After Thursday’s flight, Starship is already the most revolutionary rocket ever built
Enlarge / Starship meets plasma. (credit: SpaceX)
One of the best things about spaceflight is its power to dazzle us.
I will never forget seeing the first images of Pluto and its moon Charon for the first time, with their vibrant colors and exotic geology. A world with super-sized ice volcanoes? Oh my. Similarly affecting were up-close views of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, revealed by Europe's Philae lander. And it is difficult to forget the harrowing footage of NASA's Perseverance rover landing on Mars.
But no space agency or company has dazzled us more in the last 10 years than SpaceX. The company produces moments of wonder and originality that are both breathtaking and full of promise. What SpaceX does best is provide us a glimpse into a tantalizingly close future.