OPINION
By Dale Skran
SpaceX has recently published a 28-minute high-quality video titled “Holy Grail of Rocketry.” It can be found on the SpaceX website, where it can also be downloaded. It has also been republished on YouTube.
Filmed in 4K, we are shown incredible images of Starship flight 13, and even more amazing footage of the recovery of the Starship from the Indian Ocean. Far from being a panegyric to Elon Musk, it is a straight corporate-produced documentary unsurprisingly lacking the insistence some directors have on finding a dark side to every achievement.
I personally find the unexpected survival of Starship after a planned water landing, followed by a dramatic sea recovery operation, especially exciting. Regardless of the complaints of numerous naysayers, it is increasingly clear that the Starship heat shield has become more robust over time. The effort required and the amount of time needed to convey the floating Starship to Boca Chica serves as a reminder of the vastness of Earth’s oceans, and the danger involved in navigating them. The semi-submersible vessel used to transport the Starship was new to me – and an amazing sight to behold in action.
A final point of interest comes from never-before-seen footage of the factory used to manufacture heat shield tiles. The shuttle tiles were individually shaped and required substantial hand labor to produce. At SpaceX a vast, specialized machine forms and bakes the mostly uniform tiles with minimal human intervention, although they do appear to be mounted on the Ship with human hands.
In a more innocent time, this fascinating documentary would be greeted the widespread applause. However, at least three forces combine to heap scorn on everything done by SpaceX.
First, now that SpaceX is public, a substantial short interest exists on the stock. “Short selling” occurs when investors borrow shares, which they then sell. But at some point, they have to buy back those shares to cover the loan. Short sellers are betting that the stock will drop in value, allowing them to “cover” their borrowing at a lower cost than their initial outlay. But if the stock rises, short sellers have potentially unlimited losses. There is nothing illegal or untoward about short selling – it is part of the ecosystem that makes the stock market work. But some of those short sellers are unscrupulous and pay shady sources to create misleading or false stories about a company to drive down the stock price. The result is that there exists a well-funded group with a financial incentive to spread negative stories about SpaceX.
Second, Elon Musk’s popularity has been driven to new lows by reaction to his political activities, with the result that often anything he or his companies do or say is greeted with a tidal wave of highly negative partisan postings.
Finally, even among the most ardent space enthusiasts, there is in some circles a sense of disappointment and increasing frustration with SpaceX. The sources of these feelings are worth deeper examination. One aspect is that many on the SpaceX bandwagon were excited by Musk’s vison of a multi-planetary society and a city on Mars. Recently Musk has refocused on the Moon and building data centers in space, while still asserting that Mars is in the plan. For the true-blue “Martians” this change of direction is disheartening, although others welcome it, and Musk’s announced intention of building a mass driver on the Moon could result in a huge leap forward for the space settlement vision of Gerard K. O’Neill.
Another aspect is that SpaceX has been the target of criticism that it does not adequately support the Artemis program. For these critics, SpaceX spends too much effort on making Starship fully reusable and launching Starlink satellites, and too little on meeting contractual milestones for NASA related to landing on the Moon.
Yet another aspect lies in the recent announcement that Space is phasing out Falcon 9 and Dragon flights in the not very distant future depending on Starship becoming fully operational. This presents an enormous challenge to hundreds of companies that have come to rely on SpaceX for frequent, reliable, and low-cost access to space.
It is important to keep all these matters in perspective. As space becomes a larger and more important part of the global economy, it was inevitable that the space economy would become more like other industries, with shady short-sellers blasting out FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), and space companies increasingly engaged with the Pentagon. And companies like SpaceX would be tempted, once public, to focus much more directly on their stock price and cash flow. For many space enthusiasts, this feels like a grim and unhappy comedown from the Star Trek fantasy some have entertained.
There is, however, a silver lining in this cloud. SpaceX’s withdrawal of the F9/Dragon from the market will light a fire in the hearts of those working at Stoke Space, Relativity, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and others. One great company is a thin reed to rest our future in space on. We need a dozen space companies as successful as SpaceX, all competing to provide better and less expensive space services. The goal of the NSS has always been, and must continue to be robust, fair competition in space services. The best answer to concerns about SpaceX lie not in nationalization or other absurdities, but in supporting a growing, robust space launch industry that rapidly drives down the cost of reaching space.
The upcoming flight 14 of Starship will be a key step on the road to that future, but it is just one step. And we are not far from the true Holy Grail of Rocketry – not just one fully reusable vehicle, but many, from many companies. Good luck to them all!
© 2026 Dale Skran
Image: Starship sea recovery. Credit: SpaceX.
