Quick – What do you call it when your big ass new mutha’ rocket explodes during an otherwise perfectly normal trip to space? It needs to be cool, but not too cool – it did, blow up, but you don’t want to give away the ending. How about a “rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn,” Well – that’s one way, and that is the way that Space X termed its new troublesome development Thursday night. The symbolism concurrent with Elon Musk’s own ascent to the top of American politics is breathtakingly evergreen, indeed – a post on Bluesky read; “Try to live your life such that when your rocket explodes the entire world doesn’t die laughing.” Trite as it might sound, yes – it isn’t all that bad a thought. If you are going to blow up, try to keep the readers laughing and maybe use some sexual innuendo while at it. Anyway, yes – Starship blew up big last night while some of us did not.

They say that rockets are nothing more than cylinders directing a bomb straight down in a controlled explosion. This is an accurate enough description until such time as your rocket fails to contain said explosion, at which point it just becomes a big – almost beautiful, fireball of cash in the sky.

Look, when you can land a rocket bas-akwards, you have precious little for which to apologize, but you do, indeed, need a rocket to make it all work. (Actually, thinking on it, if you have $300 Billion, you likely rarely need apologize for anything.) So, Space X lost their rocket when that rapid unscheduled thing occurred. Don’t fret all that much, they probably have a beta lying around.

Meanwhile, you got anything going on this weekend? Call me. No, “X” went out of its AI-generated mind and “blew up” (Just deal with it, you knew it was coming.)

The trash bin? Now that is clever. Others didn’t have such elan for Elon’s misfortune.

I find it critical to note that an apocalyptic meteor shower and an alien invasion are not mutually exclusive nor exhaustive when one considers more palatable possibilities rained down from the heavens over the last decade. But do not get caught in the trap of thinking that set-backs in getting to space are a good thing. No, anything making it more expensive to get up where our satellites hang out is going to come out of your pocket eventually, whether society has fully absorbed that fact or not. This isn’t about glee in watching nature triumph over engineering yet again. It is nothing more than symbolism run amok – and perhaps a chance to catch one’s breath, ideally not for the last time.

Below is proof positive that there is no amount of comedic human imagination that a dog can’t make funnier. Mark Twain couldn’t….

Who saw that coming? I am willing to bet almost no one, it is very hard to predict unscheduled explosive events at sunset (Talk about symbolism off the leash, usually just a rocket works). Meanwhile, there are indications that this thing was coming apart at the seams just moments prior:

Umm, no. They are not “intentionally sabotaging a thing. If one wants to deal a death blow to their rocket company, you don’t do it in a way that can be fixed by a good amount of duct tape. And Space X is running low on cash? Oh, come on. For the love of God, send Musk to the ATM – why do you think he’s there in the first place? It can be convenient to have that $300 billion lying around – because even though rapid unscheduled things can cost $20 billion or so, that leaves, well – $280 billion for a trip to Mars.

Key lesson below; While watching a rocket explode into a giant pride flag, try not to have your airplane directly beneath the spectacle… Just close enough for a good shot:

Yeah – but please do be on a beach in the Caribbean when it all goes down. You know that Jimmy Buffet wouldn’t miss out on that. Meanwhile, Musk took some heavy fire himself and this was worth the pri… Well, not that much – but certainly worth posting:

No time soon, not while a roll of duct tape still costs less than ten bucks. No, he’s there to stay. Again, this is the guy who put together other folks who catch 30-story buildings out of the air with glorified chopsticks. We can take some liberties, but perspective also helps. If you did no better than 50% on “Catching” versus “Exploding” you would still be 100% better than NASA – which never caught a rocket with anything smaller than an ocean below. Let’s keep some perspective because it was just last month:

Do that a time or two and you’ve earned a mulligan, at least from me… Maybe not Urs but she’s an editor, those people are just wired differently, or had bad childhoods. Meanwhile, back on X:

“Impossible” is a bit strong. Give me $300 billion and I will hire some of the best leaders around and I will lead “them” in the effort to schedule all rapid ascents. Of course, you don’t have that kind of money without being a good leader. So there’s that. Perspective.

No. Do. Not. give them any ideas! Additionally, Space X has launched plenty of things into orbit and this column may be proof positive since it’s as likely as not that you’re reading this through a Starlink satellite. Someone else on “X” wrote that Space X is only now catching up to NASA of the late 70s and that we should simply fund NASA better so as to exclude billionaires from the market. No. Not while they’ll fighting to get out there anyway in order to corner the satellite market. Wait until we have enough redundant orbiting infrastructure in place and then make them a utility. It is not the craziest idea – they might even get a bigger financial award. But this is about power and when one has the high ground… Make it a utility.

Below we’ll head out on something inspiring. Yes, yes – Musk sets the insufferable standard – only Zuck comes close, and Elon damned sure doesn’t need any of us to like him. But in the end, you’re not going anywhere – much less high above the earth, unless you can stare explosions in the eye only to turn and schedule your next ascent.

No. Don’t give up. Very few of us voted in what’s coming. But stay engaged, hold dear to all you believe. The world is heavy enough without having to lift yourself out of a hole. If you have to watch everything blow up above you, see it all happen between palm leaves on a beach.

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on X – @JasonMiciak, and now on Bluesky. 

Friends, I am forced to self-promote and ask you for money. We had a bad year compared with 2023 and the end of the year has been catastrophic. Traffic died on November 5. We are a small blog and completely self-supporting by ad revenue, donations, and subscriptions. If you can afford a monthly subscription that would help us out. If you can make a small donation, likewise. Our only goal is to stay in business and give you the best content we can generate. You are the wind beneath our wings. Thank you. Ursula
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5 COMMENTS

  3. May his next one send all the fragments down on the White House…the new headquarters for the American Nazi Party, while Herr Trump has all his cabinet there. Hey we killed millions of nazis in WW2, what’s a few more? Let it be the first shot fired in the new American Revolution! Harsh you say? Destroying 6000 children at the border is harsh. Killing over a million citizens is harsh. Killing 9 people and injuring 140+ police officers trying to violently overthrow our democracy is harsh. Phuck Trump and all his nazis. May they get the fate THEY DESERVE!
    ‘I didn’t come down from the Smokey mountains, cross thousands of miles of ocean, jump out of a goddamn plane, and fight my way across Sicily to teach the nazis humanity. Nazis ain’t got no humanity. They are the foot soliders of a maniacal Jew hating mass murderer.’ Brad Pitt as Aldo the Apache in Inglorious Basterds
    Seems you soft citizens have forgotten what it has taken for you to sit on your comfortable asses. No worries. You’re about to find out. We had a chance to stop them with the vote. That day has passed to return no more. Now it will require YOU to comply with these evil killers or…hell…just wait til hell comes then figure it out. Keep sending them rockets up you racist south African nazi! Maybe if one of your fragment take out the wrong person…someone might just skip the corrupt legal system and sneak up behind YOU on the street since there is no real justice left here.

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    • Yes, we had the chance to stop them with the vote, but not enough of us voted. And we had the chance to stop them with the Dept of Justice but Biden’s AG turns out to be a Federalist Society lackey. We sent the street thugs to jail but the leadership went free, and now they’re in power again. Welcome to the oligarchy.

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      • Those street thugs, most of whom faced NO CHARGES, will join their brothers in arms when Trump wipes their records clean with pardons. Hitler had his brownshirts…I wonder what color uniform trump’s fascist militia will wear?

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  4. 1) It’s a lot easier to.”become an effective leader”when you’re already rich because your family was rich and the actual work of design is being done by much better qualified people
    AND
    2).Dang, why wasn’t the effective leader on board when it blew up?

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