The latest SpaceX launch was totally successful, proceeding exactly as intended.
Yeah, they planned to explode on landing. It’s a feature of the SpaceX launches–they guarantee a spectacular and photogenic explosion with every launch. Stay tuned for more fireworks!
Yes, they really did and, yes, I will.
Awesome rocket. Astounding tech.
Shame about the literal nazi scumbag in charge of building it or at least the CEO of the company anyhow.
Still I do love their engineering and space exploring work and their progress does help everyone ultimately anyhow. They show what we humans can build and fly at our best. They give us tech and progress to build on.
Even the nazis literally gave us Von Braun who helped get our species to our Moon with Apollo – in peace and for all.
There is so much proof available about the destruction wrought and massive money wasted by muskrat and spacex it makes me sick. And, it has made many other people LITERALLY sick. The documented amount of spacex destructive pollution spread throughout the entire spacex region (carribean, texas, florida, etc.) is criminal.
The sociopath muskrat is just like sociopath tRUMP in his complete disregard for other people’s lives.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/spacex-forced-to-delay-flight-as-worker-dies-in-horrific-fall-at-musk-s-base/ar-AA23Dfmf
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/spacex-contractor-dies-at-rocket-companys-texas-hq/
https://universemagazine.com/en/scientists-working-on-secret-nasa-and-spacex-projects-suddenly-die-or-go-missing/
Apr 21, 2026 11 leading scientists associated with NASA, nuclear research, and projects by SpaceX and Blue Origin have disappeared or been found dead.
I’m not even going to mention here about all the crimes, destruction and ruined lives and entire neighborhoods that the muskrat’s data centers have caused.
If you sent that illegal immigrant ahole back to S. Africa without a dime, the world would be a much better place.
I feel old.
I remember when our rockets didn’t explode.
I remember when our rocket did explode, it was bad.
I remember when the book 1984 was fiction.
I am old.
@ ^ shermanj : Probly. yeah.
if Kamala Harris was POTUS there’s no doubt the world would be vastly better than it is now.
Still. When evil men do something good, I think we should encourage and help them to do good and do & focus on doing things that are good rather than evil.
If Felon Musk focuses on SpaceX and trying to get to Mars or at least build better and bigger rockets then it is metaphorical Megaparsecs better than him spending $$$ and effort and time trying to put nazis in power globally. Isn’t it?
@4 StevoR wrote: think we should encourage and help them to do good and do & focus on doing things that are good rather than evil.
I reply: What your sentence is clearly implying is we should look the other way at all the murdering and destruction of all the sociopaths and praise and revel in their rare decent act.
Yes, we should encourage decent acts. But, we cannot ignore nor condone that sort of attitude of ignoring evil deeds. It is what has allowed the magats to succeed. One of the greatest failures of society is that they do not hold evil accountable. Human society has always been largely a failure because of the lack of qualitative discernment and accountability for the words and actions of people.
@ ^ shermanj : : “What your sentence is clearly implying is we should look the other way at all the murdering and destruction of all the sociopaths and praise and revel in their rare decent act.””
Nope. Not what I am saying and srawperson fallacy by you. re read my actual words please.
@ soc25 : “I feel old. I remember when our rockets didn’t explode.”
I feel old these days too. One of my firts emories was an early attempt of teh very first Space Shutrtle aluanch that ultimnately failed due tocomputer glitch. Back it was all white and shiny new.
But “öur” rockets did explode and that’s how they leant the right stuff.
See
Rocket testing from The Right Stuff 2 mins 7 secs.
@4 StevoR wrote: If Felon Musk focuses on SpaceX and trying to get to Mars or at least build better and bigger rockets then it is metaphorical Megaparsecs better than him spending $$$ and effort and time trying to put nazis in power globally. Isn’t it?
I reply: NO, Because, the muskrat getting tRUMP to import, fund and protect actual S. African nazis makes your words empty. And, you are still ignoring the morally depraved aspects of the massive destruction and ruination of lives caused by the way muskrat/spacex uses that money.
Here is a real world application: if someone turned your home into a toxic waste dump as they successfully sent a rocket to the moon, what I hear you saying is that is justified and you are fine with that. So, you apparently think the end justifies the means.
I detest the amoral society in which we are immersed that is focused on winning without consideration of all the murder and destruction caused.
