是有些俗气的科幻剧，叫《月球基地阿尔法》。我不知道有没有人看过，但剧中月球实际上漂离了地球。现在，这不会发生，但那是一部很酷的剧，《月球基地阿尔法》。

但我们需要一个真正的月球基地阿尔法，而且我们会把它建成。

所以然后，是的，正如我刚才所说，这、这就是长期目标。这就是我们希望火星呈现的样子：星舰来来往往。

一座令人难以置信的美丽火星城市，以及一个在火星上蓬勃发展的文明。

最终，我们可以通过地球化改造将火星变成一颗类地行星。

其实只需要让它变暖。然后你就可以，它最终可以成为一颗类地行星，而我们可以把地球上的生命带过去。我们可以把地球上的生命延伸到火星。

而且实际上必须是，你知道，实际上必须由人类来做。是的，因为不会是海豚。

所以。但是我们可以带上，我们可以带上所有生物，并且可以确保，即使在遥远的未来地球变得不再宜居之后，地球上的生命仍能在火星上延续。

All right. It's been an incredible year. The SpaceX team I think is the best space team that has ever been assembled on the face of the earth by far. And the achievements of the past year demonstrate that I think to a degree that is mind blowing. Like what you have achieved over the past year is nothing short of incredible. And one day we will indeed occupy Mars.

So let's go through everything that SpaceX has achieved that you've done and it's actually going to take a while by the way. This is going to take a minute.

So first of all, with Belkin we have achieved the most launches of any rocket in a single year ever. So the next best was the Soviet Soyuz, which I think did a little over 60 launches in a year and we did 96.

So.

This, this, yeah. So no other family of orbital class rockets has launched more than 63 times a year. That was Soyuz and we did 50% more. Falcon Heavy also surpassed in terms of heavy lift vehicles the record for Saturn V, which I think that yeah, we, with five launches last year we exceeded the Saturn V record. So that was like pretty incredible. And Falcon Heavy. So this gives you a sense in pictures of how incredible that was.

You know, for a while there I was like, when I was like, I'd be posting something, is this like the launch that just happened or the one that is happening or like because there were like three launches that happened in the space of a few days. So but this is all the launches on one page and yeah, so it's really, really incredible. All made it to orbit, all landed. So just a huge hand for the Falcon team. That was incredible.

So, And two thirds of the missions were Starlink, but a third were for other customers, for NASA, for other communication satellites. So it was a combination of our of Starlink plus a lot of other missions. So even if you just take the non Starlink portion of the flights, that was more than any other vehicle. Last year by a long shot. We launched NASA's Psyche, ESA's Euclid, the X37B space plane, multiple transporter missions, we launched missions for OneWeb, ViaSat, and we're actually on contract to launch Amazon's Kuiper Constellation.

And we treat everyone fairly. So you know, just one. And we managed to do 19 flights on a single Falcon 9 booster, which is really incredible in three and a half years. So and that vehicle did that booster, did 860 satellites and delivered 260 metric tons to orbit. So it's like wow. So there's a lot of wows.

And it's worth, you know, like how long ago was it that we landed a booster? It was actually eight years ago in December, roughly eight years ago. And since that time we've landed 260 times. So 260 landings, just like wow.

I mean there were a lot of people that said that it couldn't be done. And then there were a lot of people that said even if it could be done, it's gonna, it's a dumb idea that, no, that it wouldn't, it wouldn't pay off, that it wouldn't, you know, wouldn't make sense. But we've shown that in fact it is absolutely the right idea. Reusability is the key to a great future in space. It's essential. We need reusability for truck, it's just like we have reusability for cars, for airplanes, for bicycles, for horses.

Obviously reusability is essential. And the fundamental invention that is necessary for humanity to become a multi planet species is, is a full and rapidly, basically rapidly reusable reliable rockets.

So like space pirate.

So it's, I mean it's incredible how much has happened in eight years. So you know, I wonder what will things be like eight years from now?

