Demolishing our climate, one “mishap” at a time
FAA grounds SpaceX’s Starship after another launch mishap
Another Starship launch, another Federal Aviation Administration-mandated grounding and mishap investigation that couldn’t come at a worse time as SpaceX attempts to court investors for what could be the largest IPO in history. As we reported earlier this week, Friday’s launch of the latest iteration of Starship atop its Super …
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Thursday 28th May 2026 08:40 GMT Overflowing Stack
That is a bit simplistic. Starship uses methane and oxygen, not kerosene, and methane can in principle be made synthetically from captured CO₂ and green hydrogen. So there is at least a credible route to very low carbon operation, and potentially carbon negative fuel production if the supply chain is done properly.
And longer term, this technology could even replace some widebody jet routes with point to point suborbital travel using synthetic methane. That would be far more relevant to climate than pretending every SpaceX test mishap is some huge climate disaster.
The real climate problem is still fossil fuel use at industrial scale, not a reusable spacecraft test programme trying to build a cleaner path to orbit.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 10:42 GMT Flocke Kroes
Kerosene could be made from methane, which could come from CO2 and nuclear power. Right now it isn't and that is not going to change in the next few years.
A starship launch is around 3,300 tons of CO2. It would take over 350,000 Starship launches per year to match just aviation and shipping, which is well down the list.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 14:17 GMT DJO
Unless they build power generation specifically for this purpose the electricity will come from the grid. You cannot say this electron is from renewable sources and this one is not. If the grid is supplied by something like 30% nuclear, 40% renewables and 30% carbon then that is the ratio for everybody no matter what PR crap they spout.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 16:40 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: Great Pumpkin override to the FAA
The booster did not hover over the target patch of sea. The upper stage did not test a de-orbit burn. SpaceX have to understand why to make progress with Starship. After finding out why they have to fix the next rocket so it does not fail for the same reasons. All SpaceX has to do is document that in a report and the FAA will allow Starship to return to flight. That has worked before and will work again.
If you are looking for political short cuts look at the process for environmental assessments. These normally take years and SpaceX would benefit greatly if they didn't. DOGE firing as many people in the federal government as possible did not help directly. Fewer people to carry out the assessment would mean it takes longer. Ignoring the regulations could work if there is no-one left to issue a fine. The actual plan appears to be gutting environmental regulations. Buying a drone defence system for TACO's ballroom could lead to some prompt eviscerations.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 22:14 GMT Oneman2Many
Re: "Making methane requires energy. Where is that to come from?"
"expect a Great Pumpkin override to the FAA in 3... 2... 1..."
Why would anybody need to override it ? SpaceX will already be doing the investigation and action plan anyway. The only difference is FAA needs to rubber stamp it.
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Wednesday 27th May 2026 21:21 GMT MachDiamond
"They've just lost out to Bezos for NASA's moon program"
SpaceX is still on the hook to provide at least a demonstration of moon landing capability for which they have been paid for. They have also received money to develop couplings for cryogenic propellant transfers in space. Blue Origin has yet to land something on the moon so the ball is still in play although, BO has delivered a mockup of their proposed lander for review and redesign for a final approval.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 04:26 GMT Richard 12
Who's gonna pay for that?
There's no commercial market for Moon landings. The "total addressable market" figure is clearly fictional.
SpaceX were profitable, now they're making a huge loss because Musk piled on unrelated debt and liabilities. Their NASA and commercial orbital contracts aren't covering those costs, and they're very behind on the NASA contract.
That pointless xAI debt pile appears likely to sink the company, I half suspect the IPO is a desperate attempt to pay it down before they implode.
It's such a shame.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 07:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Who's gonna pay for that?
Recent changes (1 May) to the Nasdaq listing rules means SpaceX can be added to the index of top firms after 15 trading days, down from the previous 3 months. This period is to give time for the shares to find a fair market value.
Being added to the index means any index-linked funds would be compelled to buy SpaceX shares at whatever the price is at after the 15-day period, to keep their portfolio balanced.
Many 401K retirement funds are index-linked, so if you have one of those, you'll be buying SpaceX shares whether you want to or not.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 12:20 GMT Ian Johnston
Re: Who's gonna pay for that?
It's a great trick. Gullible retail investors will buy the very small number of ludicrously overpriced shares on offer then institutional investors are forced to act as greater fools and bear the inevitable losses. Meanwhile Musk's preference shares mean that he retains.complete control. Net effect: pension funds give money to Musk, nothing else changes.
The Trump Slump is going to be horrifyingly good fun to watch.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 09:16 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: Who's gonna pay for that?
If SpaceX and Tesla evaporated today Musk would still be very rich. The banks that lent him money would then own his Telsa shares that were used as collateral. The xAI deal turned a steaming pile of dren into Musk owning a higher proportion of SpaceX. That makes no difference to his absolute and irrevocable control but it does increase the amount he can take from the company if the IPO is successful. One of the strange things about the IPO is the large percentage reserved for retail investors: 30%. This is promoted as Musk's generosity to the common people. A different explanation is the big investors who got burned with the Twitter purchase are looking at SpaceX more critically and finding things they do not like. Tesla is a meme stock tied to the belief that Musk will deliver
full self driving software,robotaxis,humanoid robots, err something new real soon now. SpaceX is being positioned as a meme stock with a Musk promise to deliver the Moon in a decade (or two or three or ...). It would take real courage to invest heavily in both.-
Friday 29th May 2026 03:48 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Who's gonna pay for that?
