The week of May 19th could be redemption or yet another embarrassment for Trump’s sugar daddy. America’s favorite African-American recently said, “Just before the Starship flight next week, I will give a company talk explaining the Mars game plan in Starbase, Texas, that will also be live-streamed on X.“
Until Tesla’s value began to fall like an apple from a tree, 75% of Elon Musk’s wealth was based on his EV company. Most of his other assets are from SpaceX.
All eyes will be on SpaceX next week as Musk has been hyping his journey to Mars since that marijuana-infused night in his college dorm.
Aside from the enormous distance to Mars, cosmic radiation, and the lack of oxygen and experience, Musk is pretending to know what he is doing. His Starship rocket has exploded in the eight previous attempts, and there is little likelihood it will remain intact on the ninth attempt. Wait, isn’t Musk a genius? Doesn’t he own the suborbital rocket business with his Falcon rocket? Why am I so skeptical?
Almost everyone agrees that the design of the Mars-bound Starship is over 100 times more complicated than that of the workhorse Falcon rocket, which is based chiefly on rocketry from the 1960s. The only true innovation is the booster rocket’s ability to be reusable. SpaceX’s development has been almost fully subsidized ($18 billion received and another $20 promised) by the US government. The first International Space Station resupply mission occurred in 2012 during Obama’s first presidency.
Both Tesla and SpaceX have significantly benefited from direct and indirect revenues from the US government. He is a unique recipient of mammoth government subsidies, a neat trick for an outspoken Libertarian.
SpaceX has become the king of suborbital space travel (250 miles from Earth), but the moon is 955 times farther away. Mars is almost ONE MILLION times farther. Trips to the moon or Mars require a much bigger and more sophisticated rocket.
As an optimist and science fiction fan, I believe humans will return to the moon and someday reach Mars. HOWEVER, Musk’s recent prediction that SpaceX will get to Mars in four years proves that he is now as delusional about almost everything he touches. He said DOGE would trim the federal budget by $2 TRILLION. In 2015, Musk said his Tesla cars would have fully autonomous driving capability by 2018, maybe sooner.
Unless Musk abstains from the drugs he has been taking, he could easily become the male version of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing company, Theranos. Failures while trying to do hard things are expected; however, overpromising places entrepreneurs on a knife’s edge. A pattern of overhyping or a single bold claim can lead to lawsuits, contract cancellations, devaluation of the stock price, and even jail time.
May 19th might be a pivotal week for SpaceX and Elon Musk. His Starship behemoth might achieve orbit for the first time, but if it fails, a dark cloud will hover over his Boca Chica, Texas facility, now rebranded as Starbase, Texas. Musk has boldly declared that he wants Starships to be launched 25 times yearly. How about ONCE?
Will Elon Musk be celebrated for centuries as the Zefram Cochrane of space travel, or will he be in the coed cell next to Elizabeth Holmes? [Zefram’s quote from the Star Trek inventor of the warp drive was, “Don’t try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgments.”]
Stay tuned for launch nine of the Starship Musk!