Now hopefully we have, I think we will have landed on Mars and I think we will have sent people to the moon and maybe if we get lucky, we will have sent people to Mars within eight years.

You know the, you know the key question sort of, I think about for civilization is the key test perhaps for civilization is do we make it through the spermy great filter of going from a one planet civilization to a multi planet civilization?

And if we do become a multi planet civilization, we may go out there to other star systems and discover many long dead one planet civilizations. And we don't want to be one of them. That's lame. We don't want to blame one planet civilizations, but I think we should always regard civilization as fragile, as not something that, not a situation where there is an inevitable upward trajectory. I mean I read a lot about history and if you look at, if you read history, you see that civilizations are anything but permanent.

That many civilizations have risen and fallen over the years, over the centuries and millennia, and.

Eventually the sun will expand, boil the oceans and destroy all life on earth. Now admittedly that's you know, several hundred million years in the future, but it's only about maybe 10 or 20% of the existence of Earth itself. If Earth is four and a half billion years old, then another 10, 10, 20% longer and life wouldn't, or intelligent life would not have evolved because it's taken us a long time to get to this point.

So that's really the key test. Do we become a self sustaining, multi planet civilization.

While civilization still exists, or don't we? I think that's really the key question.

I think we've got a good chance, but it's not a sure thing.

That's why time is of the essence. I think we want to make Mars self sustaining as quickly as possible. It's not just a question of getting people to Mars, but it's getting enough tonnage and equipment to Mars to make, enable Mars to be self sustaining. The key test being that if the resupply ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, do we, does Mars die out or does it continue? That's the, that's the really the fundamental threshold to pass the, the Fermi paradox.

Great Filter. The Fermi paradox is where are the aliens? You know, if life is common, if intelligent life is common, shouldn't we see a lot of evidence of it? Now I get asked a lot about, you know, aliens actually, and I usually say I am one. Well, actually I used to be, according to, you know, Homeland Security, it said alien registration card. Literally. I was like, okay, so.

But the truth is I actually have not seen any evidence of aliens, which I think is maybe a bit more troubling than if I had.

I have not seen any and I'd be on it and I can pretty much guarantee that I would post about it instantly. Okay.

I was like, yep, we got one.

This is a spaceship for sure. But I have not seen anything. So that leads me to think that we're more likely to be a tiny candle of consciousness in a vast emptiness, a vast darkness. You know, that the civilization that we have is really just this very, very small candle in a vast darkness. And we just must do everything possible to ensure that that candle does not go out.

Yeah, anyway, I think we can do it. So, you know, but we need to move fast because you just never know. I mean there could be, you know, at any given point there's a, like Stephen Hawking actually, I believe, said that he thought there was like roughly a 1% chance in any given century of civilization ending. That was his rough estimate. I think it actually might be higher than that. So we just want to go there fast.

So this is the getting Back to Falcon 9 back to reality.

This is, these are all the launches we've done. And you can see how the cadence of launches has rapidly increased over time.

I think people online have actually assembled videos showing every launch and it just gets like crazy fast as you get to 2023.

So yeah, so we've, and we've done a 19, 3 flight. We're now qualifying Falcon 9 to be able to do 40 flights and we're aiming for maybe as much as 150 flights this year. So. And then let's not forget fairing recovery, because actually a lot of people don't realize we recover the fairing as well. This was actually very difficult to recover the fairing, so that's an immense amount of effort. But we now quite regularly recover the fairing and we've reflown fairings 300 times.

So congrats to the fairing recovery team. That was actually pretty damn hard.

Oh, and then of course we do operate basically a small navy. I think people don't always know that, but we have, you know, drone ships and support ships of various kinds. So we've got a small fleet of ships and we operate them very efficiently.

People also sometimes don't know the size. Like you can see the size of the ship by the person walking around on it. It's not small, so it looks cool. I like this sort of kind of a Darth Vader aesthetic, but it's. I like it.

