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TOPSHOT-US-SCIENCE-AEROSPACE-SPACE-SPACEX-STARSHIP

SpaceX's Starship lifts off from Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on March 6, 2025.

(Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)

After Latest Musk Starship Explosion, 'We Are All in the Debris Field of a SpaceX Mishap'

"Really reassuring that the SpaceX guy is taking over the FAA," one observer quipped.

The eighth test launch of SpaceX's Starship, which billionaire CEO Elon Musk claims will be the spacecraft that eventually transports humans to Mars, ended Thursday in much the same way the seventh did: an explosive failure that sent toxic and polluting debris raining down from the sky.

"We are all in the debris field of a SpaceX mishap," remarked journalist Aaron Rupar after the spacecraft exploded just minutes following its lift-off from a launch site in Texas.

Reutersreported that "several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off."

"The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a program Musk had sought to speed up this year," the news agency added.

Musk, who is leading SpaceX while simultaneously spearheading a lawless effort to eviscerate the federal government and its workforce, wrote on his social media platform following the Starship explosion that "rockets are hard."

The explosion forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—an agency that Musk and his cronies have infiltrated—to suspend air traffic at several Florida airports, citing "space launch debris."

The New York Timesreported that falling debris from the Starship explosion impacted flights "as far away as Philadelphia International Airport."

Musk, the world's richest man, has been vocal about wanting SpaceX subsidiary Starlink to take over the FAA's air traffic control system.

Following Thursday's explosion and subsequent flight disruptions, New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch wrote sardonically, "Really reassuring that the SpaceX guy is taking over the FAA."

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