Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images, New Times collage by Alex DeLuca
Audio By Carbonatix
The Bezos family gratitude huddle must’ve been reaaaaal quiet this morning.
Mirroring a scene straight out of Succession, Miami Palmetto Senior High grad Jeff Bezos watched his remote-controlled (reportedly) $100 million toy rocket explode into a mushroom cloud of biblical proportions at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thursday night, a completely unexpected malfunction that rained down hellfire on Central Florida skies. For Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, it was “a very rough day.”
All KSC and Blue Origin staff, including rookie astronaut and sometime singer Katy Perry, were marked safe from the explosion, which the company referred to as an “anomaly.”
That’s a relief, given that tech publication Ars Technica reported that this “is possibly the most dramatic and powerful rocket explosion since the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket was destroyed during a launch attempt in 1969.” Florida Today reported the fireball “briefly [turned] the Space Coast sky an apocalyptic orange.”
Footage of the explosion lit up social media feeds Thursday night, with views from fishing boats on the ocean, planes in the sky, and, in the background of videos recorded by Ring cameras (which are also part of Bezos’ vast empire).
The shockwaves of the blast were felt well outside Florida, and even as far as the comment section of the Washington Post, the storied D.C. newspaper Bezos owns and kneecapped earlier this year by firing nearly half the newsroom.
“Wow sounds like what he did to the Post,” reads the featured comment on the paper’s story about the big whoopsie.
“Aww, that’s a shame. Would’ve paid for a lot of journalists, or a sports section,” reads another.
Judging from the Post’s own AI summary, that appears to be the general consensus:
“The comments express skepticism and criticism towards billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk leading space programs, with many suggesting that NASA should be in charge instead. There is a recurring theme of dissatisfaction with Bezos’ management of both Blue Origin and The Washington Post, with several comments drawing parallels between the failures of the rocket and perceived issues at the newspaper. Additionally, some comments highlight the wastefulness of spending on space exploration by billionaires, suggesting that funds could be better used for societal improvements.”
Though the major malfunction has become a class-war-level pile-on against multi-billionaire Bezos, the explosion will have significant repercussions on NASA’s ongoing Artemis missions to the Moon. Blue Origin was expected to send the initial rovers to establish a U.S. Moon base on the satellite before the end of the decade, a timeline that is now in serious jeopardy.