So. And, and we're also getting much better with the pad turnaround. We achieved a three day pad turnaround and I think we're aiming to hopefully, I think, get under 24 hours pad turnaround by the end of this year.

So in terms of. Yeah. Launch rate.

Yeah. So it's been 15 years since Flight 1 of Falcon 1. I'm sorry, Flight 4 of Falcon 1, the first one to reach orbit.

So 15 years since we've got anything at all to orbit.

Yeah. And now we're aiming to have 150 flights or thereabouts this year. So.

And these are big rockets at this point. Falcon 1 is a little rocket. In fact, when I see Falcon 1 right now, I was like, man, I think I'd probably tuck that under my arm, just take it home with me, you know, it was like launch it in the backyard or something. It looks so cute.

But at the time, Falcon 1 did seem like extremely, it was extremely difficult. It took us four flights to reach orbit and it did seem kind of big at the time, but now it's like adorable thing.

So. Yeah.

So I think the most profound metric or the metric that really describes the magnitude of what SpaceX achieved in 2023 is the master orbit number. So. And you can See that, the incredible change just year over year. So 2021, we're slightly below rest of world 22 we I think roughly doubled what the rest of the world did. And last year we were 80% of all master orbit. So when rest of the world we mean like the rest of US industry, you know, Europe, India, China, Japan, everyone.

So there's not a lot of industries where a company is doing like 80% of everything.

And then what's really mind boggling is that number should increase by 50% this year. So I guess on the order of like 90% of all mass to orbit, not counting starship. So if we start, as we start launching starship, Starship is like roughly 100 tons to orbit. With every flight there's a path to getting starship to do over 200 tons with full reusability to 200 tons to useful orbit with full reusability.

And yeah, it's really an incredible amount. 1200 tons of useful load to orbit last year.

Yeah, that's just astounding. So I think that really deserves a round of applause. Wow. I mean that's the most mind blowing.

And the rate of increase is just astonishing. Now these numbers will actually look very small in the future. In order to build a city on Mars, we'll need to be kind of in the million ton to orbit range.

So maybe a little higher, ideally a little higher. But sort of if you just try to get things to the right order of magnitude, like not trying to get to the exact number, but try to get the order of magnitude right, I think it's roughly a million tons to Earth orbit. That'll get you roughly 200,000 tons to the surface of Mars. So roughly approximately 20% of whatever you get to Earth orbit, you can get to the surface of Mars.

So and figure like maybe we need at least a million tons of useful load to the surface of Mars for this, for it to become self sustaining. That self sustaining threshold is actually a very tough threshold to meet because even if you're missing a tiny thing, then eventually that Mars will die out. So you've got to be able to not just build for example, computer chips, but you need to be able to build computer chip factories.

Because you can't build computer chip factories. The factory that you do build will eventually break down and then you will have no chips and then you're. That's it. So it's kind of like a long sea voyage where if you're just missing vitamin C. Yeah. You'll cruise on for a while. But then you know Your teeth will fall out and you'll die. So that was a real problem in old days. So anyway it's quite a high threshold and like Mars is, Mars is a fixer upper of a planet, you know, needs some work but so it's not like you can just run around outdoors and like you know, fish or live off the land, you know you can't live off the land on Mars.

So it's really quite a lot of work that's required to make that work.

So Dragon an amazing amount of progress with Dragon and an incredible track record of success.

So by as of last year the Dragon's fleet time on orbit exceeded the space shuttle fleet. So we had a cumulative 1300 over 1300 days of time on orbit as of last year. So that's pretty mind boggling that Dragon has now had more days in orbit than the entire space shuttle fleet. It's like wow. So yeah and we've had now Dragon has visited the space station more times than the space shuttle as well. This is an incredible, incredible achievement by the Dragon team.

So once again.

As I was saying this really has been an incredible 2023 was like maybe the best year in the company's history. I mean it was the best year in the company's history actually. So there's a lot of great things to go through.

So and I'm not one who gives out false praise so it's really mind boggling what, what you've achieved.

