In a recent interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Elon Musk made it clear that his focus remains firmly on space exploration rather than political discourse. When asked about Donald Trump's policies, Musk adeptly redirected the conversation back to what excites him most—spaceships! This moment highlights not only Musk's dedication to his mission at SpaceX but also the way he navigates challenging topics in the public eye. As the boundaries of technology and exploration continue to blur, how do you think leaders in the tech industry should balance their innovations with social and political responsibilities? #ElonMusk #SpaceX #VRGameDesign #Innovation #FutureTech

As his time in DC disintegrated this week, Musk intimated to the Washington Post that he was very surprised by what he saw in American government — but not as surprised as he was by everyone's reaction."The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized," the billionaire told the newspaper. "I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least."That "uphill battle" apparently included getting people on board with his Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting agency that Musk was seemingly gifted in exchange for his help getting Donald Trump elected.While the boy-brained billionaire wasn't exactly popular before his debut in American politics, he and his agency have become downright detested in 2025. From its iffy mandate and its enormous failure to reach its savings goals to its massive professional and competence breaches, DOGE has been a major dud — and Musk's companies are bearing the brunt.But ask Musk, and he has no idea why everybody is so mad. As he told it to WaPo, the agency mysteriously became the "whipping boy for everything.""Something bad would happen anywhere," Musk said, "and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it."Despite his attempts at a breezy reboot this week, it's clear the uber-wealthy memelord is aware that the public hates him and his politics — but the alleged "free speech absolutist" can't seem to figure out why people would want to take their righteous anger out on his company's cars."People were burning Teslas," he lamented. "Why would you do that? That’s really uncool."This isn't the first time Musk has searched around dumbfounded, like a confused John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction," looking for the reason people are taking their anger out Teslas.In March, the world's sometimes-richest man took to the social network he purchased to claim that an "investigation" had found five individuals, along with a liberal-leaning fundraising platform, were behind the widespread protests against his electric vehicle company.He didn't acknowledge, of course, the crux of those protests: that even Republicans and former fanboys consider the mass firing of civil servants toxic, and that his own poor approval ratings were bringing down Trump's.Despite his unceremonious exit from government, DOGE's work will go on in Musk's stead, and the agency will soon be "tackling projects with the highest gain for the pain, which still means a lot of good things in terms of reducing waste and fraud."Today in Washington, as in South Texas, it's business as usual as the White House prepares to send a new slew of DOGE cuts to Congress in a spending bill and SpaceX launches more than two dozen Starlink satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.Life in DC has gone on after Musk has left the building — not with a bang, but with a whimper.More on Musk: You Can Suddenly Sense Elon Musk's DesperationShare This Article #elon #musk #trying #figure #out

