Elon Musk

And here we are 23 years later.

So it's a long journey.

And...

with a super talent, like by far I think the most talented group of rocket engineers that's ever been assembled.

And we're finally, next year, I think we'll be able to achieve full reusability.

For full reusability of the ship, there's still a lot of work that remains on the heat shield.

So no one's ever made a fully reusable orbital heat shield.

Like the shuttle heat shield had to go through nine months of repair after every flight.

So no one has ever made a fully reusable orbital heat shield.

Yeah, I mean, it's a material science engineering problem.

But we really are looking at the fundamental physics here.

Again, physics post-principles and trying to figure out how do we make something that is...

It can withstand the heat.

It's very light.

It doesn't transmit the heat to the primary structure.

But then whose integrity is intact?

All the tiles stay on, and they don't crack.

And then as you ascend, if you hit some rain, the tiles don't dissolve in rain.

there's a lot of different issues.

And then you really need to know that these tiles are working.