‘Spiraling wildly out of control’: Elon Musk’s latest space flight ends in third failure this year

Has Elon Musk made anything that works right? Yesterday we reported on an alarming incident in which a Tesla Model 3 obliterated its owner after driving full-speed into the back of a parked truck, there’s the Cybertruck debacle and its humiliating recall, the Grok AI bot that began spouting racist South African conspiracy theories and now, once again, Musk’s SpaceX program has seen another disaster.

Earlier this week, Musk’s SpaceX launched the latest in its Super-Heavy Starship rocket program. They’d already attempted launches in January and March, only for both to suffer catastrophic upper stage failures. But, maybe, just maybe, third time’s the charm?

MUSK FAILS AGAIN!!!

After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again on Tuesday evening, but the spacecraft tumbled out of control and broke apart.

And Trump wants this guy to take over NASA?https://t.co/LMbi00xWDx

pic.twitter.com/KPNlqAGyhO

— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) May 28, 2025

Well, no. Just as before, Musk’s rocket shot into the heavens only for it to spectacularly explode. Or, as SpaceX tends to coyly put it, suffered “rapid scheduled disassembly”. Musk did his best to paint this in the best light, insisting that, actually, his $100 million rocket being reduced to flaming wreckage is a good thing.

Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent.

Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review.

Launch cadence for…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2025

Waste of money

Space exploration has hugely benefited mankind, and we use the technology developed from it every day. Even so, it feels like a harsh example of late-stage capitalism that the richest man in the world regularly sends multi-million-dollar rockets into the upper atmosphere only for them rain down on the earth as red-hot metal. I mean, it’s his money and I’d rather it y go up in smoke than be used to boost fascism around the world, but it still feels like a bit of a waste.

But hey, Musk has deep pockets and is determined to keep firing rockets into the air until one actually works. In fact, the rate of launches is set to increase, with one Super Heavy launch per month or less for the foreseeable future.

The end goal is Musk’s longtime ambition to colonize Mars. If that means he’ll be aboard the first starship off Earth and to the barren red planet, then I’m all for increasing testing. The world can breathe a sigh of relief once he’s no longer on it, and if we just quietly shut off communications to Mars once he’s there, we can forget about him for good.