
-
Five potential Grand National fairytale endings
-
Trump purges national security team after meeting conspiracist
-
More work for McIlroy even with two wins before Masters
-
Trump hopeful of 'great' PGA-LIV golf merger
-
No.1 Scheffler goes for third Masters crown in four years
-
Where Trump's tariffs could hurt Americans' wallets
-
Trump says 'very close to a deal' on TikTok
-
Trump tariffs on Mexico: the good, the bad, the unknown
-
Postecoglou denies taunting Spurs fans in Chelsea defeat
-
Oscar-winning Palestinian director speaks at UN on Israeli settlements
-
With tariff war, Trump also reshapes how US treats allies
-
Fernandez fires Chelsea into fourth as pressure mounts on Postecoglou
-
South Korea court to decide impeached president's fate
-
Penguin memes take flight after Trump tariffs remote island
-
E.T., no home: Original model of movie alien doesn't sell at auction
-
Italy's Brignone has surgery on broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Trump defiant as tariffs send world markets into panic
-
City officials vote to repair roof on home of MLB Rays
-
Rockets forward Brooks gets one-game NBA ban for technicals
-
Pentagon watchdog to probe defense chief over Signal chat row
-
US tariffs could push up inflation, slow growth: Fed official
-
New Bruce Springsteen music set for June 27 release
-
Tom Cruise pays tribute to Val Kilmer
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's tariffs list
-
Zuckerberg repeats Trump visits in bid to settle antitrust case
-
US fencer disqualified for not facing transgender rival
-
'Everyone worried' by Trump tariffs in France's champagne region
-
Italy's Brignone suffers broken leg with Winter Olympics looming
-
Iyer blitz powers Kolkata to big IPL win over Hyderabad
-
Russian soprano Netrebko to return to London's Royal Opera House
-
French creche worker gets 25 years for killing baby with drain cleaner
-
UK avoids worst US tariffs post-Brexit, but no celebrations
-
Canada imposing 25% tariff on some US auto imports
-
Ruud wants 'fair share' of Grand Slam revenue for players
-
Lesotho, Africa's 'kingdom in the sky' jolted by Trump
-
Trump's trade math baffles economists
-
Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris
-
'Unprecedented crisis' in Africa healthcare: report
-
Pogacar gunning for blood and thunder in Tour of Flanders
-
Macron calls for suspension of investment in US until tariffs clarified
-
Wall St leads rout as world reels from Trump tariffs
-
Mullins gets perfect National boost with remarkable four-timer
-
Trump tariffs hammer global stocks, dollar and oil
-
Authors hold London protest against Meta for 'stealing' work to train AI
-
Tate Modern gifted 'extraordinary' work by US artist Joan Mitchell
-
Mexico president welcomes being left off Trump's new tariffs list
-
Tonali eager to lead Newcastle back into Champions League
-
Lesotho hardest hit as new US tariffs rattle Africa
-
Stellantis pausing some Canada, Mexico production over Trump auto tariffs
-
Rising odds asteroid that briefly threatened Earth will hit Moon

Musk 'confident' of Starship orbital launch this year
Elon Musk delivered updates on SpaceX's efforts to develop its interplanetary Starship rocket on Thursday night, but stopped short of announcing a firm launch date for an orbital test or new missions, despite considerable buildup ahead of the rare presentation.
Addressing an audience at the company's Starbase facility near Boca Chica, south Texas, the tycoon merely said: "I feel at this point highly confident that we'll get to orbit this year," while hinting at a potential pivot to launching from Florida if the company encounters regulatory hurdles.
Musk was speaking against the impressive backdrop of the spacecraft in its fully-stacked configuration, standing 394 feet (120 meters) tall, with a matte black upper-stage placed on a shimmering silver Super Heavy first-stage rocket.
Together, they make the biggest spacecraft ever built: taller than even the Saturn V rockets that took astronauts to the Moon during the Apollo era.
Made of stainless steel and designed to be fully reusable, Starship is also intended to be the world's most powerful rocket, and will be capable of lifting up to 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.
SpaceX envisages the ship carrying crew and cargo to the Moon, Mars and beyond -- and last year, NASA awarded the company a contract for a version of Starship to ferry astronauts on the Artemis program from lunar orbit to the surface.
- $10 million launches? -
In his first detailed progress report on the project since 2019, Musk recapped his ultimate vision for colonizing Mars as a "life insurance" in case of catastrophe on Earth, and as the first step in expanding humanity's footprint beyond the solar system.
The speech was peppered with dry humor, such as his "sales pitch" for Mars: "It's going to be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard word, you might die" -- though he eventually hopes to terraform the Red Planet.
Musk also included some updates for fans, such as an illustration of how one Starship would be sent to refuel another on deep space voyages, and the thrust advantage and neater design of the latest generation of Raptor engines compared to the first iteration.
Each Starship booster is planned to have 33 Raptors, and a bottleneck in the production is expected to ease in the coming weeks, with as many as one engine manufactured per day by next month, said Musk.
He also revealed that within years the cost of launch could be as little as $10 million -- a price point that could revolutionize the industry by making rockets attractive for commercial transportation purposes.
A flight to Singapore from the US is 20 hours "while in a rocket it would be less than an hour. So like 45 minutes or there abouts."
Starship's upper stage has already made several suborbital flights. After multiple tests that ended in impressive explosions, SpaceX finally succeeded in landing the spacecraft last May.
- Possible pivot to Florida -
But a far more ambitious orbital test is pending an environmental impact clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA said in a December release it would deliver a report by February 28.
Musk said that while he was optimistic of receiving approval, he was prepared to shift launch operations to the company's launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, if it was held up.
Former deepwater oil drilling rigs the company has acquired to convert into rocket launch and land sites could also come into play, he added.
Beyond exploration missions, Starship's tremendous payload capacity could also be a boon for astronomers seeking to place bigger telescopes into space, while the US military has given SpaceX a five-year contract to demonstrate its capacity to whizz cargo around the world in ultra quick time.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has contracted Starship for a journey around the Moon with a crew of artists, and Musk hinted there would soon be "future announcements that I think people will be pretty fired up about," without divulging more.
P.Hernandez--AT