"If SpaceX and Tesla evaporated today Musk would still be very rich."
I'm not so sure. If SX and Tesla evaporated, there would be a run on pitchforks, torches, tar, feathers, that sort of thing. Most of what he had left would be taken from him. Just attorney's fees would be amazing and he'd need them by the herds to keep back the angry hordes. He'd wind up like that rich bugger in "Contact" that lived onboard his jet and kept moving to avoid said torches and pitchforks.
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Friday 29th May 2026 03:52 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Who's gonna pay for that?
"One of the strange things about the IPO is the large percentage reserved for retail investors: 30%. This is promoted as Musk's generosity to the common people. "
A frosty $20bn comes off the top to repay a loan taken out in March. With plans in place mentioned in the S-1, they need ~$235bn in the next 5 years so the 30% is likely a calculated amount to be the least they can get away with selling at a price that will ensure the whole offering sells in the first few hours. It's still not enough for everything, but enough to keep the rain off for a little while with hope something will work out in spades (a Hail Mary play).
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Friday 29th May 2026 03:44 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Who's gonna pay for that?
"There's no commercial market for Moon landings. The "total addressable market" figure is clearly fictional."
SpaceX really needs NASA to lay the ground work for a commercial lunar installation. There's going to be endless expensive engineering challenges.
It's not known if SpaceX has ever been profitable. They've had ~39 private funding rounds to bring money in. One of my guesses is that through trying to be the low-priced launch provider, they weren't making enough to keep up with ongoing R&D. Rockets and everything around them is horribly expensive and that's before an office full of government compliance people in expensive downtown digs all making bucket loads of salary+bonuses to deal with all of the forms and pleadings. Another office full of blood sucking lawyers, etc etc.
The claim has been that they've reduced the cost of sending things to space, but the books have never been open for review. There haven't been that many credible leaks, either.
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Sunday 7th June 2026 20:57 GMT MachDiamond
Re: SpaceX have their own plans for the moon
"SpaceX have some words in an IPO."
That's one of the reasons I think they've been indulging in substances banned in most places. There very well could be nicely profitable commercial possibilities on/in the moon. What doesn't make a profit is all of the infrastructure it will take to get to that place. But first, there's the cost of developing all of that infrastructure and refining it so it works reliably. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody else was paying for that? Somebody like NASA in conjunction with several other space agencies to spread out the costs and bring in the best engineers. The results would then be (mostly) freely available and there will be some already in place.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 08:45 GMT John Sager
Re: Expected
If SpaceX were ESA then, yes, it would be a terrible track record. But given SpaceX's "move fast & break things" approach, then they aren't doing too badly. Don't forget they deliberately do stuff 'out of the envelope' to stress things so they know where they do break or at least they know they have margin in practical operation. This is standard test pilot stuff with aircraft but on a rather more humongous scale. The FAA thing is bog standard flight safety stuff from any half-way responsible regulator.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 08:35 GMT Pascal Monett
So, 6 out of 12
That is a 50% failure rate.
Doesn't look good for an IPO, much less for getting to the Moon.
Niel Armstrong once commented on the fact that he was going to be launched on the least expensive supplier. It may have been the least expensive, but at least it worked every time.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 18:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So, 6 out of 12
While it is true that Apollo wasn't perfect, it also got to the moon on the 11th launch, and then managed several more before being cancelled.
Yes, it had the experience of the earlier projects to build on, but Musk has access to all that and still hasn't managed to get out of Earth's orbit yet. This is someone who was supposed to have boots on the moon years ago according to the official plans.
The Apollo 1 disaster is what got NASA to up their game, while the Musk generation seems to look upon the explosions as just a firework display at no extra charge.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 18:38 GMT Geoff Campbell
Re: So, 6 out of 12
(The pedant in me would like to point out that going to the Moon isn't getting out of Earth orbit. Excuse me a second whilst I take the pedant outside and bludgeon him.)
Right, where was I? Yes, Apollo and SpaceX use two different development methods. Neither is objectively better or worse than the other. The explosions don't raise any serious concern because they are part of the process, and only a problem in the rare occasions when they happen before the flight has generated new data to feed back into the development process.
But, OK, you want to beat up on SpaceX? Be my guest. I have no brief for them. I do rather enjoy watching rockets go up, release the second stage, then turn around and come back to a controlled landing, though. Pure Thunderbirds, man!