So all of the missions last year used a flight proven Dragon. So these were all, these are all these Dragons had all flown before and this year we're looking to fly maybe seven or eight Dragon missions. So it's really been yeah fantastic success by the Dragon team.

This doesn't have audio, there's no sound in space.

Yeah, it's a great, that's a great looking spacesuit and in Dragon interior.

So yeah so We've now sent 42 humans to orbit to be precise. Space is relatively easy but orbit is very difficult. So We've now taken 42 humans to orbit and back.

And I have to say like.

Yeah, if there's one thing I wish for it is that we bring them all back safely. That's like some of us feel like say what is the one thing you wish for? I said I wish we bring this astronauts back safely. That is one thing. If I had one wish that's what it would be.

So we also have now completed a second crew arm in in Florida. So we've got two towers that are capable of two launch Pads that are capable of sending astronauts to, to orbit. And this is going to be great for being able to shift missions between Pad 40 and Pad 39A.

We've got this year our first spacewalk.

And so we've got to redesign the suit so that you can actually move around in it and you don't just like, you know, pop out like, because if you just inflate the suit, you know, you just basically, you know, you're kind of like one of those like balloons at a party or something, you know. So it's quite hard to make the, to still be mobile in an inflated suit and have the joints move and stuff. And, and then we will actually evacuate the whole spacecraft.

So everyone, even those that don't go on the spacewalk will still be in vacuum. So obviously very important that it work.

You know, we don't have like a little hole in the suit or something go flipping around.

So. But I think, you know, obviously we're going to put a lot of testing into this and, but this is going to be another significant milestone, which is to have a suit where you can be in like the vacuum of space with just nothing, nothing at all, and just be out there.

It's hard to, it's actually hard to conceive the concept of nothingness. And it's not technically nothing like the small number of particles per cubic meter, but it's pretty damn close to nothing.

You know, if you lose too much, too much air, too much oxygen, that's it. There's no place to get oxygen from. So like an airplane, even at high altitude, can increase the pressurization pumps and get more atmosphere from. Because it's in the atmosphere, Dragon springs an oxygen leak and that oxygen leak is too significant. There is no place to get oxygen. You're just going to die. So the requirements for getting everything perfect are insane.

It's, everything's got to be absolutely perfect to work.

I mean, we did not, you know, evolve to live in space, obviously, so it's a tough one. But this is, this is really going to be another great milestone is to actually have, be able to have someone floating out there, you know, in the vacuum of space and come back.

And we do want to actually have, we want to have a spacesuit that you can walk around in, because if you're on the moon, you're on, you want to be able to walk around on the moon, walk around on Mars. So having a high mobility spacesuit that actually isn't crazy expensive ideally, and that you can walk around in comfortably is A big deal. It's actually an important thing that needs to be developed and ultimately made in large numbers because if we send say a million people to Mars, then that's a million spacesuits or a million Mars suits that you need.

So we'll have to make a lot of these things. And we're also going to launch Starlink on that flight. So then coming to Starlink, this is, this is only a whole separate company, but we're basically building, rebuilding the Internet in space, which is pretty wild. And now it is, I want to emphasize supplemental to the terrestrial Internet. Sometimes people think, well, is Starlink just going to take over and destroy all the terrestrial Internet?

It definitely will not. But what it will do is Starlink will give access to the Internet to people that either don't have access or where their access is extremely expensive or very, very bad access. So this is a massive enabler for improving and enabling people in remote locations to learn anything. Like you can basically learn almost anything for free on the Internet right now. Like for example, MIT has all of its lessons on YouTube.

You can, you can learn almost anything if you've got an Internet connection. But if you don't have an Internet connection, you're limited to I guess, book, you know what, maybe you got some books or something. But not, it's, it's a, basically Starlink is a game changer for improving people's quality of life around the world. Like it's, this might be the single, well certainly one of the, I think it might be the number one over time technology that improves people's standard of living around the world.

