SpaceX posts 2nd documentary in its series describing its Starship program
SpaceX today posted the second documentary it is proposed program of documentaries describing in detail and visuals the state of its Starship program.
It is entitled “Critical Path”, and provides incredible information about the events and technological challenges leading up to Starship/Superheavy test flight #12 on May 22, 2026, which was the first use of its new launchpad.
The number of people interviewed across a wide range of jobs and skills is amazing. Remember this when you hear some insane Marxist Democrat call Musk evil. He is doing more for more people than anyone in America in decades. Note also that one of the engineers interviewed, Bobby Peden, also happens to be the mayor of Starbase.
Key quote near the end by Musk: “This is the hardest thing humans have ever done.” Peden’s response: “It feels like it.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The biggest threat to him isn’t just Democrats, but the anti-server farm NIMBYs
I guarantee you the protesters squawking the most have the same old pictures of birthday parties, trips and theme park clogging said server farms… nonsense that once was relegated to Super-8 or VHS tapes mercifully left in attics so as not to burden the rest of society.
How much space on those server farms is relegated to discussions about the Riemann Hypothesis?
Not much.
Marxists of the early Soviet Union were cosmists, not Greens.
The kids in Portland or Seattle aren’t fit to sit in the same room as MiG drivers
It seems the Data Center Activists have no clue what those centers actually do; and the rabble-rousing, power-seeking politicians aren’t going to tell them. Data centers are a direct consequence of The People’s desire for a digital world. Every one of the protesters benefits from what those facilities provide. Where do the they think ‘the cloud’ *is*?
“The kids in Portland or Seattle aren’t fit to sit in the same room as MiG drivers”
True; and on some level, they know it. The Soviets actually did change the world; not for the better, but did change it. It may be that the current rabble are slowly realizing that if you’ve been complaining about the same things for 150 years, you aren’t changing anything.
SpaceXAI has become a major force for good in Memphis and surrounding communities.
• SpaceXAI’s expansion is projected to push local tax revenue above $100 million
• Employs almost 3,000 people locally in Memphis
• The Musk Foundation donated $350,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis
• Has paid tens of millions of dollars in property taxes to Memphis and Shelby County
• Spent $10 million in 2025 with Memphis restaurants and food vendors
• Starlink is also giving eligible Memphis-area residents half-price service.
• 80% of the construction workforce was hired from the Memphis community
• Hired thousands of subcontractors and works with local Memphis vendors/businesses
• Provides free meals around the clock for employees and contractors
• 25% of SpaceXAI property tax revenue is set aside for nearby communities
• Building an $80 million Colossus Water Recycling Plant. The plant is expected to treat around 13 million gallons of wastewater per day that will save about 4.745 billion gallons of potable water every year.
• Built electrical substations at no cost to MLGW
• Installed 240+ batteries for on-site energy storage and grid support
• Partnered with Memphis-Shelby County Schools on upgrades near its facilities
• MSCS accepted an in-kind Musk Foundation donation, previously reported around $6M, for school repairs and student support
• Removed major debris from local roads, including 300+ mattresses, 500 truck tires and 15,000+ lbs of waste
• SpaceXAI cleanup efforts have removed 100+ tons of garbage and debris
• Partnered with Mt. Vernon Baptist Church to support a new community center fundraiser
• SpaceXAI team members volunteered at Mid-South Food Bank and helped assemble 7,000 Christmas baskets
• Offers $25,000 signing bonuses for new hires relocating to Shelby County
• Offers $10,000 bonuses for workers moving to nearby Mississippi or Arkansas
Source – https://x.com/cb_doge/status/2072029549857231062
I’ve never received a job offer from a poor person. A trillionaire (on paper, anyway) can hire……. as many people as he desires. He can also “spread the wealth” without the Federal Leviathan.
“I’ve never received a job offer from a poor person.”
Been saying that, along with anyone with a clue, for some years. What that poor person *can* do, is create a job for themselves (i.e. low skill/high labor), and pretty soon find themselves in a position to do the hiring. I’ve done it; and so have many, many, many people, a lot of whom were operating in a place where they didn’t know the language or culture. The American Dream never has been about owning a house; it’s been about the opportunity to do so.
“My Daddy said a man who ain’t working; ain’t lookin’.”
Jayne Cobb Firefly
I’ve seen a lot of people make it starting from nothing, with a high percentage of them immigrants that have some language issues. It’s disconcerting to see illegal immigrants work through the legal issues and build businesses on the same street with citizens that claim that “they” won’t give me a break so why try. I’ve worked around hundreds of people from at least 30 other countries doing the American Dream and thousands born here that aren’t.
