Is there interest in me doing a full deep dive on the Tesla Roadster or do we think people understand it generally? It’s relatively simple in the world of rockets but I think in the general population it’s pretty confusing as an automotive application haha

Easily the coolest thing I’ve ever seen a car do!!! Now this is impressive! I gotta learn more about the actual practicality of it… how can this be on the road?!? @elonmusk @Tesla

I find it funny that some people got hung up on Starship not having gone orbital before Flight 14 when in the grand scheme of things it was completely arbitrary in terms of performance. The 19ish second burn only added about 91 m/s of velocity (a 1.2% increase in velocity) This capability has been physically capable since Flight 6 which demonstrated a single Raptor relight in space. Heck, Flight 13’s burn was about 14 seconds, but intentionally oriented to primarily do a plane change instead of a prograde insertion burn for continued safety. Any of the relights COULD have done the orbital insertion burn, the duration was not of any special technical capability. The reason Starship didn’t go orbital until Flight 14 is probably what we should applaud them for the most… SAFETY. Their methodical approach to getting good data and going one step at a time while hucking the single most massive object ever put into space proves they weren’t just doing things haphazardly, despite the occasional narrative from the outside. While it’s easy to compare Starship to vehicles like SLS or Vulcan or New Glenn, the reality is the focus hasn’t been on orbit, it’s been all on the “downhill” side of that. Safe and targeted de-orbit, clean reentry, targeted and soft splashdown. That’s the part that has (almost) never been done before. And here I do have to add a little Space Shuttle admiration for figuring out a lot of these things on its first flight in 1981 (although it came a bit close to not being successful). Pretty amazing there was a vehicle of similar scale capable of such precise deorbit and reentry that it landed on a runway with no go-around capabilities. Crazy. But Starship is well on a path to absolutely leap-frog the Space Shuttle in terms of performance (already over double and someday 6 fold) and hopefully in terms of full and rapid reuse. I hope we see the latter part speed up even more now that orbit has been demonstrated. Exciting times ahead!!! Keep going @spacex @elonmusk

10 years ago today, @elonmusk announced his Mars plans in the form of the Interplanetary Transportation System, now known as Starship at the 2016 IAC in Guadalajara, Mexico. This was when he used the underpants gnome meme and I’ve always wondered if back then he already knew Starlink would be the key to SpaceX’s future followed by AI prospects, or was it still just rocket launch services that thought would be the money maker. PS: I was there and it was the first time I asked Elon anything at a press conference. I remember being pretty nervous. I never imagined I’d hold multi-hour conversations about rockets just a few years later.

Stream is UP for Monday's ORBITAL launch attempt of Starship for Flight 14! I'll be there in person just 4 miles away at Rocket Ranch Outpost and I can't WAIT for this historic mission! We'll go live at 6:00 a.m. Central [11:00 UTC], see you then!!! -

Finally!!! A proper orbital attempt! Important note is that they won't be targeting orbit at SECO. They will only attempt an orbital circularization burn if all systems are go and it's considered safe. Nice and conservative approach!

To add the full screen map thing: Am I the only one that thinks the entire autonomous UI thing is completely pointless? I hate that it pops up when FSD is engaged. EVERY time I switch back to map full screen. What am I supposed to do with the FSD video game-esque display thing? Compare what it’s doing to the real world in real time? No, I ignore it completely, it’s useless. ESPECIALLY in full screen. Map is always more useful.

Not meaning to complain too much, but... I've just had this overwhelming feeling lately that so many things are objectively WORSE in 2026 than they were say 7 years ago. Here's a short list of things: 1. Google. I no longer get anywhere near an honest search, mostly either AI or ads 2. YouTube, search is also completely broken, serving only recent things and / or shorts. I guess social media in general just feels more and more pointless and far less about humans. 3. Uber / Lyft, prices are INSANE 4. DoorDash, prices are also absolutely off the charts 5. Rental cars, needed to rent a car yesterday, couldn't do it under a few hundred for 2 days. 6. Groceries are almost $200 every time I go 7. Insurance has sky rocketed for everything. The house in Texas is about 2 times more expensive to insure in 2026 than it was in just 2021 8. Food. Starbucks and Subway sandwiches were never particularly amazing, but now they're not even a shell of what they used to be, and many many others. 9. Online ordering. I feel like I used to kind of know what I'd get. Now there's a decent chance of seeing some AI slop and getting a complete scam of a product with no responsibility 10. Phones. I'm less happy with my phone and getting more and more spam calls now more than ever, and I'm more often either waiting for faceID to work, or accidentally hitting something, or accidentally hitting the camera button, or accidentally changing the background. Like multiple times a day, I'm doing an input that I did not want to do. That didn't used to happen 11. Housing / Rent prices / hotel prices 12. EVERYTHING being "private equity", screw that. Stop chasing profit, chase making good products. I guess a lot of this is just inflation in general. I'm really noticing the price of things get more and more ridiculous... But it also feels like a lot of things are just getting worse. Adding features that shouldn't exist, chasing profits over making a good product, adding steps to make something more frustrating to use or order or do. Trying to have AI just simply "replace" something instead of being a tool to help improve it, or a way to just opt back. I don't know. I'm trying hard to just keep my head down and do my work the old fashioned way, and I just feel like there's this mantra of "hurry up or you'll miss out". I've been enjoying being outside more, trying to be healthy and offline, and it just feels more and more like things aren't what it used to be. I say this, yet I'm still hopeful for the future. I still think there's incredible things happening and amazing technologies, and exciting things happening in our world. I just feel like if I could hit the rewind button on a few things, I absolutely would. Would you? Maybe this is just part of growing older and feeling nostalgic? I am getting old...

Go INSIDE @voyagertech_'s @Starlab_Space Station mockup and learn all about the incredible potential and business model of operating a MASSIVE commercial space station with @dylan! -

I've been playing around with proper 3D models in After Effects for some upcoming videos and I'm really happy with the results. Here's a little preview of the angle of attack Super Heavy V3 has relative to the airflow and why they only have 3 grid fins in that orientation.

Wanted to give an update on the hotfire anomaly investigation. Progress continues. The anomaly originated at the main oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines, which was later confirmed by hardware recovery and inspections. Extensive component-level and engine hotfire tests have been conducted to understand the failure mode better and inform mitigations. The path forward is clear. We're making small modifications to the valve that can be quickly retrofitted to existing engines. We’re manufacturing the updated hardware, which will be ready by the end of this month. In parallel, we're working through the remaining fault tree analysis.

I finally have all 1.2 million raw image files from my latest mission to ISS! Here is a sample of one of my favorite Milky Way photos, taken from the Cupola with Nikon Z9, Arri Zeiss 15mm lens, T1.8 with custom sidereal drive that cancelled out star motion relative to our orbit.

As we start our countdown to launch, we’re taking a trip back down memory lane, to building Roman at @NASAGoddard in our final hardware highlights video. Roman is set to launch no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 30.