Joe Rogan Experience #1609 - Elon Musk

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Was it like So it was like No. That's the, uh, Sacha Baron Cohen movie?

   2. EMElon Musk0:18

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      I never saw that one.

   4. EMElon Musk0:19

      Well, there's a scene where he's, uh (laughs) , they, they, they show him the new missile they've developed and, uh, but it has kind of a round, round head. And he says, uh, "You need to make it more pointy," (laughs) to- to- to his engineers. And, uh, actually that's what I also said, I said the same thing. Um, you know, "Star ship, we need to make it more pointy."

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:43

      Did you say that?

   6. EMElon Musk0:44

      Mm-hmm. And we made it more-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:44

      Because of the movie?

   8. EMElon Musk0:45

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:46

      Really?

   10. EMElon Musk0:46

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Hold on. (laughs)

   12. EMElon Musk0:48

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Hold on. It's going, I just have the main camera on you. Okay.

   14. EMElon Musk0:52

       Okay.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       (laughs) that's, you literally told them to make the star ship more pointy because of the movie The Dictator?

   16. EMElon Musk0:59

       Yep.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       (laughs)

   18. EMElon Musk1:01

       Um, they, and they know it too. It's not like they-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       (laughs)

   20. EMElon Musk1:03

       It's not like they haven't, they're unaware of it. (laughs) And I thought it would be funny if we made the rocket more pointy, so we did.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:09

       Did it have any effect on the aerodynamics?

   22. EMElon Musk1:10

       No.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       Nothing?

   24. EMElon Musk1:12

       No, we can make it way blunter and it'd be fine.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       But was, is it better to be pointier? Like if, if it wasn't for the movie-

   26. EMElon Musk1:17

       It's arguably slightly worse. But like- (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       (laughs)

   28. EMElon Musk1:22

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       But more fun for you.

   30. EMElon Musk1:23

       Yeah, it looks cooler.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. EMElon Musk15:00

      along with one sea van on a, with an outboard motor, you know?

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Right.

   3. EMElon Musk15:03

      It's like a giant ship, you know? So scale has value in and of itself. Um, like the same, the same computer that controls the big rocket controls the tiny rocket. So, you know, even just in terms of like the computer, the computer and, and like the electronics weight becomes vanishingly small in a big rocket, but it is significant in a small rocket.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:25

      Do you think there'll ever be a time where there's an alternative source of propulsion outside of just, of, of a, a burning fuel? Like is it possible that, that someone would develop a nuclear propulsion or, or some other method other than just burning large amounts of gasoline or rocket fuel?

   5. EMElon Musk15:45

      Uh, there's no way around Newton's third law, really. Um, so you, you basically have to expel mass. Uh, y- y- y- th- like when you get... th- there's a... you know, for a car that you could push against the ground, for an app, for an aircraft, you can react against the air, um, for a boat, you, you can react against water. In vacuum, there is nothing. So you, you, the only way to move is to react against yourself, to essentially shoot out gas at very high velocity, uh, so, and, and, and to transfer momentum, momen- momentum from, you know, to, to, to that gas that is going th- that way very rapidly. Um, so you want to accelerate a small amount of mass very fast in order to have you, the large amount of mass, accelerate slowly, because f- momentum is conserved (laughs) . So, yeah, um...

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:47

      So we're stuck with gas?

   7. EMElon Musk16:49

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:50

      Until some insane breakthrough dealing with gravity or something.

   9. EMElon Musk16:54

      S- s- yeah. And I mean, it's not gonna happen.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       Not, not in our lifetime?

   11. EMElon Musk16:56

       Not in our lifetime (laughs) . No. Um, yeah. So, so you could... so ironically, uh, everything will go electric except for rockets.

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       Mm-hmm.

   13. EMElon Musk17:10

       Uh, it's just... now, you can make rockets indirectly electric by using electricity to create the fuel. Um, so you can take, uh, CO2 and H2O, uh, and create methane and oxygen from that. So CH- methane is CH4 and, and oxygen is O2. So, um, and for example, on, on Mars, which is a primarily CO2 atmosphere and there's a lot of water ice, is you can mine the ice, take the ice, um, and the CO2 from the atmosphere, um, simplifying this a lot, but run it over a catalyst and, uh, give it a lot of energy and, uh, you can get, uh, CH4 and O2 and you can, you can gracefully get your propellant on Mars. The, the rocket, by the way, is mostly oxygen. So for Starship, we're almost 80% oxygen. Um, it's only just over 20% fuel.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:13

       Really?