It's certainly a candidate for potentially being the most profound thing that actually improves quality of life for people around the world. Which would be really something to be proud of obviously.

So let's see. And we're now introducing the V2 minis. So this next generation satellites that we've introducing the Constellation. And yeah, these are twice, twice the capacity of last year. So from 88 terabits per second to 165.

And our goal, the biggest single goal for Starlink from a technical standpoint is to get the mean latency below 20 milliseconds. So that would, that actually makes for immediacy of, for actually the quality of Internet experience. This is actually a really big deal. Also if you play video games like I sometimes do, this is also important, otherwise you lose. So, so this is anyway, so that's actually a very, very hard problem.

But because we're a low Earth orbit constellation, the speed of light, it Is what do you think the speed of light is?

300 kilometers per millisecond. So if we're at 550 kilometers, they go like roughly 2 milliseconds up, 2 milliseconds down. So if you go up down, up down, it's 8 milliseconds. Speed of light limitation. And then almost everything else we can actually address. Like we can't go faster than the speed of light yet, you know, but probably ever.

But we can get the rest of the time I think below 10 milliseconds. And so then basically it'll be more responsive than ground Internet in most cases, which is really what we're after here.

So, yeah, this is really amazing work. We also have now launched the argon hole thrusters, which are very low cost, and use argon, which is plentiful. So we've gone from using krypton, which is not that rare. I mean, if Superman did come here, it'd be like, get some krypton, you know, squirt gun or something like that. Okay, now what?

So Krypton is a noble gas. That is, it's moderately rare, but we would actually be using a huge percentage of the world's Krypton if we were launching that with the Gen 2 satellites. And so we moved to argonne. And argon is actually extremely plentiful. In fact, right now you are breathing approximately 1% Argon. So Argon is, there's a lot of argon and. But this is really the, I think the first significant argon whole thruster and certainly by far the most cost efficient and most power efficient.

And it was a really great job by the Starlink team to create this thruster and many other upgrades to the. Then there's the in space laser stuff. I mean, so this is by far, I think we've now sent at least 1,000 times more data, maybe 10,000 times more data over laser links in space than any other system before. I think we'll soon be like a million times more data transferred, maybe more than that, through the Starlink laser interconnects between the satellites.

So we now have 9,000 active space lasers. So sort of vaguely reminds me of Dr. Evil, you know, lasers from space, actually. Well, I guess I made that joke a long time ago. It's like Dragon does have lidar. It has like a laser for, you know, docking with the space station. So it's like dragons with lasers. I mean, like, it'd be better than shocks with lasers.

And each link, each laser link is capable of 100 gigabits per second and we're looking to increase that.

So let's see, this is an animation of all the places where Starlink is active.

So obviously a lot of the Starlink activations depend on country approvals. So as we are able to get a country approval then you see rapid adoption within a country and hopefully we'll get most countries, most, the rest of the countries will get the approval hopefully this year and we'll be able to go almost worldwide. Some countries are probably unlikely to approve our system, but most, most countries we think we should be able to get to.

So and our goal this year is to activate service in more than half of the world's population. So that would be fantastic. But I do want to emphasize, because we are going to put this presentation online, that Starlink is supplemental to terrestrial Internet. It does not replace it. Starlink, it does really well for like low population density areas, but it is really not going to be competitive in high density cities or it's really low density situations, which is really where the need is.

So anyway, works well with other Internet providers is what I'm saying.

Then we've got community gateways. I'm told this is a town called Unalaska in Alaska, so that's a real place.

So we're putting a lot more gateways down. As we increase the number of gateways, that improves latency. So we've now shipped our next gen hardware That's a version 4 of the user terminal. So that allows us to lower the cost of Starlink. And we'll be introducing the Starlink mini later this year which can fit in a backpack. So that'll be pretty cool for anyone who wants a very affordable Starlink.

And then we just opened our Starlink factory in Bastrop, Texas. So that's just a little, you know, about 20 minutes away from Austin. And this is, this is going to be. Yeah, I guess some of you guys are part of that.

