LIFTOFF!!

Broke our screens-at-the-dinner-table rule to watch the SpaceX and LabPadre “Nerdle Cam” streams with our boys. I must have been on my feet the entire time — too excited to sit down! A spectacular success in my book. The stable, well-controlled free-fall, relight, and pivot back to vertical right at the landing zone were a truly awesome sight and more than I’d dared hope for. A successful landing would have been icing on the cake, but the “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” at the end feels unimportant to worry over when so much else went right. I look forward to altitude and velocity data that I hope will be coming, but by all appearances the idea of a controlled, horizontal free-fall descent to help slow Starship gradually [to some terminal velocity] with less fuel burn seems to have been field-proven a success, with important implications for validating one of the seemingly riskiest parts of the design. I’ve so much admiration for Musk and the team that dared to dream this and make it happen (and am glad to hear he’s becoming an honorary Texan!). My hats off to our dear departed SN8 (which, it appears, gave us a knowing wave “Goodbye!”). If you have to go out, do it in a fiery blaze of glory doing what you were built to do. SN8 did great. I’m sure SN9 will be just fine.