While everyone in the world is exploring exotic laminations and 3D printed nano-tubes for making spacecraft, Elon Musk decided to go back to basics. Proper stainless steel alloys are not only rust-proof, they are strong and can be fabricated, welded, and purchased for a fraction the cost of the fancy stuff.

The shiny Starship is looks like something out of Flash Gordon, but perhaps science fiction is still the best way to reach the stars. Without getting into too deep into the technical obstacles to making a 12-story ship take off, fall with style, and glide like a yard gnome, it is the flip maneuver that will make most non-pilots lose their cookies.

The SN8 high-altitude test flight looks like a cato (that’s racing talk for catastrophe), the data collected was well worth the price of admission. We are standing by for SN9, but a few minutes after that, and men will be mining the Moon. Where are we going? Schrodinger’s Basin. That’s the South pole of the Moon.

The Starship trooper will be racing NASA’s Artemis Program, the Chinese Lunar probe missions, and the Democrats lust for the miniscule budget currently assigned to discovering fusion rocketry. We are only talking about the end of fission as a way to produce electricity and reducing the 7-month travel time to Mars down to about 70 days for a mega-ship weighing a million pounds. Can you say artificial gravity for 80% of the trip? To say it is a trillion-dollar return on investment would be conservative.