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SpaceX is set to make an audacious grab for ‘holy grail’ of rocketry. Here are the risks
CNN Lite ^ | November 12, 2026 | Jackie Wattles, CNN

Posted on 11/12/2026 7:05:05 PM PST by Red Badger

A crucial test this week could bring SpaceX one step closer to revolutionizing spaceflight — or cast new uncertainty on the company’s boldest ambitions.

SpaceX will for the first time attempt to bring every part of its massive Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, back to dry land — intact — during a mission set to launch on Friday between 5:45 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. ET.

The aim is to develop a fully reusable launch system, a goal the company has deemed the “holy grail” of rocketry because it would eliminate the need to throw away multimillion-dollar rocket parts after a single mission. That in turn could dramatically lower the cost of a single launch — by orders of magnitude, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes — and open a new world of possibilities for space exploration.

But to realize its vision, SpaceX needs to figure out how to bring Starship’s upper half, a 171-foot-tall spacecraft, back from orbit to a safe, upright landing within the arms of the company’s South Texas launch tower.

Such a move has never been demonstrated.

But SpaceX has long made clear that recapturing and reflying the entire Starship vehicle is imperative to achieve some of the company’s most audacious goals and, as the company said in a statement, “unlock the true capability of Starship.”

The company intends for the gargantuan rocket to tackle a wide range of lofty, extraterrestrial projects — such as helping NASA to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, expand its space-based Starlink internet network, launch an orbital data center, and “extend the light of consciousness to the stars, and make life multiplanetary,” the company said in a statement, nodding to Musk’s longtime goal of using Starship to colonize Mars.

(Excerpt) Read more at lite.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; History; Military/Veterans; Travel
KEYWORDS: science

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1 posted on 11/12/2026 7:05:05 PM PST by Red Badger
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To: MtnClimber; SunkenCiv; rktman; mowowie; SuperLuminal; Cottonbay; telescope115; laplata; ...

Ping!..............


2 posted on 11/12/2026 7:05:47 PM PST by Red Badger (Iryna Zarutska, May 22, 2002 Kyiv, Ukraine – August 22, 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina Say her name)
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To: Red Badger

It must suck to be a commie liberal progressive. They are miserable in their personal lives and hate when people like Elon Musk succeed in making life better for everyone including themselves. I was telling someone how great Starlink is for traveling and she said she didn’t want it because Elon. CNN must be dying inside having to report on the guy who visited Donald Trump and worked in the DOGE being the same guy who will be most likely to put people on the moon and Mars


3 posted on 11/12/2026 7:18:34 PM PST by webheart (Notice how I said all of that without any hyphens, and only complete words?)
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To: webheart

Why, yes, I am a Liberal. Why do you ask?...........

4 posted on 11/12/2026 7:27:50 PM PST by Red Badger (Iryna Zarutska, May 22, 2002 Kyiv, Ukraine – August 22, 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina Say her name)
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To: Red Badger

LOL!

Post of the day!


5 posted on 11/12/2026 7:30:25 PM PST by Taxman (We will never be a truly free people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS.)
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