Compromise and Conceit

On the 28th May 2026 the New Glenn rocket exploded on its landing pad, in what may have been the largest non-nuclear explosion in human history. Along with the rocket itself the explosion took out a lightning tower, the launch tower, and a bunch of associated equipment. This was the only launch pad in the Blue Origin program, so until it is rebuilt New Glenn is not going anywhere[1], and most estimates suggest it will take 12-18 months to rebuild the pad. This means that even if they can iron out whatever flaws caused this bang, the rocket program won’t be ready for certification until 2028. This project is entirely funded and directed by Jeff Bezos, billionaire owner of Amazon.

On the 22nd May 2026 the latest iteration of the SpaceX Starship program blew up in the Indian Ocean, after failing to reach LEO. The upper stage went sub-orbital but during detachment the “reusable” booster did something dumb and exploded, and then the upper stage blew up when it touched down in the ocean. If SpaceX are to be believed[2] this landing was intended, though it seems like they though they were going to land the booster at their base. I don’t think the explosion was intended, though – it appears to have been caused by some kind of fuel mixture happening. Of course, some engines failed on liftoff as well, because apparently rocket science is hard. This project is the brainchild of Elon Musk, the world’s richest and weirdest white supremacist.

On 1st April 2026 the NASA SLS rocket successfully launched, sending four crew around the dark side of the moon and returning them to earth without incident. This is the latest successful step in the program to return humans to the moon, which NASA aims to do in 2028. This mission apparently depends on SpaceX’s Starship (which has not yet made it to LEO) docking with the Orion module in lunar orbit and then landing on the moon.

In order for Starship to reach the moon it needs to refuel in low earth orbit, which requires approximately 5-10 voyages of other Starships, which plug into the moon-bound vessel to transfer fuel. This means that the 2028 deadline for the first landing on the moon depends on SpaceX being able to:

• Get Starship to low earth orbit [as yet unproven]
• Reuse Starships that deliver fuel to the orbiting vessel [as yet unproven]
• Refuel Starship in orbit [as yet unproven]
• Dock with the Orion module [as yet unproven]
• Land in a stable configuration on the moon [as yet unproven]

It’s worth noting the two big risks here:

1. if during refueling in orbit one of these Starships screws up and loses control or explodes, there is a risk of interfering with passing satellites, which could lead to a catastrophic spiral of destruction in LEO.
2. If the Starship lands on the moon at even a small angle, it could tip and destroy itself, its crew and god only knows what equipment has already been landed there

It’s also worth noting that there is a plan to land some gear and automated components on the moon before Starship arrives, and at least part of that is dependent on work at Blue Origin, whose rocket just produced the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.

It’s all going swimmingly, isn’t it?

The issues here are obvious: there is no way in hell that the Starship is going to be ready to refuel in orbit, to be reliably reused, or to dock with the Orion module by 2028, or indeed by 2030. After SpaceX goes public (catastrophically) this year there’s no guarantee it’ll even be able to raise money for these projects. There’s also no way that Blue Origin are going to be able to get their components onto the moon by 2028.

This is because the only part of this entire SNAFU that is functioning even vaguely according to deadline and plan is the NASA SLS. The private rocket companies are simply producing failure after failure, and spinning increasingly ridiculous stories about what they’re able to achieve and when. And they’re not doing this any cheaper than NASA: the Starship and New Glenn projects have cost about the same amount as SLS and run for about the same length of time but all they’ve produced is vaporware (literally vaporized, in most cases). They’re going to have to spend much, much more to produce a rocket as reliable as SLS, and a lot more than that to produce one that actually achieves the stated goals of their programs.

These private programs are also plagued by stupid design ideas that are fundamental to their failure. The Starship is supposed to be reusable, which means that a certain proportion of its launch weight is fuel to be used on landing, and so much fuel is required that it is almost unable to carry a payload. To deal with this problem Musk has proposed the incredibly stupid orbital refueling idea, and at the same time is stripping the ship of every kg of weight possible, a process that is probably distally responsible for the rocket’s explosive failures. And no one has yet come up with a solution for the problem of landing a long cylinder on the moon, which is not a flat surface. Even a minor tilt in a machine that big is going to be catastrophic, and we also don’t know how much dust it will kick up on landing and what that dust might do to the rocket. Furthermore, we have no idea yet whether its heat shields work, and heat shields are an enormously challenging problem. In order to safely deliver people to the moon within 18 months the SpaceX crew need to show they can refuel in orbit, that their heat shields work, that the rocket won’t tip on unstable lunar surfaces, and that huge clouds of super-heated lunar dust won’t damage its functionality (what happens if the elevator door jams?!).

I have no concern at all about getting people to the Moon, or who gets there first, or even getting people to Mars. Send robots! But if we send a group of people to the Moon and they blow up on landing or worse still get stranded there and die of oxygen loss because Elon Musk is a dickhead, it will be the final nail in the coffin of the space program, and it will also have been a preventable disaster that was caused by the hubris of these billionaire losers and whatever sycophant in NASA is giving them access to this program. No one is going to support funding for further extra-orbital space projects if they show themselves to be dangerous, corrupt money-laundering programs that can’t succeed[3]. But worse still, if the orbital refueling program leads to a cascade of satellite destruction predicted by Kessler, this pointless, hubristic, corrupt program is going to set back human development by 50 years.

All of this would be avoidable, and all this wasted money better spent elsewhere. Imagine if the 25 billion USD Bezos has sunk into New Glenn were simply confiscated by the US government and spent on vaccine development. Imagine if instead of launching satellites into LEO that damage our astronomical capacity, and instead of burning money on a pie-in-the-sky refueling program that could lead to a catastrophic loss of satellite function, Elon Musk’s money were devoted to funding artists or people who actually contribute to society? Then, NASA could continue its successful work on the SLS and actually get to the moon on time, we’d still have a functioning low earth satellite system, and there’d be a lot more art and a lot less diseases in the world.

Instead, we have to watch these pindick losers burn money at a catastrophic rate, endanger a major scientific program, drag down the credibility of a once-great organization while meddling with its timelines, and produce some of the worst and most sycophantic public commentary we’ve ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

Someone needs to get into NASA and tell them to cancel this nonsense!

fn1: except, as one wag on X noted, for the bits of that exploded rocket that were thrown into LEO by the blast – they’ll orbit for a few years and are looking like the only object that any of these billionaire boondoggles are actually going to deliver to LEO

fn2: And why would we?

fn3: I guess you could argue this doesn’t matter because American citizens have no voice in the decisions their governments make, and you might have a point!