Elon Musk's spacex today
launched the first test of
starship, a rocket meant to one
day send people to the moon and
eventually Mars.
The most powerful rocket ever
built blasted off from its
launch based in Texas.
>> We should have had separation
by now.
Obviously, this does not appear
to be a nominal situation.
>> Only to explode roughly four
minutes into its flight.
The rocket, we should say, was
unmanned.
Musk says the next launch
attempt will be in a few months.
Your science correspondent is
here to unpack it all for us.
We should say spacex calls this
a rapid unscheduled disassembly,
what we would call explosion.
Help us understand what happened
during this test flight.
>> I used to get mad at nasa for
saying hi phenomenal, so this is
a good turn of phrase, for sure.
It appears several of the
engines were not working, almost
from the outset.
If you were not even fired up
when it left the pad -- a few
were not even fired up when it
left the pad.
As it ascended, several more
failed.
Maybe half a dozen, maybe close
to eight, depending on how your
accounting and when you are
looking.
You can imagine that would cause
it to lose altitude, of course,
but also with 33 engines and as
many as seven or eight of them
out, that would cause all kinds
of stability and navigational
problems for it.
Ultimately, it got to a point
where it was unstable.
It did not separate, the super
heavy craft and the starship
itself did not separate.
At that point, they pushed the
button, and it was self-destruct
time.
>> Previous iterations of
starship have failed in testing
before.
What is interesting about this
is that spacex and Elon Musk say
that failure really is an option
with spacex.
Why?
>> It is a different those then
nasa has evolved toward -- it is
a different Ito's -- it is a
different ethos than nasa has
evolved toward.
That idea of failure being an
option is actually interesting.
That lots of tests, lots of
failures, lots of lessons
learned is the approach that
Elon Musk has taken, so you had
this odd juxtaposition, this
rocket in a million pieces way
above the shoreline in Texas,
and the spacex crew in
California and Texas cheering.
It was kind of hard to square
that, but the idea was they got
pretty far.
They got a lot of data, and they
did not damage the ground
equipment, which could have
really slowed down.
>> Why is starship such a big
deal?
What does it mean for the future
of space exploration if it does
succeed?
>> Well, it is really big.
It is twice as powerful as the
mighty Saturn five, which sent
astronauts to the moon.
A little less than twice as
powerful as the more recent
space launch system, and more
importantly, it is fully
reusable power portends to be,
at least.
Full reusability is like the
holy grail of spaceflight.
Imagine if every time you flew
on a 737, they had to build a
new one.
Imagine how cheap your ticket to
Cleveland would be, right?
This idea of being able to
recover the spacecraft and
re-years them is a big change in
the game.
If it works out, it is something
that makes space more accessible
to more people.
>> Let's talk about Elon Musk
for a second because he is a
controversial figure.
He has been criticized for his
management of Twitter since
taking it over.
He has been accused of fostering
a toxic culture of racism and
sexism at the businesses he
runs, to include Tesla.
He has a reputation for being a
taskmaster and micromanager.
How, if at all, is spacex
affected by that?
>> As a parent, my inclination
is to tell him to get off of
social media and to pay
attention to something
important.
I will say this -- he has
obviously got a lot of Irons in
the fire.
There's all kinds of
controversy.
He is a famous or infamous
micromanager on top of that.
How that all works I don't know,
but I know this -- the team he
has built at spacex is pretty
extraordinary.
He has a lot of deep talent
there.
His number two there who makes a
lot of key decisions, is an
extraordinarily talented space
executive.
All I can say is from the
outside, he's got a lot of good
people who are, you know,
well-trained in the space world,
and if he is fully -- if he is
paying full attention or not may
not matter that much.
>> Lastly, when spacex says they
are going to attempt another
launch in a few months, how is
that even possible?
Do they have replica mammoth
rockets off in storage
somewhere?
>> They have production
capabilities in Texas.
This rocket was not meant to be
recovered.
That production line still is
there.
Those rockets are still at the
state of readiness they were
before.
The ground equipment was not
damaged.
The two things that have to
happen is they have to figure
out what went wrong and try to
fix that, and they have to go
back to the federal aviation
administration approval once
again to fly.
Who knows how long that will
take?
Bear in mind, nasa would like to
use a derivation of starship to
send astronauts from lunar orbit
down to the surface in 2025.
That is a short time away, isn't
it?
>> Absolutely.
Always enjoy speaking with you.
Thanks for being with us.
>> You are welcome.