# Starship's heat shield remains a hurdle to full reuse Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/starships-heat-shield-remains-a-hurdle-to-full-reuse/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. - Speaker: [Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/builders/elon-musk/) · Elon Musk is a Tesla CEO. - Host: [Chamath Palihapitiya](https://realalpha.app/people/chamath-palihapitiya/) · Founder & CEO, Social Capital · Led Facebook's growth team; his firm backed Slack and AI chipmaker Groq. - Host: [Jason Calacanis](https://realalpha.app/people/jason-calacanis/) · Founder & CEO, LAUNCH · Early Uber angel; sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL; hosts This Week in Startups. - Host: [David Sacks](https://realalpha.app/people/david-sacks/) · Co-founder & partner, Craft Ventures · PayPal's first COO, founded Yammer; White House AI & crypto czar 2025–26. - Host: [David Friedberg](https://realalpha.app/people/david-friedberg/) · CEO, Ohalo · Founded The Climate Corporation, sold to Monsanto for about $1.1B in 2013. - Show: All-In - Episode: [Elon Musk on DOGE, Optimus, Starlink Smartphones, Evolving with AI, Why the West is Imploding](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/), Sep 10, 2025 - Moment: 20:16 to 26:16 of the episode (6 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/starships-heat-shield-remains-a-hurdle-to-full-reuse/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1216 ## Quote > “there's still **a lot of work that remains** on the heat shield.” > — [Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/builders/elon-musk/) at [24:34](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1474) · All-In ## Takeaways 1. Version 3 is designed to carry over 100 tons to orbit. 2. SpaceX aims to catch both the booster and ship next year. 3. Heat-shield tiles must survive reentry without individual inspection. ## About this segment Elon Musk says Starship V3 could carry over 100 tons to orbit, with full booster-and-ship reuse targeted for next year. The reusable heat shield remains a difficult, unproven part. From “Elon Musk on DOGE, Optimus, Starlink Smartphones, Evolving with AI, Why the West is Imploding”, Sep 10, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/) ## Transcript Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [20:20](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1220) You just had a really, what appeared to be a phenomenal launch. how close is it to you know being predictable and ready to go in a commercial setting I think we'll recover the ship next year we've got one more launch of the Starlink version 2 as a stack but there's only one one booster and ship left that's in the version 2 design and then thereafter it's version 3 which is a gigantic upgrade because that's got Raptor 3 and pretty much everything changes on the rocket with version 3 so version 3 might have some initial teething pains because it's such a radical redesign but it's capable of over 100 tons to orbit fully reusable And I think unless we have some very major setbacks, SpaceX will demonstrate full reusability next year, catching both the booster and the ship, and being able to deliver over 100 tons to a useful orbit. [21:42](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1302) What does the best rocket in the world do now in terms of tonnage to space? uh well in terms of uh sort of commercial rockets there's falcon heavy yeah uh which we'll do uh in um with with side booster reuse uh we'll do about 40 tons so this is five times bigger yeah well two and a half times bigger but starship would be full reuse full reusability got it okay So everything comes back. Elon, after the explosion that happened with the failed launch, there was a lot of... [22:26](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1346) Which one? Sorry? Which failed one? Oh, the more recent one. The more recent with the Starship head. The big boom. The big boom on the base. And there was a lot of proclamations that there's going to be environmental and FAA and all these other sorts. The recovery back to the launch pad again was incredibly fast. How did you get back so fast, not just technically and work-wise, but just regulatory clearance-wise? [22:54](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1374) Because they said there were going to be all these questions and reviews and so on. How did you guys manage that? Well, there were a lot of questions and reviews. We got through them all. And credit to the SpaceX team. They worked incredibly hard, and they got the next driven booster tested and on the pad and flown. And huge credit to the SpaceX team. Very proud of them for doing such a job, a great job recovering. [23:24](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1404) I mean, creating a fully reusable orbital rocket is one of the hottest engineering problems ever. it's certainly you know a candidate for most difficult engineering project ever you know it's on the podium at least um so it's a that that's been the goal of spacex from the beginning from 2002 um and here we are 23 years later so it's it's a long journey and um with with a super talent like by far the i think the most talented group of rocket of engineers that's ever been assembled. And we're finally, next year, I think we'll be able to achieve full reusability. [24:09](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1449) Elon, what are the big technical blockers that you're focused on there between now and that full reusability? Are there some showstoppers where you're just kind of literally just obsessing over trying to figure out still, or is it more about getting through a laundry list of your learnings and just integrating it into the next launch? Well, for full reusability of the ship, there's still a lot of work that remains on the heat shield. [24:44](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1484) 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. Right. So no one's ever made a fully reusable orbital heat shield. shield and is that a material science problem or is that an engineering problem or both uh yeah i mean it's a material science engineering problem so it's but we really are uh looking at the fundamental physics here um again physics first principles and trying to figure out how do we to make something that is, you know, it can withstand the heat, is very light, doesn't transmit the heat to the primary structure, and 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 [25:55](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1555) are working, you can't go through this laborious inspection so it really needs to be these tens of thousands of tiles all work and don't need to be republished or checked one by one. That was the case with the shuttle.