   15. EMElon Musk18:13

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       So is this as efficient as you anticipate it being, you know, any time in our lifetime? Like is there, is there, the trip to M- to Mars is like what six months? Is that what the idea is?

   17. EMElon Musk18:26

       Yeah, it's about six months.

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       Is, do you ever anticipate it being quicker than that? Is there, it-

   19. EMElon Musk18:30

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:30

       ... possible to make these things faster? Would you have to have solar sails? Like would you-

   21. EMElon Musk18:37

       No.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:38

       ... want, would you-

   23. EMElon Musk18:38

       Solar sail would be very slow.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:39

       Would it be?

   25. EMElon Musk18:39

       Um, yeah, the, I mean, I'm trying to think of like the way to think about gravity here. And there's a lot of analogies. Um, but you know, uh, like you can think like space itself is, is curved, like it's like a funnel. Like if, if there's something that, uh, has, uh, a lot of mass, it's, it's creating like a funnel. And, um, so in the same way, like, like if you have a coin funnel and you let the, the, the coins, the coin thinks it's going in a straight line, uh, pr- pretty much. Um, you know, uh, the physicists out there might quibble with my analogies. But anyway, I'm trying to convey what gravity is like, uh, like a funnel. And so if you, if you want to get out of that gravity well, you actually need to go very fast parallel to the earth's surface. And the faster you go parallel to the earth's surface, the further out you spin. So, or you can think of like a marble in a funnel.

   26. JRJoe Rogan19:37

       Mm-hmm.

   27. EMElon Musk19:37

       Like if you want that, get that marble to go far out, you just spin it sideways and, and it'll, it'll spiral out. And conversely, if you, uh, just due to the friction of, of, of the air friction and the rolling friction, it will slow down a little bit if you don't give it any, um, any push and will slowly spiral in. And then as it gets closer, it spins faster and faster 'cause this is how gravity basically works. Um, so, um, w- all the things in the solar system are spinning around this gigantic funnel in space time called the Sun. And we're like these tiny little dust motes, uh, going around the Sun. Um, and the further out you are away from the Sun, the s- the slower you move around in, in terms of degrees per second. So like the orbit of Mars, which is further away from the Sun is about two years. And Earth's one year, um, 'cause Mars is about 50% further away from the Earth than the, uh, from, from the Sun than the Earth is. So it's like Mars, we're, Earth is at one astronomical unit, Mars is like one and a half-ish, um, astr- uh, astronomical unit. So we're about eight light minutes away from the Sun, Mars is about 12. And, um, yeah, so when, when you want to go to Mars, you basically accelerate in the, along the same path of, of Earth going around the s- the Sun. And you time it such that as you w- you, you, that your acceleration gives you an elliptical orbit around the Sun where the tip of the ellipse, uh, intersects with Mars. So Mars is going around, you go tw- and you just time it to coincide with the tip of your ellipse being Mars. And that, that turns out to be about a six-month journey. Um, now you can speed that up and I think, uh, I mean, I could, could sort of see a way to get, make it happen in, say, three months, um, where the intersection with Mars would not be at the tip of the ellipse, but on the edge of the ellipse. Now that would mean the tip of the ellipse is out near Jupiter. So if you miss Mars, you're gonna end up at Jupiter, uh, Jupiter's orbit. So-

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:51

       That's not good.

   29. EMElon Musk21:52

       Yeah. And you're gonna be coming in hot.

   30. JRJoe Rogan21:55

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   How often do you…

   1. EMElon Musk30:01

      Uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:01

      How often do you think about it?

   3. EMElon Musk30:03

      None. Zero. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Zero? Even though you're thinking about interplanetary travel-

   5. EMElon Musk30:07

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:07

      ... you don't really think about aliens?

   7. EMElon Musk30:09

      No. I mean, if they show up, I'm like, "Great. Okay. Now, this is new information." But we've-

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:14

      (laughs)

   9. EMElon Musk30:15

      (laughs) Well, yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:19

       What an interesting-

   11. EMElon Musk30:19

       I'm like-

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:19

       ... way of putting it. This is new information.

   13. EMElon Musk30:21

       This is new information. Like-

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:22

       Yeah.

   15. EMElon Musk30:22

       ... where were you guys-

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:22

       Yeah.

