President Donald Trump's new administration is likely to do away with the White House's National Space Council, a cabinet policy panel that lobbyists at Elon Musk's SpaceX have been pushing to axe, according to three people familiar with the plans.
Elon Musk has been condemned as "a mixture of mad and right-wing extremist" by professor Jens-Christian Wagner, a historian who runs the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, the largest in Germany.
A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk's flagship rocket program.
SpaceX said the ship experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn,” moments after a dramatic, successful booster catch at the launchpad.
The incident in which a SpaceX rocket broke up after launch demonstrates the challenges the FAA will face as the number of commercial space flights increases.
Flawed rocket launches by SpaceX and Blue Origin still leave both companies in position to dominate the space sector.
SpaceX suspects a fire may have caused its Starship to break apart during liftoff and send trails of flaming debris near the Caribbean.