I hope you’re sitting down for this, but one of Elon Musk‘s rockets just exploded into a humongous fireball. Shocking news, right? I mean this is probably only the fourth or maybe fifth time this has happened over the last few months.
The explosion came as SpaceX’s Starship rocket was being prepared for a test flight at its Starbase testing facility in Texas late last night. It’s unclear precisely what happened, but at 11 pm CDT, the rocket went kaboom in spectacular fashion. I guess someone spilled coffee on their console at Mission HQ or something. And, to be fair, it is a very cool explosion.
Credit where it's due to Musk.
— tern (@1goodtern) June 19, 2025
He has made a radical new leap forward in SpaceX technology:
Now you don't have to wait until after launch for the devastating explosion.pic.twitter.com/1OOHwB8kY1
SpaceX rapidly put out a statement coyly describing this colossally destructive explosion as a “major anomaly”. They confirmed that all their personnel are “safe and accounted for” but included an ominous warning that the test site is currently unsafe. SpaceX insists that there are “no hazards to residents in surrounding communities”, but said under no circumstances should anyone approach the smouldering crater.
On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11 p.m. CT, the Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 19, 2025
“A major snag”
Musk devotees are, as always, quick to argue that his spaceships routinely exploding is, actually, a good thing. They claim these sudden catastrophic fireballs are just a natural consequence of rocket testing and that their engineers learn from each explosion to improve the next model. They also point out that Musk’s haters haven’t even tried to build a rocket, so what do we know?
You can very clearly see the explosion of SpaceX Ship 36 from Starbase on radar. None of that is rain. pic.twitter.com/DfZTydWA1m
— Weather Track US (@weathertrackus) June 19, 2025
Even so, when stacked up against the rest of Musk’s inventions, a trend is beginning to appear. We have his AI chatbot that couldn’t stop ranting about “white genocide”, his self-driving cars that veer off the road, the humiliating recall of the Cybertruck, and his “robots” that were secretly controlled by people.
Still, Elon Musk remains humanity’s best hope of colonizing Mars. We can only hope he’s bold enough to join the first manned mission aboard his SpaceX rocket to the red planet, after which we can quietly turn off communications with his craft, redistribute his wealth, and then collectively pretend as a species that we never produced such a colossally embarrassing organism.
