This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

I’ve heard it said, Tesla is a car company pretending to be a high-tech company. Like a Hollywood movie with a weird genius at the helm capable of stunning us all with his wizardry. And so, the stock price soars far exceeding its actual value. Tesla is worth more on paper than Toyota, even though Toyota sells three times as many cars with a worldwide reputation for quality.

Any other car company which had developed an Electric Edsel pickup truck would be dead by now. It’s so durable you can’t leave it out in the rain. The CEO would have been fired and apologies made. But the Tesla business model says, It’s only a failure if you admit to it. Flame throwers, boring machines, self-driving cars and rocket ships to Mars and when they don’t work, change the subject and move on to something else. Did you know, Twitter X is now in 4K? Just like YouTube, ten years ago.

 Starship Nine, sounds like a title for a bad sci-fi novel has failed again, but is much improved. You couldn’t see the failure from the ground this time. Oh, but it was there! Only Space-X launched one of its dependable Falcon nine rockets the very next day to cover up the failure. Landing a spent booster is an innovative technology, while launching a rocket into space isn’t. Humans have been doing it successfully for sixty years now.

If at first you don’t succeed, say that you did and try again. Apollo Eleven landed men on the moon and Apollo one never left the ground. So, Space-X plans Starship ten and hasn’t even achieved low Earth orbit yet. Once again, (it’s getting to be a habit) Starship began to spin and tumble out of control and made a safe landing in a thousand small pieces at near the speed of sound in the Indian Ocean. But this time at least, Space-X didn’t have to destroy the rocket, because it did that all by itself.

It appears the only spin which Space-X is really good at controlling is media. Every launch is filled with overly excited idiots cheering like their jobs depended on it. Cheering like Mao Zedong just announced the great leap forward or Stalin announcing a party shake up. Cheering like the floor of “Let’s Make a Deal” Pick me! Pick me! They cheer and gush and when it all begins to go wrong, they cut the camera feed. Elon was going to give us an update on the progress of his Mars program. But after the successful mission bombing the Indian Ocean with rocket debris, the update was scrapped.

A big shout out to Scott Manley’s space channel for offering honest information in a universe of propaganda. Most media didn’t even cover the launch. Fox News covered it only until it began to go wrong. “Well, there you have it, another successful Space-X launch.” After three minutes, the first stage cut off. Then the booster began to vent liquid oxygen to reduce its mass. But it was venting something else as well. Besides the rocket engines burning something else was burning as the whole bottom side of the booster was engulfed in flames. But that’s not failure, that’s mission accomplished!

The real failure was the Starship itself. The camera showed something escaping near the rocket nozzles. In rocketeering jargon that’s called “sloppy.” Leaks and breakage on the ninth flight…really? The Starship was supposed to open a door for future satellite launches only the door wouldn’t open. Anyone involved in high tech space engineering knows that doors can be tricky. Just imagine yourself as the first Martian pioneer after braving the six-month Journey to Mars on Starship launch 438, only to be unable to open the door.

Using Space-X terms, the Hindenburg was a successful flight. We just need to fine tune the landing a bit. The Saturn V rocket was the largest and most advanced rocket ever designed in its day. How many failures did it endure? How many rockets exploded? How many tumbled out of control? That would be none of them. In 1902, the Wright brothers developed an airplane carrying two people. Sixty years later, jet airliners carried hundreds of passengers, all using the same principles.

I believe it was Albert Einstein who once said, (Correct me if I’m wrong) “You can’t get to Mars if you can’t get out of Texas.” Something smells of kerosene and hubris as the Snake oil ten flight is already planned. Multiple failures, three in a row and most due to simple sloppy construction. Fuel leaks, engine failures, communications failures and stuck doors. It’s the Cyber truck in outer Space! This is all basic stuff, there’s nothing new or innovative about radio control. Check for fuel leaks BEFORE launch! Check all connections twice, before launch!

There is something rotten in Mudville. Elon Musk had brown nosed the big orange ass to bolster his own credentials. Elon said, “I know more about manufacturing than anyone else on the planet.” Gigantic ego much? Even if I did know more about manufacturing than anyone else on the planet, I would never say so publicly. Remember when Einstein said, “I know more about general relativity than anyone else on the planet!” If I had three spectacular manufacturing failures in a row, I might just shut my mouth. Now, his work with the big Orange ass is over and his empire is eroding. Elon pretends to criticize the Great Dictator as a phony reason for their divorce. “See? I’m not with him anymore. You can buy my cars again, huh?”

Tesla hasn’t produced a new model in five years. Imagine, Toyota going five years without producing a new model. Imagine, if NASA had three spectacular failures in a row. Imagine if Apollo 13, 14 and 15 all suffered the same explosion. Imagine Neil Armstrong all suited up to walk on the moon. “Houston, we have a problem. The door won’t open.”

“The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. Of ships and strings and sealing wax, of cabbages and scams.” Space-X is as close to Mars as Texas can get them. A defective business model with defective engineering and a defective rocket, headed by a defective CEO. The hype keeps the stock price up. “We’s going to Mars! We’s got it all planned out! But reality shows a crash landing coming in the near future.

There once was a guy named Elon who thought of himself as a phenom. His trucks gathered dust and then they did rust then his Starship tumbled and went bust. The guy was a toady and his rockets they did explody and such is the story of Elon Musk. To Mars he was hoping only they couldn’t  get the door open. “That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for his ego.”

The only outer limits Elon is reaching is credibility. Bernie Madoff move over. Attention Interpol, be on the lookout for Elon Musk. Six feet, two hundred and fifty pounds with a big giant head which won’t fit through the door.

“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.” ― Groucho Marx