GJC
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Sunday 7th June 2026 21:12 GMT MachDiamond
Re: So, 6 out of 12
"release the second stage, then turn around and come back to a controlled landing,"
Flight 12 Super Heavy didn't come back to a controlled landing. It hit the ocean at close to 1,400kph. Starship "landed" on the ocean, fell over and then exploded. It obviously didn't have the structural strength to survive going over in its side. What isn't know is if the heat shield was still in good enough condition to be used again. At least no information has been make public. SpaceX does have internal cameras to view the interior on the heat shield side. One of those images did make it out for one of the flights and it wasn't good. Improvements may have been made, but if it's a secret, it's not good enough. It's also very heavy and could get very much heavier if water gets into the tiles and maybe the "crunch wrap" as well. Location of data: Bottom of Indian Ocean.
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Friday 29th May 2026 08:49 GMT frankvw
Re: So, 6 out of 12
"While it is true that Apollo wasn't perfect, it also got to the moon on the 11th launch..."
Bull. Before Apollo there were the first attempts to get a rocket off the pad at all (with quite a few RUDs) and then there was Mercury and Gemini. If you take all that into account, the overall progress made by SpaceX is actually roughly on par with earlier government-agency driven tech development. Then there's Apollo 13, and two out of four Space Shuttles (the latter sadly with loss of life).
Space flight is hard. Deriding SpaceX because Musk is bonkers is a lot easier.
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Friday 29th May 2026 11:30 GMT Ian Johnston
Re: So, 6 out of 12
While it is true that Apollo wasn't perfect, it also got to the moon on the 11th launch
Eighth. Apollos 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 preceded the moon landing. Of those only 7, 8, 9 and 10 were crewed.
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Saturday 30th May 2026 07:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So, 6 out of 12
... And I said that Apollo was learning from earlier projects, I just didn't name them.
Space is indeed hard. Apollo started from a earlier point and managed to make it to the moon by 11. Starship, despite all the prior knowledge plus decades of advancement in science that SpaceX has access to, still hasn't left orbit, wasting a vast amount of money each time a rocket launches and explodes (space is hard, actual launches are hugely expensive).
In the mean time, Artemis (you know, the one that is facing cancellation) just went round the moon - largely, I suspect, a publicity stunt*, but it still went there...
I'm not deriding SpaceX per se - I'm pointing out that despite its faults Apollo did it's job, and SpaceX aren't even delivering their own targets. Being saddled with Musk as a front man probably isn't helping, but they are still well behind and burning money on each attempt.
* - I'm largely of the opinion that manned missions beyond orbit are a waste of money at present - too much cost and resources devoted to keeping people alive that could be taken up by more useful automated experiments. Some day in the future, perhaps, but not today...
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Thursday 28th May 2026 08:58 GMT Anonymous John
"It took until Wednesday for the FAA to declare the Super Heavy anomaly a formal mishap, and that means Starship is grounded while SpaceX conducts an FAA-directed investigation to determine what went wrong."
Something that SpaceX would have done (and probably had already started) in any event. I don't think it means anything much.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 09:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
"some of its ideas might just not work"
That would be all those datacentres in space.
The IPO has turned into a race to grab a new source of cash for the money pit that is Musk's LLM product before OpenAI and Anthropic try to do the same.
Note the other Nasdaq rule change that means selling, say, 5% of the company shares is treated as if it were 25% when calculating the Nasdaq "market value" of the IPO - which in turn multiplies the number of SpaceX shares that index-linked funds will be required to purchase. Then in 6 months (typically the period after which directors etc can sell their own shares - oh look, thats still this year) they can sell another 10% or so under the same conditions.
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Thursday 28th May 2026 15:14 GMT Andy The Hat
Commercialisation ...
Can't help thinking that if SpaceX as a firm is fully commercialised and run on purely economic grounds to satisfy shareholders it may actually end up ruining the whole ethos of the company (say what you like, it has a vision) and take with it what is massively successful - the Falcon launch system. Over reliance on that system by those requiring launches may result in prices per launch increasing not driven downwards as has been the trend ... Great for a monopolistic launch provider but not for space launch capability as a whole.
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Sunday 7th June 2026 21:24 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Commercialisation ...
"and take with it what is massively successful - the Falcon launch system.
In 2025, 75% of Falcon flights were for Starlink. That percentage has been growing in 2026.
If you have a smaller payload, sending it on a Rocket Lab Electron will be less expensive. There are more rocket companies than there have ever been and more on the way. There are more countries with their own launch capabilities than there have ever been. Outside of crew launches to ISS (which may wind down in a big hurry if the cracks can't be repaired), SpaceX doesn't have a lock on anything other than big spy sats with F9H. If BONG can get sorted and approved for US national security work, the Falcon Heavy won't have a lock on that business. ULA needs to figure out the nozzles on the Vulcan and they'll be back on schedules again too.
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Friday 29th May 2026 09:36 GMT imanidiot
Entirely as expected. This is just the standard procedure. SpaceX will investigate what went wrong, make a report and file it with the FAA, the FAA will go "yeah I guess you know what you're talking about", rubberstamp the report and allow Starship to return to flight. That's how it has gone for basically every single flight that Starship has made. AFAIK every single one of them has been declared a "mishap" by the FAA, and every single time the rocket has returned to flight with no delays due to the FAA.
