Sunita Williams’ return: I see a rocket, I see ways it could fail, says Elon Musk

In an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity, an American television presenter who hosts ‘The Sean Hannity Show’, Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that whenever he sees a rocket, he sees a list of all the ways it could go wrong and potentially fail.

His comments come hours after NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, along with Butch Wilmore, returned to Earth on Wednesday after nine months' stay aboard the International Space Station.

A SpaceX capsule brought Williams and Wilmore home, along with two other astronauts. The capsule undocked from the space station on Tuesday and splashed down off the Florida coast on Wednesday morning, after clocking 286 days in space.

Musk's interview with Hannity

When asked to describe the mission to get the four astronauts home, Musk said, “On the ascent stage, there's always some chance that the first or second stage will bow up. In fact, I find it really remarkable. When I see a rocket, I see a list of all ways it could go wrong and potentially fail – first stage failure, second stage failure, stage separation failure there could be an engine failure on the spacecraft."

“When it's coming back, it's coming in so fast it's a blazing meteor, and if anything happens to the heat shield, the whole craft is going to disintegrate. It's remarkable that humans can go all the way to orbit and come back given the immense amounts of energy required…” he added.

He also announced the launch of the Starship rocket this year, calling it a “revolutionary rocket”. Musk said, “Starship is the first rocket that could make us multi-planetary for the first time in the history of earth.”

Following the interview, US President Donald Trump called Musk and Hannity “two great Americans” in a post on Truth Social, that he shared on X.