Living in a world of aerospace engineers I have seen how this should, and did, work.
In the early days, the practice was
1)design on the drawing board, research the materials and processes carefully
2)test in the safest manner and place possible
3)launch the mission
the spacex/muskrat approach is:
1)come up with a cool, far out idea
2)kill a few engineers
3)launch the mission and what ever destruction happens is just a ‘learning experience’.
At this point, I must cleanse my mind by returning to work on refurb’ing computers for neighbors to safely get them on the internet. Martha and the Vandellas is still playing.
@ ^ shermanj : So you think it is BETTER for Felon Musk to spend $$$ and effort and time trying to put nazis in power globally?
I mean, that is literally your answer to my question.
Wow.
Given choice of two alternatives you sure do pick the wrong one.
No. No I am not.
I never was and never will. Just as I won’t condone Von Bruan’s nazism and what he did then in that part and aspect of his life.
Was that wrong? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Does that mean he didn’t get us to our Moon and do a lot of good as well?
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
Becoz things are complex and not fucking metaphorical black and white & human individuals can do both and lot of good and also a lot of harm in their lives and we should applaud the good they do and condemn the bad they do and encourage the good and discourage the bad and .. you really need me to point this out to you for ..pities sake?
One way to solve the moral issue of evil billionaires might be to stake out all rich climate change deniers in the sun next time there is a super-el- nino and a stagnant lid of hot weather that does not go away for a month.
That way if they are right, they will be OK.
StevoR @11:
In Musk’s (and many other’s) case, we should thank him for the good he’s done, then toss the mass-murdering sociopath in jail, throwing away the key. ASAP.
I despise Musk as much as the next person, but this is completely misleading.
The thing that blew up was the second stage of a test rocket, which successfully reached space (slightly sub-orbital), successfully deployed 22 dummy test satellites, then successfully re-entered the atmosphere, slowed down from 17,000mph to zero in a controlled fashion, hovered for a few seconds just above the water at a precise pre-planned point in the Indian Ocean where remote-controlled cameras on buoys were waiting to film it, then after proving that (in principle) it could return to a launch tower and be caught, it finished its hover, fell over into the sea and the residual remaining fuel caused a small explosion, all as intended.
This is in comparison with traditional rockets which just ditch their second stages somewhere in a remote part of an ocean with no possibility of recovery and reuse.
The most drily amusing financial expert I know:
loop @14, I am very ignorant of rocket engineering, so can I ask a few things?
What’s the value of having the second stage, after proving it could hover, explode and sink into the ocean, instead of just sinking into the ocean like the other second stages have done? Is there a purpose? They certainly can’t recover an exploded stage, and I suppose that someone could, if they really wanted to, haul unexploded sunk second stages back up for re-use.
Then, ignorant me, couldn’t they have tried to see if it would hover on land? If it would, they’d still have it. Or, did they think it’d be too dangerous if the hover failed and it crashed? They’ve had so many rockets crash, would this be that much worse?
The TV announcer was babbling on about something I couldn’t catch, about rockets (or something) usually being brought down onto launchpads so that they could be re-used. What was that about? I thought that rockets/second stages hovering nicely, coming in for a landing, and being re-usable, hadn’t been accomplished yet? If it has, why were they testing this one to see if it could hover?
Thanks for your time in giving any info you’d like, if any.
John @15, thanks for posting that video, it is hilarious! The guy certainly is dry, funny, and good at explaining the delusional idiocy of this proposed IPO. SpaceX’ disclosure is so awful that I can imagine the poor YouTube guy clutching his head while he was reading it, although, he is a pro, and has probably seen, if not it all, then all that he cares to see.
It’s a SpaceX feature, not a bug. Just like Trump is the best prezdint in the whole wide world.
garnetstar: the eventual plan for the Starship second stage is that it returns to the launch site, is caught by two arms on the launch tower (the “chopsticks”), and then after a few hours is ready for another launch. They have already caught the first stage a couple of times using this method. The second stage is harder, and they are still in the R&D stage. So initially they aim for an empty part of the ocean and pretend they’re being caught by the tower. Because when you’re re-entering the earth’s atmosphere at 17,000mph, being even slightly off can lead to you landing miles away, e.g. on a city. So they want to be really certain of the the technology before they start attempting a real catch.
