SpaceX employee have a nightmare email over the holiday weekend from CEO Elon Musk , warning them of a brewing crisis with its bird of prey engine production that , if unsolved , could result in the company ’s bankruptcy . The e-mail , obtained bySpaceExplored , CNBC , andThe Verge , root on employees to work over the weekend in a do-or-die endeavor to increase yield of the engine entail to power its next - genesis Starship launch vehicle .
“ Unfortunately , the Raptor yield crisis is much worse than it seemed a few weeks ago , ” Musk reportedly wrote . “ As we have dug into the issues come after exiting prior senior management , they have unluckily turn out to be far more stern than was reported . There is no way to glaze this . ”
SpaceX did not immediately respond to Gizmodo ’s request for comment but Musk did Tweet about the written report Tuesday afternoon .
Image: Win McNamee (Getty Images)
“ The magnitude of the Starship platform is not widely appreciated ” Musk tweeted . “ It is designed to extend life to Mars ( and the moon ) , which requires ~1000 time more lading to orbit than all current Earth rockets combined . ” Though Musk did not confirm or deny the e-mail ’s veracity he talk to its content saying that , while he did not think bankruptcy was likely , it was n’t impossible either . The CEO went on to apparently quote Intel founder and former CEO Andrew Grove , writing “ only the paranoid survive . ”
If a knockout spherical recess were to dry up capital letter availability / liquidity while SpaceX was losing billions on Starlink & Starship , then bankruptcy , while still unbelievable , is not impossible .
GM & Chrysler went BK last niche .
“ Only the paranoid survive . ” – Grove
— Elon Musk ( @elonmusk)November 30 , 2021
In his email , Musk advised workers to tailor their vacation weekend short and called for an “ all hired man on deck to recover from what is , quite candidly , a catastrophe . ” tote up up the trouble , Musk warn the company could face failure if it could not get Starship flights running once every two weeks in 2022 . If all of this sounds intimate , that ’s because Musk has previously spokenpubliclyabout times where both SpaceX and Tesla were on the verge of failure in their early years . More recently MuskclaimedTesla came within “ individual fingerbreadth ” of bankruptcy as recent as 2018 .
Raptor ’s railway locomotive is a critical component of Starship , which SpaceX hopes will one - twenty-four hours transport cargo and people to the Sun Myung Moon and Mars . spaceship ’s power to get together these challenging destination is critical to SpaceX ’s long - term achiever which is built upon Elon Musk ’s promise of multi - planetary human exploration . According to Musk ’s email , Starship will also play a critical persona in launching Starlink ’s next - generation satellite into orbit .
Musk ’s stressed - out email conform to a tweet earlier this calendar month where the CEOadmittedthe Raptor 2 would need a “ complete intention overhaul ” to make multi - planetary animation possible . Not long after that , two SpaceX vice presidents abruptly leave the companyaccording toCNBC . One of those executive , Will Heltsley , who had been at the caller since 2009 , was working on the Raptor labor but was taken off due to a lack of procession .
The alarming news arrive near the close of what ’s been an otherwise stellar year for SpaceX. In 11 month SpaceX carry off tolaunch25 successful Falcon 9 mission , send a dozen astronauts to quad and take out a roadmap to mass commercialisation with its Starlink orbiter internet Robert William Service .
you’re able to take the full email over atThe Verge .
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