Elon Musk: SpaceX Had to Study Whether Starship Would Hit a Shark

Elon Musk: SpaceX had to do a study to see if Starship would hit a shark. I'm like, this is a big ocean, you know?

“SpaceX had to do the study to see if Starship would hit a shark. This is from the National Marine Fisheries Research Institute. We said, it's a big ocean but fine, we'll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data? They're like, no, we can't give you the shark data. Well, then we’re a bit in a quandary. How do we solve this shark probability issue?

They said, we could give it to our Western division, but we don't trust them. I'm like, am I in a comedy sketch here? They're worried about the people who hunt sharks for shark fins somehow getting their hands on the shark data.

Eventually, we got the data and we could run the analysis to say the sharks are going to be fine. And then we thought we're done. But they said, what about whales?

I said, when you look at a picture of the Pacific, what percentage of the surface area do you see as whale? Honestly, if the ship did hit a whale, that whale had it coming. Because the odds are so low, it's like the Final Destination: The Whale Edition. Fate had it in for that whale. We had to do the whale analysis, and the whales will be fine too.

It's just one crazy thing after another. This is why I'm really feeling the pain of the overregulation.”

Town Hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, October 19, 2024