Not A Super Announcement Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: “NASA is f***ed” "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode" without Isaacman. Eric Berger – May 31, 2025 5:22 pm | 178 Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The Trump administration has confirmed that it is pulling the nomination of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. First reported by Semafor, the decision appears to have been made because Isaacman was not politically loyal enough to the Trump Administration. "The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars," Liz Huston, a White House Spokesperson, said in a statement released Saturday. "It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon." The US Senate Commerce Committee approved Issacman's nomination by a vote of 19 to 9 one month ago, advancing his candidacy to the floor of the US Senate, with unanimous support from Republicans in that April vote. Approval was anticipated after the Memorial Day holiday. But the tide started to turn against Isaacman late this past week, with the first rumblings of problems coming on Friday, May 30. Not MAGA enough On Saturday, far-right political activist Laura Loomer said on X, "Deep State operatives are trying to derail President Trump’s NASA Administrator pick Jared Isaacman before his Senate confirmation vote this week." This was the first public sign that Isaacman's candidacy was imperiled. So what happened? The waters of MAGA run murky, and the political machinations of the Trump administration are abstruse. However, the timing of Isaacman's derailment coincides with the recent departure of SpaceX founder Elon Musk from Washington. Musk had a central role in the Trump Administration during its first four months. In an interview on Tuesday, Musk told Ars that he has now "significantly" reduced his involvement in politics. Musk was a key factor behind Isaacman's nomination as NASA administrator, and with his backing, Isaacman was able to skip some of the party purity tests that have been applied to other Trump administration nominees. One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats. He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget. Musk's role in the government was highly controversial, winning him enemies both among opponents of Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda as well as inside the administration. One source told Ars that, with Musk's exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman's nomination. The loss of Isaacman is almost certainly a blow to NASA, which faces substantial budget cuts. The Trump Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2026, released Friday, seeks billion for the agency next year—a 24 percent cut from the agency's budget of billion for FY 2025. Going out of business? Isaacman is generally well-liked in the space community and is known to care deeply about space exploration. Officials within the space agency—and the larger space community—hoped that having him as NASA's leader would help the agency restore some of these cuts. Now? "NASA is f---ed," one current leader in the agency told Ars on Saturday. "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode without Jared there to innovate," a former senior NASA leader said. The Trump administration did not immediately name a new nominee, but two people told Ars that former US Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast may be near the top of the list. Now retired, Kwast has a distinguished record in the Air Force and is politically loyal to Trump and MAGA. However, his background seems to be far less oriented toward NASA's civil space mission and far more focused on seeing space as a battlefield—decidedly not an arena for cooperation and peaceful exploration. Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 178 Comments #trump #pulls #isaacman #nomination #space

Photo Credit: SpaceX SpaceX Starship Flight 9 Reuses Booster, Gathers Key Data Despite Loss Highlights First reuse of Super Heavy booster marks key Starship milestone Ship reached space but failed to deploy dummy Starlink satellites Valuable reentry and tile test data collected despite stage losses Advertisement SpaceX launched its ninth Starship test flight on May 27 that featured the first-ever significant reuse of Starship hardware. As planned on Flight 9, Starship's two stages separated successfully, and the upper stage even reached space. However, both were ultimately lost before completing their objectives. Despite these setbacks, the mission yielded valuable data which inspires SpaceX's iterative approach to innovation as it aims to create a fully reusable launch system for space missions. This test flight exhibited successful reuse of a Super Heavy booster and aimed to demonstrate improved hardware performance.Previous test flightsAccording to official site of SpaceX, Starship's two stages are one giant booster called Super Heavy and a 171-foot-tallupper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply "Ship." Both are powered by SpaceX's new Raptor engine — 33 of them for Super Heavy and six for Ship.On Flight 7 and Flight 8 the Super Heavy performed flawlessly, acing its engine burn and then returning to Starbase for a catch by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms. But Ship had problems: It exploded less than 10 minutes after launch on both missions, raining debris down on the Turks and Caicos Islands and The Bahamas, respectively.Advancements in flight 9In flight 9, SpaceX reused a Super Heavy booster for the first time, swapping out just four of its 33 Raptor engines after its initial flight in January. The booster also conducted a new atmospheric entry experiment, entering at a higher angle to collect data on aerodynamic control. Meanwhile, Shipwas tasked with deploying eight dummy Starlink satellites.Despite the promising advances, Flight 9 encountered several failures. Super Heavy broke apart roughly six minutes after launch during its return burn, and Ship lost control due to a fuel tank leak. The upper stage began tumbling, which prevented a planned in-space engine relight and led to a destructive reentry over the Indian Ocean. Still, SpaceX gained critical data, particularly on tile performance and active cooling systems.   For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: SpaceX, Starship, Super Heavy, Starship Flight 9, Elon Musk, Rocket Reuse, Raptor Engine, Space Launch, Space Innovation, Starlink, Reusable Rocket Gadgets 360 Staff The resident bot. If you email me, a human will respond. More Related Stories #spacex #starship #flight #reuses #booster

