This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

I hate crapping on SpaceX all the time. I love space exploration and space hardware. But when I look at SpaceX, I see “The Music Man.” We’re going to Mars! And we’re going right now! And you’re going to build the rocket! The future is now because I say so. Gonna have a city on Mars with a million residents. And you could be one of them. Gonna be as easy as riding a bus. Fares as low as a dollar seventy-five! Senior discounts! Free meals! Discount fares starting at an affordable half-million dollars. This is the same guy who told you the Cyber truck was going to cost around $40,000. So keep that in mind.

SpaceX almost appears more as a Wall Street entity with an image as an industry leader and innovator. But when the wheels spin, not much appears to get done. Starting with mission Lucky thirteen. Project Mercury had six crewed missions. In those six missions, they tested and flexed space hardware. From flying a few minutes to flying all day. Project Gemini had ten crewed missions. They walked in space. They rendezvoused and docked. They learned how to change orbit and fly in space. Okay, we’re on mission lucky thirteen here. Will we achieve orbit today? “Well, not exactly. You see, this is another sub-orbital mission. Testing something or other.”

Is this a crewed mission? “Oh, God, no!” Chimps? “No, see, this is another test flight after we had some problems with the engines.” You’re on flight thirteen, and you’re still having problems with the engines? “Not all of them, just a few. You see, we have thirty-three of them in the first stage.” Why, gee, that sounds as simple as falling off a log. Thirty-three engines, huh? What could possibly go wrong with a system like that?

Someday Starship will carry us all to Mars, making humanity an interplanetary species, like all those Sci-Fi movies from the fifties. Elon’s going to save humanity! Do you smell it yet? Tommy, can you hear me? Scratch Mars! The moon, everybody! Starship will carry us to the moon! But remember last year? The Japanese sent a probe to the moon, and it fell over. An American probe sent earlier also fell over. How will SpaceX land a rocket standing 165 feet tall on the unprepared lunar surface? Then using an onboard crane, the astronauts will be able to unload cargo onto the Martian, I mean the lunar surface. What if the rocket leans?

Gee, I wonder what number mission that’ll be performed on? Somewhere in the hundreds, I suspect. So far, the only progress made has been getting the debris field to fall out of sight. From blowing up SpaceX headquarters to now firebombing the Indian Ocean, you’ve come a long way, baby! Estes would be proud. Watch our many onboard cameras as our moderators talk around and avoid the anomalies and obvious troubles.

Now, I don’t claim to be a rocket scientist or even a space engineer. But something tells me. A little voice in my head tells me the craft isn’t supposed to burst into flames and become fully engulfed in fire upon landing. Meanwhile, the moderators are discussing some other water landing where everything went as expected. No mention of the flames? I know from elementary school science that the ocean isn’t supposed to burn that color. I know from Neil and Buzz, it’s not supposed to burn like that at all. Lucky thirteen! Did you hear that Wall Street? Another raging, Starship success! You see: Starship has to be a success, or the money could stop.

They fly in at great expense the North Korean, three hundred voice, fat Kim appreciation society to cheer on the mission with professional wrestling zeal! Yeah! Cheer! There it goes! Yeah! Cheer! Another Starship success! “Hey, look? The rocket is on fire! Shut-up and cheer! Yeah! Cheer! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know? Every day is a good day for a Starship mission. He’s sitting right there, and if he sees that you’re not cheering, he could fire us all. We’re going to Mars, I mean to the moon and you can get a Cybertruck for forty K.

They’ve had some trouble with the heat shield. Is that important? They’ve changed the design, and the new heat shield is larger and heavier. How will that affect the balance and center of gravity of the rocket? Right, only one way to find out!

Mission thirteen? Unmanned and unloaded. An empty rocket on another suborbital hop to the Indian Ocean then suddenly bursting into flames upon landing. Success! Do you realize where they are on the development timeline? They are on mission thirteen and not nearly ready for space chimp Ham yet, let alone Alan Sheppard. They’ve never even launched a fully configured space vehicle, only boilerplate models. But it wows them on Wall Street. “Ooh, ahh!”

They’ve tested Elon’s Starlink satellite launcher on Starship, because that’s important too! You begin to wonder about the focus. Testing an unrelated satellite launcher in an unfinished product? That’s what many would call crazy, or at least unserious. For a project essential to the potential survival of humankind. Oh, and test my satellite launcher too, will ya? They’ve never even tested a dummy-loaded Starship.

Elon recently consolidated his holding because most of his holdings lose money. SpaceX is the jewel in Elon’s crown. He can bury his losses in there! SpaceX makes good money launching satellites, and Starlink is coming on strong. But the future? What does SpaceX have to offer in the future which might indicate unlimited profits and growth and thus assuring the future of SpaceX?

SpaceX is a Wall Street darling, and it’s going to stay that way! So now, you knuckleheads better start cheering like you value your jobs. “Hey Bill, wanna go fishing this weekend?” Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got pep squad duty again this weekend.

“Mothers of River City, heed that warning before it’s too late! Watch for the telltale signs of corruption! The minute your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee? Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime-novel hidden in the corncrib? Is he starting to memorize jokes from Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang? Are certain words creeping into his conversation? Words like “swell” and “so’s your old man”? If so my friends, ya got trouble!” – Harold Hill (The Music Man)

“There needs to be an intersection of the set of people who wish to go, and the set of people who can afford to go…and that intersection of sets has to be enough to establish a self-sustaining civilization. My rough guess is that for a half-million dollars, there are enough people that could afford to go and would want to go. But it’s not going to be a vacation jaunt. It’s going to be saving up all your money and selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies…even at a million people you’re assuming an incredible amount of productivity per person, because you would need to recreate the entire industrial base on Mars. “ – Elon (The Music Man)