Half the rocket crashed. Musk called it "epic"

The biggest rocket ever built flew on Friday night. Half of it crashed. Musk called it "epic."

He's not wrong.

Starship Flight 12 launched at 6:30 p.m. EDT from the brand-new Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. All 33 Raptor engines lit clean. The 407-foot stack cleared the tower with 18 million pounds of thrust and climbed through a clear sky.

Then things got messy. And then they got remarkable.

Let me explain…

About two and a half minutes in, the Super Heavy booster separated from the Ship upper stage. Hot staging worked — the Ship fired its engines while still attached, then pulled away. But when the booster tried to flip and fire its engines for the boost-back burn… they didn't relight. Booster 19 fell into the Gulf of Mexico and crashed. No tower catch. No soft landing.

That's a failure. Full stop.

But the Ship kept flying. And this is where the story turns.

One of the six Raptor vacuum engines on the Ship shut down mid-flight. Five out of six. The flight computer stretched the remaining burns to make up the gap… and it worked. Ship 39 reached its planned arc on five engines.

Then it opened the payload bay and spit out 22 sats. Twenty were mass models sized like next-gen Starlink V3 units. Two were live — fitted with lights and cameras to scan the Ship's heat shield from orbit. SpaceX calls them "Dodger Dogs," like the hot dogs at the LA ballpark.

In other words, SpaceX just tested a new way to inspect its heat shield from space… with tiny camera sats that ride along for the trip. If this works at scale, it could cut the time between flights from weeks to days.

And the shield held. SpaceX had pulled one tile off on purpose to see how the ones next to it would handle the stress. Musk said after the flight that the heat shield performed well.

The Ship then relit two engines for a landing burn, came down on target in the Indian Ocean, tipped over, and blew up on contact. That was planned — no recovery ship was waiting.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "The booster crashed. How is this good news?" Fair question.

But here's the context. This was the first V3 flight. New engines, new fins, new fuel tanks, new pad. Almost every piece of hardware was flying for the first time. And the Ship — the part that goes to space, the part that carries cargo and someday crew — did nearly everything it was asked to do.

The timing matters too. SpaceX filed its S-1 two days before this launch. The road show starts in two weeks. A booster crash is bad optics. But a Ship that flies on five engines, deploys sats, and survives reentry? That's the story SpaceX will tell Wall Street.

And Wall Street will have to decide which half of the flight to price in.

That's the bet.

In a May 18 filing made public this weekend, NASA announced it will add six more crew missions to SpaceX's Dragon contract on a sole-source basis. Three will be ordered right away. The move is a direct hedge: if Boeing's Starliner is never certified for crew flights, NASA wants enough Dragon flights to keep the ISS staffed through 2030. NASA last added five missions to the SpaceX deal in 2022 for $1.4 billion. Starliner's path to cert has stalled since the 2024 test flight left Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded on the ISS for months. Boeing's next shot — an uncrewed cargo run — hasn't launched yet. SpaceX is now NASA's only working crew taxi. Full stop.

China sent three astronauts to the Tiangong station late Sunday from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi Desert. The crew: commander Zhu Yangzhu, pilot Zhang Zhiyuan, and payload specialist Lai Ka-ying — a Hong Kong police superintendent with a doctorate in computer forensics who just became the city's first astronaut. One of the three will stay in orbit for a full year, a first for China. That's possible because the next mission, Shenzhou 24, will carry a Pakistani astronaut for a short visit — the first non-Chinese guest on Tiangong. The year-long crew member will swap seats and stay behind. China is building its deep-space bench fast.

The SpaceX S-1 filing isn't just moving one stock. It's lifting the whole sector. Rocket Lab and Redwire are each up more than 78% year to date. EchoStar has gained 40% in the past two weeks alone. Firefly is up 23%. One fund manager at Gabelli told reporters that SpaceX's trillion-dollar tag is making smaller firms look cheap by comparison. Meanwhile, Motley Fool data shows that 7 of the 10 largest U.S. IPOs in history have trailed the S&P 500 after listing. So if you're planning to buy SpaceX on day one… history says patience tends to pay better than hype.

Mark your clock: Tuesday, May 26, 2 p.m. EDT.

NASA will hold a press event at its HQ in Washington to share new details on the Moon Base program. The agency says it will name new industry partners and lay out mission plans.

This matters for your portfolio. In March, NASA laid out a plan to spend $20 to $30 billion over the next decade to build a base on the lunar south pole by 2036. That's real money. And tomorrow's event could reveal which firms win the next round of contracts.

Meanwhile, Artemis II — the crew flight around the Moon — flew last month and went well. That gave the program a boost of public support. Isaacman is pushing to keep that energy going.

The Moon Base plan skips the long-delayed Gateway station and goes straight to the surface. It leans on nuclear power for the base and for future Mars trips. And it calls for dozens of cargo and crew flights over the next decade.

So who stands to win? SpaceX already holds the Artemis landing deal. But the base needs habitats, rovers, power systems, and cargo landers. That opens doors for Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic, Rocket Lab, Redwire, and Lockheed Martin.

In other words, tomorrow isn't just a press conference. It's a contract map for the next ten years of space spending.

Watch it on NASA+.

With SpaceX's IPO, you'll hear the term "S-1" a lot. So what is it?

An S-1 is the form a company files with the SEC before it sells stock to the public for the first time. Think of it as a full X-ray of the firm. Sales, costs, debts, risks, the boss's pay… it's all in there.

The law says a firm must file this at least 15 days before its "roadshow." That's when the CEO and top execs fly from city to city to pitch big fund groups on why they should buy shares.

Here's what smart readers look for in any S-1. First, the cash burn. Does the firm spend more than it makes? If so, how fast? Second, the growth rate. Are sales going up fast enough to close the gap? Third, the risk list. Every S-1 has a section called "Risk Factors." SpaceX's has 36 pages of them… from launch fails to legal fights tied to its AI and social media deals.

And fourth… who owns what. SpaceX's filing shows Elon Musk holds about 42% of the firm. That means he keeps tight control even after the stock goes live.

Most S-1s are dry reads. This one is not. It's the first look inside a firm that could be worth $2 trillion by the time it starts trading.