NASA's next mission will be to find a new agency leader, following a dramatic reversal from President Donald Trump. In a post made on Truth Social, the president withdrew his nomination of Jared Isaacman as the head of NASA. As first reported by Semafor, the pullback comes just a few days before Isaacman was due in front of the US Senate for a confirmation vote. Trump detailed in the post that he will soon announce another nominee who is more aligned with the president's mission and will "put America First in Space." Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that it was "essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda." According to The New York Times, unnamed sources attribute the withdrawal to Isaacman's previous donations to "prominent Democrats." Besides his role as CEO of payment processing company Shift4, Isaacman has been venturing into the world of commercial space travel. The billionaire businessman has been to space twice now, even serving as the mission commander of the Polaris Dawn mission that was operated by SpaceX and saw the first commercial spacewalk. Isaacman was known as a close ally of Elon Musk, who is the CEO of SpaceX and recently left his White House role as an adviser to the president.This article originally appeared on Engadget at #trump #makes #lastminute #backtrack #his

Much was riding on Flight 9 for Elon Musk’s giant moon and Mars rocket after debris from January and March flights fell into the Atlantic Ocean, disrupting air travel. #spacex #starship #loses #control #test

Starbase was officially formed earlier this month after Elon Musk's aerospace and defense contractor prevailed in a local election. #musk039s #spacex #town #texas #warns

Not A Super Announcement Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: “NASA is f***ed” "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode" without Isaacman. Eric Berger – May 31, 2025 5:22 pm | 59 Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The Trump administration has confirmed that it is pulling the nomination of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. First reported by Semafor, the decision appears to have been made because Isaacman was not politically loyal enough to the Trump Administration. "The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars," Liz Huston, a White House Spokesperson, said in a statement released Saturday. "It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon." The US Senate Commerce Committee approved Issacman's nomination by a vote of 19 to 9 one month ago, advancing his candidacy to the floor of the US Senate, with unanimous support from Republicans in that April vote. Approval was anticipated after the Memorial Day Holiday. But the tide started to turn against Isaacman late this past week, with the first rumblings of problems coming on Friday, May 30. Not MAGA enough On Saturday, far-right political activist Laura Loomer said on X, "Deep State operatives are trying to derail President Trump’s NASA Administrator pick Jared Isaacman before his Senate confirmation vote this week." This was the first public sign that Isaacman's candidacy was imperiled. So what happened? The waters of MAGA run murky, and the political machinations of the Trump administration are abstruse. However, the timing of Isaacman's derailment coincides with the recent departure of SpaceX founder Elon Musk from Washington. Musk had a central role in the Trump Administration during its first four months. In an interview on Tuesday, Musk told Ars that he has now "significantly" reduced his involvement in politics. Musk was a key factor behind Isaacman's nomination as NASA administrator, and with his backing, Isaacman was able to skip some of the party purity tests that have been applied to other Trump administration nominees. One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats. He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget. Musk's role in the government was highly controversial, winning him enemies both among opponents of Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda as well as inside the administration. One source told Ars that, with Musk's exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman's nomination. The loss of Isaacman is almost certainly a blow to NASA, which faces substantial budget cuts. The Trump Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2026, released Friday, seeks billion for the agency next year—a 24 percent cut from the agency's budget of billion for FY 2025. Going out of business? Isaacman is generally well-liked in the space community and is known to care deeply about space exploration. Officials within the space agency—and the larger space community—hoped that having him as NASA's leader would help the agency restore some of these cuts. Now? "NASA is f---ed," one current leader in the agency told Ars on Saturday. "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode without Jared there to innovate," a former senior NASA leader said. The Trump administration did not immediately name a new nominee, but two people told Ars that former US Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast may be near the top of the list. Now retired, Kwast has a distinguished record in the Air Force and is politically loyal to Trump and MAGA. However, his background seems to be far less oriented toward NASA's civil space mission and far more focused on seeing space as a battlefield—decidedly not an arena for cooperation and peaceful exploration. Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 59 Comments #trump #pulls #isaacman #nomination #space