   17. EMElon Musk30:23

       ... up till now?

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:23

       Yeah.

   19. EMElon Musk30:24

       Um, so-... anyway, uh, listen, I'm, if, if, if I see some (laughs) evidence for aliens, I'll, I'll be like, I'll be the first to be like, "Ah, aliens," you know?

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:35

       Right.

   21. EMElon Musk30:36

       Um-

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:36

       Then you'll investigate. But until then, you think it's kind of a waste of time?

   23. EMElon Musk30:38

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       Yeah. It definitely seems like a waste of time if nothing's happened so far. You think about all the people that have been researching aliens for their whole life and they have-

   25. EMElon Musk30:48

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan30:48

       ... very little to show for it.

   27. EMElon Musk30:51

       Well, you, you know, there's-

   28. JRJoe Rogan30:53

       Other than cool stories.

   29. EMElon Musk30:54

       Yeah. Um, I mean, we have archeologists, uh, going all over the world looking at things, you know? Where there's this, uh, people... Like, if, if we were to find something like, let's say, like a cube of titanium, just like a one-inch cube of titanium, let's say, in the middle of the pyramid, I'd be like, "Aliens, for sure." There's no way they could've made, uh, titanium back then.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       Mm-hmm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      listening 'cause I, I felt like I was going crazy too.

   2. EMElon Musk45:02

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      He, he was, uh, so invested in this idea. Again, maybe he's right. Hmm? I don't think so.

   4. EMElon Musk45:11

      No.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:11

      Right?

   6. EMElon Musk45:11

      I, uh, uh, I doubt it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:12

      Well, then they-

   8. EMElon Musk45:13

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:14

      ... they had subsequent voyages where they made high-resolution scans of the exact same area and it looked very different without the same shadows. It just looked like-

   10. EMElon Musk45:22

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:23

       ... rocks.

   12. EMElon Musk45:25

       Yeah. Mars kind of looks like, uh, I don't know, like some Arizona desert or something like that.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:30

       What do they think happened? They think it was hit, like an asteroid hit?

   14. EMElon Musk45:33

       Well, everything got hit with a lot of asteroids over time.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:35

       They think-

   16. EMElon Musk45:36

       Um ...

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:36

       ... that that's what killed the environment there, the, uh, the atmosphere?

   18. EMElon Musk45:39

       Um, well, the atmosphere ... So Mars has, uh, ha- lower gravity than Earth and it does not have a strong magnetic field. So, uh, over time, it was over billions of years, the atmosphere will be gradually eroded by the, by the, um ... You know, by the s- by, by the solar wind, um, and, um, and, and la- having less gravity.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:06

       Mm-hmm.

   20. EMElon Musk46:06

       So, um, you know, the smaller you are, the, the less, generally the less atmosphere you're gonna have. Um, so ... Yeah. So generating the atmosphere on Mars, it would eventually erode, but we're talking about hundreds of millions of years to, you know, billions of years type of thing, plenty of time to figure things out.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:26

       For us, you mean.

   22. EMElon Musk46:27

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:28

       Yeah. So, but do you think that Mars is, their atmosphere eroded quicker because it's just smaller? Just, uh ...

   24. EMElon Musk46:34

       That's a factor.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:35

       Mm-hmm.

   26. EMElon Musk46:36

       Yeah. I mean, like, like if you look at, say, uh, asteroids or, you know, they, they don't really have ... Like, Ceres is a pretty big asteroid that doesn't really have an atmosphere. The moon doesn't really have an atmosphere. So, that ... It doesn't have an atmosphere. Technically there are ti- ... There's a tiny amount of rarefied gas, but it's ver- really not a real atmosphere.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:57

       Did you pay attention at all to, uh, the, the guy who was the chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department, Avi Loeb, who, uh, was recently ... There was a bunch of stories in the news because he, he believes that an object that came through our, uh, solar system in 2017-

   28. EMElon Musk47:12

       Could have been.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:13

       ... was possibly extraterrestrial in origin.

   30. EMElon Musk47:15

       Yeah. The, uh, whatever, umami burger? (laughs)
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   (laughs) …

   1. EMElon Musk1:00:00

      Um, or if you get the, uh, I don't know, the Space X option package, uh, then y- in that place where the two rear seats are, would be is a, uh, a high pressure carbon overwrapped pressure vessel. So high, very, uh, you know, I don't know, 10,000 PSI or something like that. And, uh, and then a, and a bunch of thrusters. And so like at, at minimum, I'm confident we could do a thruster where the, the license plate flips down t- you know, James Bond style, and there's a rocket thruster behind it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

      (laughs)

   3. EMElon Musk1:00:30

      And that, and that gives you three tons of thrust. And-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      Oh, for acceleration?

