Chapter 110

Musk pursues the development of Starship, an enormous reusable rocket designed to carry humans to Mars, as his ultimate goal transcends mere profit. After deciding to switch the rocket's material from carbon fiber to stainless steel—a choice that proves lighter and faster to manufacture—SpaceX rapidly builds a prototype and establishes Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas as a dedicated production and launch facility.

Musk's overarching ambition has always been making humanity multiplanetary, not merely profiting from space ventures. In September 2017, he announced SpaceX would develop the BFR (later renamed Starship), a 390-foot-tall, 50-ton-capacity rocket system—taller than the Saturn V and capable of eventually carrying a hundred passengers to Mars. While managing Tesla's factory crises, Musk remained personally engaged in Starship's design, including passenger amenities for the nine-month journey. In late 2018, engineer Bill Riley and Musk visited the Starship production facility near Los Angeles, where they confronted problems with carbon fiber construction: sheets were wrinkling and the process was prohibitively slow and expensive. Musk impulsively pivoted to stainless steel, a material he'd chosen for the Cybertruck and which had been used in early Atlas rockets. Despite initial executive skepticism, when the team ran the numbers, stainless steel proved lighter under Starship's extreme conditions—its strength increases 50 percent at the supercold temperatures of liquid fuel, and its high melting point eliminated the need for a heat shield. Crucially, stainless steel could be welded outdoors without specialized environments, allowing SpaceX to hire general builders and contract with water-tower companies. Musk consulted line workers directly about wall thickness, settling on 4 millimeters after they deemed 4 millimeters risky but workable. Within months, the Starhopper prototype was conducting eighty-foot test hops by July 2019. During a meeting, Musk impulsively ordered cancellation of the Falcon Heavy, but Gwynne Shotwell rushed in and blocked the decision, citing military contracts—one of the few instances someone successfully challenged him. In 2018, Musk designated Boca Chica, Texas, at the state's southernmost tip, as the dedicated Starship base, establishing a sprawling manufacturing operation with massive assembly-line tents, high bays, and support infrastructure. By early 2020, five hundred workers staffed the site in round-the-clock shifts. Musk focused obsessively on factory layout and pace, once challenging the team to build a dome by dawn and staying up with them until completion (though it finished at 9 a.m.). He selected a humble two-bedroom tract house near the facility as his residence, furnished with minimal amenities but featuring a Tesla Powerwall system, a Starlink dish, and white walls decorated with Churchill's war histories and science fiction—a stark contrast to his billionaire status, yet a personal haven where he could relax after intense work.