Yeah. In general we're going to have like a massive round of applause for Starlink. That is for sure because it's like the achievement level there is amazing actually. Let's just have a massive round of applause like God damn.

Yeah, sorry, it's hard to clap on this thing.

Yeah, the Starling achievements are really mind blowing.

So it's like the Starlink system is an anomaly in the matrix.

And then we also just recently launched our first direct to cell satellites and we were able to send text messages directly from a phone to the satellite and then back down again. So we did intentionally misspell these things, by the way. So although actually when I first saw it, I was like, is this real?

It turns out it is in fact real. This is. Yeah, some dogecoin jokes, basically.

So, yeah, anyway, so it's kind of amazing that you can actually close the link between a phone in your hand and a satellite that's hundreds of miles away.

And the satellite can hear the tiny signal that your phone is outputting, which is like such a faint whisper. It's ridiculous, but it can actually somehow hear that faint whisper and be able to communicate with a phone is. I think it's one of those things like I was that actually physically possible, but it is now. I do want to emphasize this is also not a competitor to phone companies. This is something that will be supplemental.

So it's going to be very helpful for remote areas where there's no cell connectivity or once in a while within a city. If there is a place that has no connectivity within a city, then Starlink will be able to communicate with phones. But it's. I think it's something on the order of 7 Mbps within a cell. And the cells are sort of hundreds of square miles or kilometers in size. So it's really, it's good for, you know, text messages.

You could technically do video if you're the only one, or if there's only a few people in that cell. Like if you're in the middle of Pacific or something like that, then. But it is something that is going to be very helpful and will, I think, save lives of people. You know, if somebody sort of hiking in a remote region and they get lost, well, now their phone could actually work. And I think it will actually save a lot of lives, which is cool.

So.

And then we have seven announced partnerships. So we've got T Mobile in the us, Rogers in Canada, Optus in Australia, one New Zealand, SALT in Switzerland, KDI in Japan, and intel in Chile and Peru. So. And we expect to announce a number of other telco partnerships this year. So this is definitely something where we're again in partnership with telcos. I just basically don't want telcos to get really mad at us. What I'm saying, you know, we want to support the telcos and then of course.

This is slowed down a little, so.

But that first launch did take a. Take a while to get off the pad. A bit worried there for a second. It.

I mean, when that took off, I was like, wow, I can't believe it took off. That was my reaction.

So I think it's Incredible that we took off twice last year.

I mean, even though I've been very, you know, closely, you know, involved with the Stasher program from the beginning.

And actually I lived out here, this is my primary residence for three years.

This used to be a sandbar, basically what we're looking at here.

And now it's got an advanced rocket factory and a gigantic launch pad. And we got a whole bunch of rockets out there.

But I still amazed that it actually got put together and took off. I'm like, wow. I mean, the starship is more than twice the thrust of a Saturn V. It is by far the biggest flying object ever made.

And, you know, with some upgrades down the road, it'll actually be, I think, probably over 20 million pounds of thrust. And Saturn V is seven and a half. So it'll end up being three times the thrust of Saturn V.

And it's going to fly a lot. It has to fly a lot. So it's going to end up flying several times a day from many different locations in the world. And I think there's a pretty good chance that it does Earth to Earth transport as well, because the fastest way to get from one place to another on Earth is, you know, to get from here to the other side of Earth is an intercontinental ballistic missile. But just make sure you delete the nuke and add the landing part.

Basically, it's the fastest way to get somewhere.

Yeah. Wow.

And then between flight one and two, we made a number of massive upgrades. So the. It was obviously a massive upgrade to the launch pad. So we've got like many Niagara Falls here.

I mean, the water pressure is so much that if it went straight up, it would actually destroy the rocket. That's how much water pressure it is.

So it's like, wow. And it worked, like actually went and looked at. One of the first things I went and looked at after the second launch was to check out the launch pad because obviously after the first launch we dug a pretty big hole.