In the meantime, with a simulated catch in the ocean, there will always be a small amount of fuel left that won’t work with the engines – they work on liquid oxygen and methane, and even if that is all used up, there will still be some gaseous methane left in the tanks. Which causes a (relatively small) explosion. Eventually when Starships are caught at the tower, any residual fuel will be reclaimed.
Just about all other rockets from the last 70 years have been dropping their second stages in the ocean, which also break up and sink, and probably explode too, if there’s any residual fuel. But there are no remote cameras recording that.
They have done some hover tests on land. They sent a few Starship second stages vertically upwards about 10km, then let them fall vertically and tried to flip and land them on the ground (this was pre-chopsticks). They succeeded on the fifth attempt. That was about 4 years ago. The four earlier failures allows people to post lots of videos of “startships exploding”. Since then they have developed the first stage of the rocket, and have been experimenting with getting Starship to and from orbit.
Basically they have built a rocket about twice as powerful as a Saturn V, and are using a whole bunch of never-done-before techniques to make it fully and rapidly reusable. To put this in context: at today’s prices, a Saturn V or SLS launch costs about $3000M; it is expected that a Starship launch will be in the region of $10M, for a comparable payload.
Musk’s goal to start a Mars colony is insane; but if that prompts him to spend billions of his own cash on a new launch system that has the potential to absolutely revolutionise space science (think of all the big probes we could cheaply send to the outer planets for example), then I’m all for it.
No. The cash from investors invested in enterprises he controls.
Anyway, I linked to an analysis of the financials.
Here, for you: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026036936/spaceexplorationtechnologi.htm
BTW, loop, your justification is cogent and makes sense in its own mindset.
Thing is, reusable spacecraft (‘shuttles’) were supposed to take off, go to space, land again.
Blowing up unspent fuel allegedly deliberately is not that, is it? Nor is splashdown.
Anyway. Point being, reality was rather the opposite re that first iteration of ‘fully reusable’.
Apart from the waste, the refurbishment alone cost as much as fully disposable job. It was a lot of pork to a lot of Senators’ places, of course. Would have been cheaper to just improve the rockets they had.
(But I digress)
Thanks, loop, that was very interesting! I think that the last time I paid attention to what the state of rocket engineering was, Werner von Braun was still alive. So, interesting to learn how far they’ve come!
@5 shermanj :
Yet when I call out the Trump helping troll “beholder” here and the Bothsiderism and Only-Unicornism that literally allowed the magats to succeed and put Trump in power you strenuously object to my doing so. Huh. Go figure eh?
If you actually agreed with your own line quoted above then you’d be supporting me in what I’m doing here NOT criticising me for doing exactly that – trying to hold evil acountable and make sure evil deeds with extremely evil consequences are NOT forgotten.
@19 loop :
Exactly and quoting for truth.
Fifty one seconds long video here – SpaceX Makes History Catching Rocket on Landing
@ Rob Grigjanis : “In Musk’s (and many other’s) case, we should thank him for the good he’s done, then toss the mass-murdering sociopath in jail, throwing away the key. ASAP.”
Yes. Agreed there.
@ 9. shermanj :
Youleft out their next steps
4) Apply that learning and then
5) Repeat until successful. Which they have an extraordinary record of achieving what their (1) cool idea was / is.
This strange old thing called trial and error.
Also “kill engineers”- really? Nope.
StevoR, your Elon Musk worship is problematic. shermanj is trying to call your attention to environmental destruction as a result of Musk’s aerospace manufacturing — for his own personal fun and profit.
That Stevo is trying (and failing) to turn it around into a gotcha against shermanj, and dragging me into it(!) only makes him sound lazy and childish.
[meta]
StevoR vs Stevo, that is an attempted insult.
Get it, Be hold? Er?
@25 StevoR wrote: This strange old thing called trial and error.
I reply: Speaking as an engineer, I assure you, trial and error is the most irresponsible, wasteful and ignorant development method.
@25 StevoR wrote: Also “kill engineers”- really? Nope.
I reply: please don’t be so disingenuous and refer back to the deaths caused by the muskrat/spacex documented by others as I indicated in @2
The sociopath muskrat is just like sociopath tRUMP in his complete disregard for other people’s lives.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/spacex-forced-to-delay-flight-as-worker-dies-in-horrific-fall-at-musk-s-base/ar-AA23Dfmf
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/spacex-contractor-dies-at-rocket-companys-texas-hq/
https://universemagazine.com/en/scientists-working-on-secret-nasa-and-spacex-projects-suddenly-die-or-go-missing/
Apr 21, 2026 11 leading scientists associated with NASA, nuclear research, and projects by SpaceX and Blue Origin have disappeared or been found dead.
shermanj, that last is pure unwarranted speculative conspiracy theory insinuation.
