Zubrin talks Starship with Musk

From an interesting YouTube video from What about it?, covering a conversation between Dr Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars society, and Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, which took place at the recent SpaceX employment fair in Boca Chica.

1.  There are currently 300 employees at SpaceX's Boca Chica operations.  This will be rapidly increased to 3000.
2. The new (again) LA facility will be used to build raptor engines, while Boca Chica will be where the rest of Starship and Super Heavy are assembled.  Musk plans to build 2 Starships a week.
3. Each Starship will cost—wait for it—just $5 million.  (The Super Heavy will be extra.) My earlier guesses were 10-15 times as high.  This is extraordinarily cheap.  It confirms that SpaceX will be running an  assembly line for Starship/Super Heavy.  Musk's earlier estimate of $2 million per launch (i.e., both Starship and Super Heavy) seems very plausible.  9 launches will be enough  to get a Starship to orbit and to refuel it for the trip to Mars, which means (at 100 passengers) a Mars ticket cost of just $180K.  Just a reminder: SLS will cost $1.5 to $2.5 BILLION per launch.  For the same cost, NASA could send 8000 astronauts to Mars.  Just saying.  Meanwhile, the whole fleet of 1000 Starships would cost just $5 billion.  You'll need fewer Super Heavys because they'll be re-usable several times a day, whereas Starships will have a more limited re-use because they'll be en route to Mars, or on the red planet itself, but on the other hand, the Super Heavys will cost at least twice the cost of the Starship itself.  So $10-$15 billion for the whole fleet?
4. The first 5 Starships will stay on Mars, which makes sense as they will be so cheap.  These will be the cargo versions of Starship, but there is no doubt they could be used as temporary habitats while permanent habitats are built.
5. No nuclear reactors (he means, presumably, NASA's KRUSTY kilopower reactors).  Zubrin pointed out that 6 to 10 football fields of panels would be needed to refuel a single Starship, and Musk replied "Fine!  That's what we'll do."   I still think that will require more Starships than SpaceX has been talking about so far, just to carry the solar panels.  But if Starships are so cheap ....  On the other hand, the next settlers may well be happy to have a diversified mix of nuclear, wind and solar, given the reality of planet-wide dust storms lasting months at a time.
6. The first crew ships will carry just 20-50 people, instead of the 100 each ship is capable of carrying.  Most prob'ly because  of the need for cargo space.
7. Musk also dismissed the whole "mini Starship" idea that Zubrin has been promoting.  Starships will be so cheap and production so rapid that leaving a Starship on Mars for 2 years (the Mars-Earth orbits only "sync" every 26 months) will only add a small amount to total costs.   
8. SpaceX will go for a 100 km high launch immediately after the 20 km launch.  Though he didn't say whether this would be SN1 (Serial number 1) or SN2 (both under construction at Boca Chica right now) which will attempt these landmark milestones.  100 kms (suborbital) will allow Starship to do point-to-point flights, and to circumnavigate the globe.  
9. Zubrin thinks that it is very likely that SpaceX will put boots on Mars before NASA gets to the Moon.  Looks very likely, doesn't it?
10. Progress constructing the first two test models of Starship, SN1 and SN2, has been extraordinarily rapid.  Subject to bureaucracy, the first test flights could happen as soon as April.