And honestly it looked like you could just. It looked like there was no damage at all. Like you could just launch again, basically at full the pad itself.

So it's great work by the team to radically improve the launch pad overnight. Yeah, People always like want to use the Statue of Liberty for stuff. Statue of Liberty is not that big. I was like, I was like, been there. I actually climbed up the Statue of Liberty in the tiny staircase long time ago. But anyway, this is a big rocket and it will get bigger over time. So, yeah, So that's. I don't know if you guys watched Kong vs Godzilla, it's like one of the most insane movies I've ever seen.

But it's, like, kind of entertaining in its sheer madness.

And the crazy thing is that our launch tower is bigger than Mechazilla, and it's going to do basically, like, the same thing, but with the arms, you know, like, catch the rocket. And when I tell people, like, yeah, we're going to catch the largest flying object ever with giant mechanical arms, they're like, there's no way that's real.

I mean, we could give it legs, too.

Just give it legs and have it tromp around. That'd be pretty cool.

So, and then we're also going to build a second tower.

So we're going to really be launching a lot, and we're going to be upgrading one tower while we launch from another tower. So two towers is important.

There are actually so many upgrades between flight one and two that it would actually take, like, hours to go through them all. But one of the biggest upgrades was going from hydraulic to electric actuation of the engines. So that actually saved a lot of mass and complexity. So, yeah, the electric tvc, I mean, it. It was just. This is one of the biggest upgrades. We also massively upgraded the heat shield. The engines themselves were massively upgraded.

Literally everything on the rocket was like. There might have been thousands of upgrades between flight one and two. So really gigantic improvement between flight one and two. And also obviously many improvements between flight two and three. And then we've got a whole development plan to, like I said, ultimately get to a fully reusable rocket that does over 200 tons orbit on a regular basis. Full reusability.

Yeah, hot staging.

I mean, hot staging was a change that was basically, I don't know, just really within a space of like three or four months, maybe less, going from. Or roughly that. Going from previously just kind of like separating the rocket without anything and to. To actually lighting the upper stage engines while the first stage engines are still thrusting and not blowing up the ship, which is. That is an amazing achievement. So I was like, wow, that's.

And it worked. So I was like, wow. So then let's look at light two.

So, yeah, big round of applause, guys. Wow.

So Flight 2 actually almost made it to orbit. So in fact, ironically, if it had a payload, it would have made it to orbit because the reason that it actually didn't quite make to orbit was we vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen ultimately led to fire and an explosion because we wanted to vent the liquid oxygen, because we normally wouldn't have that liquid oxygen if we had a payload. So ironically if it had a payload it would have reached orbit.

And so I think we've got a really good shot of reaching orbit with Flight three. And then a rapid cadence to achieve full and rapid reusability. And I mean kind of the mind blowing thing is like there is an actual path that we are on to make life multi planetary. Can you friggin believe that? Like what?

Yeah, we just got to get it done before civilization ends. But I think it's going to happen.

Yeah, right here.

So anyway, so in terms of getting there, we obviously want to accelerate the production and testing, get to a high cadence, you know, for any given technology development. There it is, you know, how many iterations do you have and what is the amount of time between each iteration? So every time we launch we learn, every time we launch or do a test we learn something more. So increasing that cadence of launching and testing.

And it's always better to sacrifice hardware rather than sacrifice time. Like time is the true, the one true currency.

So it's sort of the fastest path to, as I was saying earlier, rapidly, rapidly reusable, reliable rocket.

Yeah, so and we've got, yeah a block, sort of a version 2 ship that will be more reliable, better performance endurance. We've got a version 3 ship design that will stretch that be even taller. Probably end up being, I don't know, 140 meters before it's all said and done. Maybe 150 in the end in length.

So yeah, so it'll be even taller than it currently is.

