Elon indicates the will catch of the SpaceX Starship with the tower will be in a few months. First reflight of the ship will be either end of this year or early next. That will be a fork in the road of history for consciousness reaching the stars.
Looks like we will probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months. If there had been a tower out to sea where we practiced landing the ship, it would have been caught.
First reflight of the ship will be either end of this year or early next. That will be a fork in the… https://t.co/O5g9pqrzyo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2026
A new National Security Presidential Memorandum will enable over 1,000 launches and reentries annually by 2030. It expands space transportation to include reentry and in-space operations. This unlocks reverse logistics and new orbital markets. The policy also delivers priority airspace corridors, transparent range allocation, a commercial-first approach enabling Americans on the Moon by 2028 and initial Moon Base elements by 2030, and rapid, resilient launch capabilities for national security.
Today @POTUS signed a new National Space Transportation Policy, one that meets this moment of explosive growth and positions America to lead the next era of space.
In the 13 years since the last update to the Policy, U.S. launches have surged 10x: from 19 successful orbital… pic.twitter.com/3CzFLzrant
— Director Michael Kratsios (@mkratsios47) August 20, 2026
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Seems like he realized that piling up risk on flight 14 when the stock price and image of SpaceX.ai depend on it was unnecessary. It’s enough that it’s the first orbital flight, the first real deployment of Starlink V3, the first return of Starship to near the launch site from orbit. Maybe they could catch both booster and ship too this time – but no images of RUDs matters now in the same sense that no big accidents with Robotaxi/Cybercab matters in the transition to autonomy.
He isn’t optimizing for that. He optimizes for speed to goal. The risk of blowing up the only operational launch tower is probably the main reason.
They aren’t incompatible explanations. Speed to the goal now has to take into account several competing massive capex projects each of which already is pressing against political and financial limits, and the larger public company doing half the projects is now SpaceX.ai.