--- title: "NASA Chief: SpaceX’s Starship Tougher Than Any NASA Project, Ever" description: "A NASA director warned that Elon Musk's proposed Starship design was going to be \"orders of magnitude\" more difficult than any NASA project in history." date: "2019-02-17" modified: "2019-02-17" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/nasa-chief-spacex-starship-tougher" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" tags: - "elon musk" - "mars" - "NASA" - "SpaceX" --- # NASA Chief: SpaceX’s Starship Tougher Than Any NASA Project, Ever ![A NASA director warned that Elon Musk's proposed Starship design was going to be "orders of magnitude" more difficult than any NASA project in history.]() *\Image: SpaceX\* ## Orders of Magnitude In a [new interview]() with *Business Insider*, the director of the Space Technology and Exploration Directorate at NASA Langley warned that Elon Musk's proposed Starship design was going to be "orders of magnitude" more difficult than any NASA project in history. "It won't be easy for us or SpaceX," Walt Engelund told *Business Insider*. ## Sweating Bullets Engelund's specific concern is Musk's plan to cool the rocket by ["bleeding" fuel through small pores](). He asked what would happen, for instance, if a "bird poops on your rocket and it plugs up a few holes." "I've seen instances where you'll get one clogged channel... and it will immediately result in burn-throughs," the chief engineer told the business magazine. "A model will disappear in a hypersonic wind tunnel. It almost vaporizes, there's so much energy and so much heat." ## Élan Musk At the same time, Engelund admitted, SpaceX is bringing unprecedented energy and creativity to the private space industry, so he doesn't rule out Starship succeeding — and he [foresees further collaboration]() between the two organizations. "They've surprised a lot of people, and have a lot of smart people working for them, and Elon seems to be really committed and dedicated to this," Engelund told *Business Insider*. "Perhaps there are some things that we could do with them. I suspect there will be." **READ MORE:** [Elon Musk says SpaceX is developing a 'bleeding' heavy-metal rocket ship. Making it work may be 100 times as hard as NASA's most difficult Mars mission, one expert says.]() \[*Business Insider*\] ***More on SpaceX:*** *[Hurricane-Force Gusts Knocked Over SpaceX's Starship Last Night]()* ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()