Elon Musk may be in a rush to get to Mars, if only to escape all of the chaos he is causing here on Earth, but he is going nowhere fast with his Starship. Today’s ninth test launch of the rocket ended with the explosion of its first-stage booster as well as the rocket itself during re-entry. While this is better than the last two launches, it still demonstrates that the rocket has a ways to go before it can be used for Moon missions, leaving aside any talk about Mars.
SpaceX loves to play with language (particularly when regulators are around), so it called this a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” once again. That said, the humor is getting thin.
Mr. Musk said he is back to his jobs at Tesla and SpaceX, so let’s hope he can get a handle on this rocket. I don’t really care about the cars – Tesla has already been superseded by other car companies – but SpaceX is important to the US space industry.
It is also time for Mr. Musk to stop over-promising on everything (though I am glad he was dead wrong about DOGE savings). The focus needs to be the Moon. Forget Mars for now.
By the way, DOGE has also done damage to future Mars missions by cutting funding and staffing at the Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Center would be critical to finding a safe landing site on Mars for one of Musk’s rockets.
You don’t poke out your eyes and then hope to make progress, but that is what is happening these days.
Note: It seems the term “rapid unscheduled disassembly” precedes Mr. Musk, as this link explains.
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