The “Impossible” Catch

Every day, I wake up around 4 a.m.

That’s when I start my research and writing process.

I spend the next several hours writing what you are reading now – The Bleeding Edge, my free daily e-letter to my readers. At its peak, it was over 1 million readers strong.

Since returning to Brownstone a few months ago, our goal is to get back there… and surpass it.

I research and write these issues myself. There are no ghostwriters. I don’t use ChatGPT – or any other form of AI – to do it for me.

And I enjoy getting asked, every so often, one specific question from a reader…

“Why?”

Why are you doing this, Jeff?

The answer is pretty simple. I believe in living life with a purpose. I believe in doing something meaningful each day that is valuable to others. And I believe that time is precious, so I better use it wisely, rather than waste it.

I also respect your time, which is why I put so much effort into my process. If you’re going to share some of your time with me every day or every month, I better make it worth something.

I also believe in constantly making progress and improving myself. My goal is to get smarter and wiser with each day that passes.

And I want to share that knowledge with you, my subscribers.

It seems a shame to restrict more than three decades of insights and knowledge in the world of investing, high tech, and business just to myself. I get great pleasure sharing with you the most interesting and exciting things that I’m researching every day – the progress being made at the outer limits of high-tech.

The breadth and depth of what I write about is intentional. My goal is to give my subscribers a framework, a good understanding, of a broad range of technologies and companies to make us all more knowledgeable and, ultimately, better investors.

Without context, understanding, and data, incredible opportunities won’t seem obvious at all. In fact, they might just seem uninteresting.

But when we build a knowledge base around major trends and the companies leading in their respective fields, we build awareness in advance of an opportunity. This prepares us for what’s to come.

If I’m doing it right, you’ll feel smarter and better informed. You’ll be able to have a wide range of conversations with family, friends, and coworkers. And you’ll be able to engage with others who have different backgrounds on meaningful subjects.

And hopefully, you’ll also come away with a sense of wonder and excitement about this extraordinary time that we’re living in.

And that brings us to today’s issue…

My original plan for today was to write about Tesla’s We, Robot event, held last Thursday night, October 10.

Tesla unveiled its Robotaxi (Cybercab) for the first time, a milestone we’ve been tracking closely in The Bleeding Edge.

Most of the media felt the event was a flop (it wasn’t). And Wall Street didn’t like it either. Tesla’s share price is down about 10% since the event.

There’s so much to unpack from this event, and it’s so exciting. But it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow.

Because something incredible happened over the weekend.

The Impossible Catch

On Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave SpaceX an extremely delayed approval to launch its fifth Starship test flight.

We’ve been tracking this saga in The Bleeding Edge – Starships are Meant to Fly. The FAA delays were intentional and almost certainly politically motivated.

SpaceX didn’t waste a minute once it had approval.

Why chance it?

In less than 24 hours from the approval, Starship 5 launched by Sunday morning.

I don’t think words can capture the sheer wonder of what was accomplished yesterday.

So, I’ll just show you what happened below:

What we see above is the SpaceX Super Heavy booster landing from the fifth Starship test launch. The Super Heavy booster is the first stage of the Starship launch system. It stands 71 meters (232 feet) tall and weighs 250 tons.

SpaceX’s Starship system is comprised of two stages: the Super Heavy (the booster, or first stage) and the Starship (the actual rocket).

The short video above shows the Super Heavy booster returning to Earth, precisely to a launch pad, where it positions itself between two mechanical arms – the Mechazilla tower – whereby it is then “caught” safely in midair. Now, it can eventually be reused.

Awe-inspiring.

Even Elon Musk’s team at SpaceX originally thought he was crazy for suggesting a feat so seemingly impossible. And just about the rest of the aerospace industry thought it was a joke, destined to end in a fireball.

And yet, SpaceX got it right. On the first try.

What was the point? Why try something so difficult in the first place? Why not just send the first stage to the ocean, like everyone else?

The Purpose of Reusability

Just like the Falcon 9 (SpaceX’s partially reusable, two-stage rock design), SpaceX has been designing for dramatically lower costs. The goal is to get payloads into orbit as cheaply as possible.

The most important element of that is reusability.

