The whole purpose of SpaceX is to help make life multi-planetary.

Besides a fully rapidly reusable rocket you need to also have orbital refilling.

That's fundamental.

The thing that concerns me the most right now is:

Unless we improve our rate of innovation dramatically, then there's no chance of a base on the moon.

Failure must be an option. If it's not, it's going to result in extremely conservative choices.

Then you may get something worse than lack of innovation, things may go backwards.

The massive thing that can be done is to make sure your incentive structure is such:

There's gotta be a carrot and a stick.

It's absolutely fundamental to achieve full reusability in access to space.

This is the Holy Grail of space.

It'll be increasingly important for the US to use what I think is its greatest attribute, invention.

To create space technology that is the best in the world.

In fact, if the US does not use breakthrough innovation, it will fall behind.

I think we need to push for radical breakthroughs or you're not going to get radical outcomes.

I think we can go a long way towards making Starfleet real, and making these utopian futures real.

But it will definitely require radical innovation.

If we can get Tom Cruise to inspire an elementary kid to join the Navy and be a pilot,

then why can't we get Tom Cruise to inspire the next Elon Musk?

That's what we need, we need a new generation of many Elon Musks!

The challenge with the Apollo program is that it ended.

What we're doing now is sustainable, and that's why we have the public-private partnerships.

Fundamentally, we want to inspire kids to say that one day they will wear that uniform!

They want to wear that space suit, and get them fired up!

Like "Yeah, I want to be an astronaut, I want to work on aerospace engineering."

What today is about is reigniting the dream of space!

We spent a lot of time designing the spacesuits, it took us 3, almost 4 years,

Eventually, we're gonna print human organs in 3D using adult stem cells, your own DNA.

It's gonna transform how we do medicine here on Earth.

We're creating advanced materials that you can only create in the microgravity of space!

If somebody told me in 2002 that I'd be standing here with NASA, meeting the astronauts,

and that we've got a rocket and spacecraft on pad 39A, best pad in the world,

I would have thought "Man, I don't know what you're smoking"