Welcome back to Space Briefing. SpaceX’s Starship has exploded again, and you might wonder: is this normal? Space policy expert Wendy Whitman Cobb says yes—at least for a company that tests, fails, and iterates rapidly. “This is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets,” she notes, contrasting SpaceX’s approach with NASA and legacy aerospace firms that move slowly and only fly when success is almost certain.

With Starship, SpaceX is “trying to do everything at once,” from new engines to full reusability, making each test a high-stakes experiment. The 33 Raptor engines must not only fire perfectly on the pad but reignite in space—a tricky feat that has succeeded and failed in equal measure.

Why the rush? Elon Musk’s goal is Mars. Existing rockets like Falcon 9 can’t haul the mass needed for sustainable Mars missions, so SpaceX needs Starship to work—and fast. Will we see a crewed Mars flight by 2028? Cobb calls that timeline “completely delusional.” Uncrewed Mars missions within a decade seem plausible. But human settlement? That’s likely decades away.
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