Musk realized that if they were to design legs for the Super Heavy – to land it in a way similar to the Falcon 9’s first-stage landing – they would have to be very large and very heavy.

So why not just remove the legs entirely? Doing so saves a lot of weight in the first stage.

It’s better to catch the first stage than to have it land. So that’s precisely what the SpaceX team figured out how to do.

Below is a picture of the 250-ton Super Heavy, after having been caught by Mechazilla.

If we look closely at the picture, we can see one of two metal protrusions on either side of the Super Heavy that rests upon the Mechazilla arms.

The utility of catching the Super Heavy in midair isn’t just about reusability, though…

Musk was thinking far beyond that.

He was thinking about how to most efficiently turn around a Super Heavy booster…

And get it ready for its next flight.

Ready for Another Launch Within an Hour

Here’s what that same Super Heavy booster looks like right now.

The Mechazilla arms simply rotated and placed the Super Heavy on its launch mount.

The whole system is designed so that the Super Heavy can be caught, placed on its launch mount, refueled, remounted with a Starship on top, and launched again.

All within an hour.

In previous versions of The Bleeding Edge, I’ve used an animation of the Mechazilla at work. In today’s issue, all of the images and GIFs in this issue are real. And they’re historic.

This isn’t about Elon Musk and his team pulling off a seemingly impossible engineering feat…

This is about single-handedly opening up the entire solar system and its resources for exploration and progress.

This is about human progress, and what took place this past weekend ultimately enables the human race to become a multi-planetary species.

And it wouldn’t be possible without the technology and the costs to make it economically viable.

When the Falcon 9 first started flying in 2010, it cost about $10,000 per kilogram (kg) to get payloads to low Earth orbit (LEO).

That cost quickly dropped to around $2,500 on average, and today is as low as $1,520/kg.

This alone ignited the space economy. Without these low launch costs, a business like SpaceX’s Starlink simply wouldn’t be economically possible.

The Starship, once commercialized, will drop those costs – per kg – by more than 90%… to less than $100 per kg. Just imagine the impact this will have on the space economy.

If you’re curious to get an idea of what the space economy “looks like,” readers may enjoy Outer Limits – Made in Space, in which we explore space-based drug manufacturing. Here’s a bit of what I wrote:

Costs at these levels will democratize access to space. This is the single most important enabler and accelerant to the private space economy.

At prices this low, even small early-stage companies will be able to afford to launch their products into orbit. This is the key to space manufacturing.

Speaking of the Starship, it was largely ignored during this mission, but it was no less impressive.

“Catch a Falling Starship, Put It In Your Pocket…”

Some 65 minutes after turning from its trip to space, the 50-meter (165 feet) tall spacecraft – capable of transporting between 100–150 tons – returned to a precise location in the Indian Ocean.

It hovered perfectly vertical, demonstrating that it too can be caught by the arms of a Mechazilla…

And then it dropped into the ocean to end the historic mission.

Yesterday, the possibility of NASA astronauts returning to the moon, this time to establish a lunar outpost, became a lot more real. NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which is targeted to launch in September 2026, involves a SpaceX Starship landing on the moon.

Progress.

SpaceX has already tested a Starship in preparation for its upcoming sixth test flight. While flight objectives haven’t yet been announced, there’s one thing I can guarantee…

The next flight will be more ambitious and more impressive than the fifth flight.

As we can see above, SpaceX is ready to go with the next test flight. If the FAA, and those that control it, get out of the way and allow Musk and his team at SpaceX to advance humanity, the Starship will be able to launch again before the end of this year.

And given the success of yesterday’s flight, I’d bet that SpaceX will attempt to catch a Starship for the first time.

And perhaps somewhat ironically, it was hard to ignore these absurd headlines coming in over the weekend, too…

California officials reject more SpaceX rocket launches, citing Musk’s X posts.

Enough is enough. Progress before politics, not the other way around.

Let’s Go!!!

Jeff

P.S. It’s hard to imagine something more inspirational than what SpaceX is doing right now. What better fodder to give kids big dreams and pursue careers in science and engineering? For those who have kids or grandkids, SpaceX made a simple online game to catch a Super Heavy booster after launch, you can find it right here. Have fun!