   5. EMElon Musk1:00:34

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

      So that would be on the ground?

   7. EMElon Musk1:00:37

      That would be on the ground and this thing would move like a bat out of hell.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:39

      Jesus Christ, but it already goes 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds, right?

   9. EMElon Musk1:00:42

      That's the sedan, or the four door.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:45

       What?

   11. EMElon Musk1:00:46

       Yeah, model-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

       Wait a minute. How fast is-

   13. EMElon Musk1:00:47

       The new, the new, the new Model S, Model S Plaid that we start shipping next month, or this month-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       Yeah.

   15. EMElon Musk1:00:51

       ... uh, is, uh, s-... we just tested it, uh, on, on the MotorTrend spec. Zero to 60 is 1.96 seconds.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       I have never driven my Tesla and go, (smacks lips) "Why isn't this thing a little fucking faster?"

   17. EMElon Musk1:01:04

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       That mean the, the one I have, the Model S is, uh, 2.4, right?

   19. EMElon Musk1:01:08

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:09

       Which is preposterous. It's so cra- I take people in it, like I took Tim Dillon in.

   21. EMElon Musk1:01:11

       Yeah, they've never experienced anything like it.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:13

       No. Ti-

   23. EMElon Musk1:01:14

       In their entire life.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:15

       My friend Tim Dillon is like-

   25. EMElon Musk1:01:16

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:16

       ... "Uh, so what's the deal with these Teslas?" And I go, "You want, you wanna freak out? You wanna see something fucking crazy?" I, I picked him up at the Improv and we drove to The Comedy Store.

   27. EMElon Musk1:01:23

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:23

       And I, I took him up Laurel Canyon. Are you ready?

   29. EMElon Musk1:01:26

       (laughs) Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

       And I, and I gone ... I never take it out of Ludicrous mode, by the way. I keep it in Ludicrous mode all the time.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:50

   (laughs) This elk- …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

   2. EMElon Musk1:15:00

      (laughs) This elk-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      There's axis deer. In my neighborhood, I saw an axis deer.

   4. EMElon Musk1:15:03

      Okay.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:03

      I didn't see it, my wife saw it. She described it to me. I know what it is. I said, "That's an a-" She's like, it was like, "It had white spots like a fawn, but it was really big." I'm like, "That's an axis deer." So there's axis-

   6. EMElon Musk1:15:13

      That's cool.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      ... deer. Yeah. They're, they're from India.

   8. EMElon Musk1:15:15

      Okay.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:15

      And tigers eat them.

   10. EMElon Musk1:15:17

       Okay.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

       Coincidentally.

   12. EMElon Musk1:15:18

       Wow.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:15:18

       But these animals are, they're wild here-

   14. EMElon Musk1:15:21

       Okay.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:15:21

       ... because people bought them and they, they put them in their yard and then they jump the fence. This place is crazy, but that's why it works. The reason why it works is because people have so much freedom-

   16. EMElon Musk1:15:32

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:15:32

       ... and then you have the University of Texas. You have Austin, which has a long history of art and music, Stevie Ray Vaughan and 6th Street and so many great musicians-

   18. EMElon Musk1:15:42

       Sure.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:15:42

       ... have come from here, that it's got both of these things together. It's got this wild freedom and they embrace both parts of it. You know, this is, that's the cool thing about this place.

   20. EMElon Musk1:15:52

       Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:15:53

       I've never felt more at home. I fucking love it here.

   22. EMElon Musk1:15:56

       It's a cool city. Um, like I said, it's gonna be the biggest boomtown in, that America's seen in 50 years at least.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:16:03

       Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

   24. EMElon Musk1:16:04

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:16:05

       I think so.

   26. EMElon Musk1:16:06

       Mega boom.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:16:07

       Comedy clubs are moving here like crazy.

   28. EMElon Musk1:16:09

       (laughs) Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:16:09

       They're moving here left and right. Cap City's reopening. The Creek and the Cave just announced they're gonna open here.

   30. EMElon Musk1:16:14

       That's cool.

Episode duration: 3:24:37