A cringe-worthy video uploaded by the incoming president’s granddaughter shows Donald Trump sending rocket man Elon Musk into an awkward spiral when he asks him if his rocket booster can be reused—after it crashed into the sea in a fireball.
The president-elect’s granddaughter, Kai Trump, released behind-the-scenes footage of last week’s Texas SpaceX launch, but may have made her granddad look a bit silly after showing a snippet of his conversation with an exasperated Musk.
Trump had joined his campaign donor turned government efficiency adviser to watch the latest test flight of the Starship vehicle system. The NASA contractor planned to attempt a repeat of an incredible October maneuver in which giant mechanical arms sticking out of the launch tower “catch” a rocket booster mid-air as it blasts back down to Earth.
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But just four minutes into last Tuesday’s launch, the mission director called off the catch and ordered the booster to crash into the Gulf of Mexico, the Financial Times reported.
Making the boosters reusable has been a key part of SpaceX’s efforts to cut the cost of each Starship flight ($100m) in half.
The moments after this were captured by Kai, 17, as part of a YouTube vlog series she has started. “We had some concerns about the tower so it was commanded to land out at sea,” Musk tells a pouting Trump who appears to miss the meaning of what the billionaire is saying, responding with an awe-inspired “amazing”.
He then asks: “Can they use that again? Can they get it from the sea?”
Musk appears to do a double take and awkwardly responds: “Uhh, it’s going to be...it‘s...it’s probably gonna blow up. That’s my guess.”
Trump actually said very little on the day, as per Kai’s vlog, and ex-cop Darren Stanton told The Telegraph last week that’s because the MAGA man was very uncomfortable. “Trump was very uneasy,” Stanton said. “Usually, he comes over as this alpha male, the most empowered, most powerful person in the room.” However, he added, Trump was “out of his depth — his hands were just by his side like a mannequin.”
Musk and his rocket were left all at sea on a bad day for SpaceX.