With yet another failed Starship test this week, in which the ambitious heavy rocket exploded once again, you might reasonably suspect that luck has finally run out for SpaceX. But this degree of failure during a development process isn’t actually unusual, according to Wendy Whitman Cobb, a space policy expert with the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, especially when you’re testing new space technology as complex as a large rocket. However, the Starship tests are meaningfully different from the slow, steady pace of development that we’ve come to expect from the space sector.“The reason a lot of people perceive this to be unusual is that this is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets,” Whitman Cobb says.Historically speaking, space agencies like NASA or legacy aerospace companies like United Launch Alliancehave taken their time with rocket development and have not tested until they were confident in a successful outcome. That’s still the case today with major NASA projects like the development of the Space Launch System, which has now dragged on for over a decade. “They will take as long as they need to to make sure that the rocket is going to work and that a launch is going to be successful,” Whitman Cobb says.“This is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets.”SpaceX has chosen a different path, in which it tests, fails, and iterates frequently. That process has been at the heart of its success, allowing the company to make developments like the reusable Falcon 9 rocket at a rapid pace. However, it also means frequent and very public failures, which have generated complaints about environmental damage in the local area around the launch site and have caused the company to butt heads with regulatory agencies. There are also significant concerns about the political ties of CEO Elon Musk to the Trump administration and his undemocratic influence over federal regulation of SpaceX’s work.Even within the context of SpaceX’s move-fast-and-break-things approach, though, the development of the Starship has appeared chaotic. Compared to the development of the Falcon 9 rocket, which had plenty of failures but a generally clear forward path from failing often to failing less and less as time went on, Starship has a much more spotty record.Previous development was more incremental, first demonstrating that the rocket was sound before moving onto more complex issues like reusability of the booster or first stage. The company didn’t even attempt to save the booster of a Falcon 9 and reuse it until several years into testing.Starship isn’t like that. “They are trying to do everything at once with Starship,” Whitman Cobb says, as the company is trying to debut an entirely new rocket with new engines and make it reusable all at once. “It really is a very difficult engineering challenge.”“They are trying to do everything at once with Starship.”The Raptor engines that power the Starship are a particularly tough engineering nut to crack, as there are a lot of them — 33 per Starship, all clustered together — and they need to be able to perform the tricky feat of reigniting in space. The relighting of engines has been successful on some of the previous Starship test flights, but it has also been a point of failure.Why, then, is SpaceX pushing for so much, so fast? It’s because Musk is laser-focused on getting to Mars. And while it would theoretically be possible to send a mission to Mars using existing rockets like the Falcon 9, the sheer volume of equipment, supplies, and people needed for a Mars mission has a very large mass. To make Mars missions even remotely affordable, you need to be able to move a lot of mass in one launch — hence the need for a much larger rocket like the Starship or NASA’s SLS.NASA has previously been hedging its bets by developing its own heavy launch rocket as well as supporting the development of Starship. But with recent funding cuts, it’s looking more and more likely that the SLS will get axed — leaving SpaceX as the only player in town to facilitate NASA’s Mars plans. But there’s still an awful lot of work to do to get Starship to a place where serious plans for crewed missions can even be made. “There’s no way that they’re putting people on that right now.”Will a Starship test to Mars happen by 2026, with a crewed test to follow as soon as 2028, as Musk said this week he’s aiming for? “I think it’s completely delusional,” Whitman Cobb says, pointing out that SpaceX has not appeared to be seriously considering issues like adding life support to the Starship or making concrete plans for Mars habitats, launch and landing pads, or infrastructure. “I don’t see SpaceX as putting its money where its mouth is,” Whitman Cobb says. “If they do make the launch window next year, it’s going to be uncrewed. There’s no way that they’re putting people on that right now. And I seriously doubt whether they will make it.”That doesn’t mean Starship will never make it to Mars, of course. “I believe SpaceX will engineer their way out of it. I believe their engineering is good enough that they will make Starship work,” Whitman Cobb says. But getting an uncrewed rocket to Mars within the next decade is a lot more realistic than next year. Putting people on the rocket, though, is another matter entirely. “If they’re looking to build a large-scale human settlement? That’s decades,” Whitman Cobb says. “I don’t know that I will live to see that.”See More: #spacex #rockets #keep #exploding #that