Yeah. And so with Flight 1 the goal was not to blow the pad up and ideally get some distance, which we did with Flight two. It was to get past staging. So we achieved the goal of getting past staging and almost to orbit. And then Flight 3 we've got, well we want to get to orbit and we want to do an in space engine burn from the header tank and prove the that we can reliably deorbit. We want to do a tipping point header domain propellant transfer.

This is important for the NASA Artemis program. And we want to also demonstrate the payload door for the sort of PEZ dispenser for delivering The Starlink, the V2 non mini actually probably, I guess V3 technically, but really the really giant satellites to orbit.

Yeah, so like I said, the mass orbit ultimately of starship will be, you know, over time, I think millions of tons of payload to orbit.

So it's, I mean compared to present day Master orbit. It'll be more than, more than a thousand times, I mean, you know, more than a thousand times greater than master orbit currently. That's what it will be eventually or needs to be.

So we also want to demonstrate on orbit refilling. This is very important for the NASA Artemis program. So we're very proud to be part of the NASA Artemis program. I'm always incredibly grateful to NASA for their support and for trusting us to do. To take astronauts to orbit, to take cargo to the space station, and to be an integral part of getting astronauts back to the moon.

One of the other questions I get a lot is, did we really go to the moon? I've gotten that from a lot of people and I'm like, yes, we went to the moon more than once, in fact. But the crazy thing is that it's been over half a century since we last went to the moon. So, You know, I think maybe that's what caused people to be skeptical. Like, how come we can't go to the moon now?

It was 66 years from the first controlled powered flight of the wright brothers in 1903 to landing on the moon in 69. Only 66 years. But you know, like 50 years have passed since we last went to the moon.

But now we're going to go back there and we're going to go back there soon. And we're not going to go just I think, like we want. The next step, I think, is to build a moon base like Moon Base Alpha. Make Sci fi real, remove the fire part of sci fi.

So, but now, but in order to go and land on the moon, one of the technical challenges we have to solve is orbital refilling, where we dock the starships, dock on orbit and transfer propellant. Now, we've gotten very good at docking because we dock with Dragon to the space station, which is actually more complicated than docking with our own spacecraft. So we have a lot of expertise in docking. So I'm confident we will solve this.

And we just ideally want to solve it hopefully by the end of this year, but certainly by, by next year. And that's a big deal. This is one of the fundamental technologies that's necessary to build a city on Mars and to have a Mars, a moon base.

And then, yeah, we'll also be launching some very big satellites.

World's biggest peasants venture.

And we do hope to do this by the end of this year.

And then, yeah, more about the NASA human landing system. So, as I said, we're extremely grateful to NASA for entrusting us With a fundamental part of the Artemis program, we want to make sure we do a great job for NASA and really the like. We are a very fundamental part of the Artemis program. So if we do not succeed, which we will, but in order for the Artemis program to succeed, we must succeed with Starship. And like I said, we actually want to far exceed what NASA has asked us to do.

So we want to go far beyond the NASA requirements and actually be able to put enough payload on the moon with enough frequency that you could actually have a permanently occupied moon base. That's the next really big threshold from Apollo is have an actual moon base.

I remember seeing this like, I guess kind of cheesy sci fi show a long time ago called Moon Base Alpha. I don't know if anybody's seen that, but like the moon actually drifts away from Earth. Now this is not going to happen, but it was a cool show, Moon Base Alpha.

But we need a real Moon Base Alpha and we're going to do it.

So then, yeah, as I was saying, the, this is the long term goal. This is what we want Mars to look like is starships coming and going.

An incredible beautiful Mars city and a flourishing civilization on Mars.

And ultimately we can transform Mars into an Earth like planet with terraforming.

Just needs to be warmed up really. And then you could, it could be ultimately an Earth like planet and we could bring the life from Earth. We could extend life from Earth to Mars.

And really it has to be, you know, has to be humans actually. Yeah, because not going to be the dolphins.

So. But we can bring, we can bring all the creatures with us and we can ensure that life on Earth continues on Mars even after Earth becomes unlivable in the distant future.