--- title: "Elon Musk Breaks Silence on Starship Crash: “We Were Too Dumb”" description: "Building a 160-foot rocket meant to ferry up to 100 passengers to Mars isn't easy — something that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is painfully aware of." date: "2021-02-04" modified: "2021-02-04" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-starship-crash-too-dumb" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Space" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk Breaks Silence on Starship Crash: “We Were Too Dumb” ![Building a 160-foot rocket meant to ferry up to 100 passengers to Mars isn't easy — something that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is painfully aware of.]() *\Image: SpaceX\* ## Too Dumb Over the course of just two months, SpaceX hurled two massive stainless steel prototypes of its [Starship]() spacecraft kilometers into the sky — only to have both come [crashing down]() in massive fireballs. Most recently, Starship prototype SN9 failed to right itself after a daring "belly flop" maneuver on Tuesday, causing it to make impact with the ground at a steep angle, an event lovingly referred to as "[rapid unscheduled disassembly]()." Building a 160-foot rocket meant to ferry up to 100 passengers to Mars isn't easy — a fact of which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is painfully aware. When [asked]() on Twitter "why only light 2 engines for landing" in order to remove any points of failure, Musk [said]() — facetiously, we assume — that "we were too dumb." "Next time," he [added](), "we try the pull \*up\* method." ## Hard Mode Just two days after [tweeting]() that he will be "off Twitter for a while," Musk came crawling back to the social media site last night. His posts were a characteristically messy cascade of memes, sarcastic snarks, and [references]() to the cryptocurrency dogecoin. The tweets were certainly tongue-in-cheek, but they may have also signaled frustration with the repeated setbacks to the Starship project. Musk has long complained about how difficult it is to build a rocket to establish a city on Mars. "It's not like they were huge idiots who wanted to throw their rocket away all the time," [Musk told *Ars Technica*'s Eric Berger]() in a 2019 interview, referring to SpaceX engineers trying to make changes to the company's Raptor engine. "One of the hardest engineering problems known to man is making a reusable orbital rocket," he said. "It's stupidly difficult to have a fully reusable orbital system." ## Still At It But it's a game of high risks and high rewards. "It would be one of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of humanity," the billionaire added in 2019. And regardless, it's only a matter of time until SpaceX lines up its SN10 prototype. Perhaps this test launch won't end in a Earth-scorching blast. **More on Starship:** [*New Photos Show Half-Finished SpaceX Super Heavy Booster*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()