Love the video spacex dropped. That 2 fisted WD40 guy lubing up the replacement link on the world’s biggest bicycle chain.😆. Spacex is human engineering at our absolute best. Godspeed Starship.
This newest SpaceX video is not only stunningly impressive as ever, it confirms something I’d guessed before about the last (IFT-12) Starship test flight — it carried more payload to (marginal) orbit than the Shuttle ever did or could. While demonstrating one-engine-out abort to orbit capability (on the ‘Starship’ orbiter stage).
About 19:30 into the video (which you can now download for future off-line reference), we hear:
“All 22 of those objects are going to mass up to about 37 and a half metric tons, that is heavier than any payload Falcon has ever launched. I believe this is the heaviest payload SpaceX will have launched ever…”
That’s about 82,600 pounds or 41.3 short tons — the Shuttle’s design maximum payload was 65,000 pounds, often lowered to 55,000-53,000 lbs. in service, and less for higher inclinations/orbits.
I’d guessed at 40 (short) tons simply using the listed estimated mass of a Starship-class Starlink satellite, multiplied by 22 ‘objects’ — now this directly and authoritatively confirms it. And remember, this number is not projected or aspirational, this is demonstrated and historical.
(For comparison, New Glenn is rated at about 99,200 pounds to orbit; or in its enlarged, future version maybe around 154,000 pounds. And of course it’s only half-reusable, like Falcon 9.)
And if I’m remembering correctly, later Starship (Version 3) flights may carry up to 60 such satellites. Without throwing anything away but fuel, as exhaust.
It’s an interesting time to be alive, isn’t it?
Great SpaceX is reporting on the white tiles of an upcoming Starship.
Starship, like Shuttle, is a tile-sporting craft…but must reusability be defined as the same craft launching to space being the same object that returns.
I am not just talking wet workshops…but inflatables that may also have dual purpose.
Venusian HAVOK airships only need Earth’s sea-level air pressure to float.
Might these also be LOFTID aeroshells?
What I would like to see is Elon dispensing with do-all/be-everything designs and just build infrastructure in LEO based on SS/SH for the time being.
I could see ballutes attached by astronauts to spare Starship re-entry heat…shed upon return.
Get a *system* going, not just a vehicle.
One craft to go up-another to come down.
He’s trying to build “HALF-SAFE” or a DUKW as it is….an Amphicar.
Jeff Wright,
You asked: “Starship, like Shuttle, is a tile-sporting craft…but must reusability be defined as the same craft launching to space being the same object that returns.”
Similar to the Space Shuttle, SpaceX wants to reuse the same craft that returned, but this time to reuse it in a short amount of time. That means that the tiles, or whatever thermal protection system, must not require a lot of refurbishment time, as happened with the Shuttle. This has turned into a greater challenge than expected. It is too bad that NASA had not put effort into solving one of their biggest problems with the Space Shuttle.
“What I would like to see is Elon dispensing with do-all/be-everything designs and just build infrastructure in LEO based on SS/SH for the time being.”
That may be nice, but it should come later. For SpaceX to achieve its goals, it has to rely upon what it can make soon. Adding more development projects now would delay the goals. The Mars goal lost twenty-six months when Starship was not going to be ready in time to launch to Mars during this upcoming transit window. That gives them time to work on lunar infrastructure, which could mean some amount of development of non-Starship hardware, software, and methods. These could be flight related, or they may be surface related, or both. Low Earth orbit (LEO) is not a high priority, with the exception of propellant depots, and even those may end up in more elliptical orbits than we have been expecting.
I wouldn’t knock the DUKW. It did OK for getting men and their materiel from ship to shore. Starship is far from perfect and far from the be-all do-all for all occasions and payloads, but it is what they are developing this decade, because they can make it do what they need done to achieve their current goals. That is what is important to them.
Right now, they are turning Starship into a variety of types in order to make a system that gets men and materiel to Mars and to the Moon, because SpaceX now has goals in both places.
Next decade they are likely to develop something that is more appropriate for whatever tasks that SpaceX will need performed at that time.
Not intrinsically, but because it’s an enormous benefit if we can reuse the same vehicle at a high rate and low cost, it’s worth pursuing even when it’s hard. The quintessence of transport is to use it for transport.
Like Edward said, don’t knock the DUKW. It served an important role, even if it wasn’t ideal once the military had access to real ports. Reusing Starship by bringing it back from orbit is not, in any event, comparable to an amphibious assault vehicle.
I’m pretty sure SpaceX had identified rapidly reusable heat shields as the most difficult problem quite early on.
Just so. Elon has talked about this publicly, on a number of occasions.
Amen to that.