For the credulous.
Apr 21, 2026 11 leading scientists associated with NASA, nuclear research, and projects by SpaceX and Blue Origin have disappeared or been found dead.
↓
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_theory
—
Mind you, StevoR posted on that thread about another conspiracy thingy of no more merit, regarding the alleged ‘stealing’ of the election by Trump. You are not the only one..
24 StevoR
Quoting the most optimistic PR framing for truth, nice fanboying. Nobody seriouly believes turn around times of a few hours. I wonder if the Afroman defense works vs investor fraud allegations…
The main goal of spacex is to earn government contract money, through corruption or otherwise. Hopefully they never manage to attempt send any gullible fools/suicide squad to mars in our lifetime.
Not exactly thrilled with the prospect of these behemoths eventually launching from Florida. Fuck that!
Oh crap…even worse…StevoR vs beholder subthread launching in 3….2…1….
@ ^ Hemidactylus : Over a day later.
@30. erik333 :
Quoting #19 loop. Noting the ideal goal that SpaceX is working towards and planning. Which is the SF ideal of making rockets essentially like aircraft in turn-around times. SpaceX does have a known record of accomplishing things that seemed like SF dreams before, well, SpaceX actually did them.
Did no one seriously believe SpaceX would land rockets simultaneously, land the booster stage on a barge platform at sea etc..? Yeah, reckon so. Did they do that anyhow? Yup! As seen eventually here.
Me @ #1 :
Me @ #11 asked if I condone or am ignoring ” the morally depraved aspects of the massive destruction and ruination of lives caused by the way muskrat/SpaceX uses that money.”
Me @25.
You : “nice fanboying.”
The Trump helping bad faith troll “beholder” @ 26 : “StevoR, your Elon Musk worship is problematic.”
Do.
Try.
To.
Actually.
Read.
To comprehend. To see that there’s a basic difference between what a company and group does that is a separate thing from an individual person. An evil literal nazi individual who I have stated I cannot stand and wish was NOT in charge of that group – specifically SpaceX.
Just like the Ford company and Ford cars are not the same as fucking Henry fucking Ford. Who was also a nazi too.
For fuck’s sake.
BTW. Blatant disingenuous Trumpy troll “beholder” is blatant and commenting in Trumpy bad faith again. Becoz of course they are.
@28. shermanj :
Musk is a sociopath, yeah.
However, he or more relevantly SpaceX doesn’t use “killing engineers” as a step in their process as you allege which is as #29 John Morales pointed out Conspiracy theory. .
@ ^ PS. Yeah, shermanj, you can criticise their methods but you cannot argue with the fact that they ultimately work and SpaceX do generally, ultimately, achieve what they plan to do.
See linked videos in my #33 & #24 and note the list of SpaceX “firsts” here :
https://www.cgaa.org/article/spacex
Including some that NASA hasn’t managed yet.
To use a sporting metaphor – look at the scoreboard.
So when SpaceX say they’ll do something, there’s pretty good precedent saying that, yeah, they will actually do it.
Silly fanboi. Of SpaceX, not of Musk, as though that mattered.
Truth matters more.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-red-dragon-20170721-story.html
or
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/aiaa-spacex/
or many others. cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_colonization_program
(I got a couple of pages of those via querying a bubblebot. Promises, promises)
You may as well claim ‘promises made, promises kept’ about Trump. No less false.
@ 27 Morales
We’ve been through this dude. It’s his name (or an Australianisation thereof). It’s equivalent to calling the individual with the handle “PZ Myers” PZ. Or yourself, John. There’s no insult.
As opposed to you routinely making up insulting names like “fecalbubulum” or “joke be rid of you”, etc.
@ 28 shermanj
[fucking blockquotes – how do they work?!]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents#Other_non-astronaut_fatalities
Hey look at that evil “NASA” organization murdering engineers right, left and center – in addition to the 17 astronauts they killed!
I’m sure shermanj will be right on to them so as not to be “disingenuous”, right? Right?