During a podcast recorded this week, Elon Musk said he was inspired by a film by Sasha Baron Cohen for the design of his Starship ship. In addition, the boss of SpaceX still plans a first manned flight of his ship for 2023.
In January 2019, Elon Musk posted via Twitter a first image of the assembled version of his Starship, SpaceX's future interplanetary ship. A rocket with a vintage design was then revealed, reminding us of that of the famous Tintin's rocket . In reality, it was not the comic strips by Hergé that inspired the aesthetics of the Starship, but the movie The Dictator (2012), by British actor, screenwriter and producer Sacha Baron Cohen, said Elon Musk this Thursday during his podcast with Joe Rogan.
During this interview, Musk notably cited the scene of Admiral General Aladeen de Cohen, the authoritarian ruler of the fictional nation of Wadiya, evaluating the missile developed by his engineers at the start of the film. The vehicle then displays a blunt head, which displeases Aladeen. "It's too round at the top. It must be sharp” , he then declared to the head of his nuclear program. "Round isn't scary. Sharp is scary” , adding that with such a design, their enemies will believe that a "giant sex toy is going all over them" .
The Starship was also originally supposed to have a relatively blunt fairing, Musk explained. Eventually, the SpaceX boss asked his engineers to develop a "sharper" ship. Joe Rogan then asked him if this shape gave the Starship an aerodynamic advantage. To which Musk replied:"it's probably slightly worse" , prompting laughter from both men. But, he added, “he looks cooler that way” .
Rogan and Musk touched on some other interesting points during their three-plus-hour interview. For example, Musk said SpaceX still aims to put a Starship prototype into orbit as early as this year. He also thinks that the first manned flights could be scheduled from 2023 .
In the meantime, the SN10 prototype is about to perform its test flight at ten kilometers above sea level, hoping for a happier ending than its predecessors SN8 and SN9.
Note that this is the third time the two men have met. During his first appearance, in September 2018, the entrepreneur distinguished himself by smoking a little weed on the air. Senior NASA officials did not appreciate it too much. The latter had even triggered a security investigation at SpaceX but also at Boeing, the two companies under contract with the agency to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
