SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
BOCA CHICA — The Rio Grande Valley’s first orbital Starship flight achieved orbit at 7:49 a.m. Monday, circled the Earth with historic ambition for approximately 25 minutes, and then sent a polite email to the Brownsville Herald at 10 a.m. explaining that the entire Chile portion of the trip was canceled and the spaceship would instead be landing north of Hawaii before lunch.
The 407-foot rocket had been scheduled for six laps of the planet at 170 miles up — a nearly 10-hour orbital victory tour culminating in a splashdown off the Chilean coast that South Padre Island souvenir vendors had already commemorated on 4,000 T-shirts reading ‘CHILE OR BUST, Y’ALL.’
But after one Raptor engine quit during ascent, mission controllers spent several tense minutes at Starbase weighing whether to go for orbit at all, then shrugged, lit the remaining engine, and declared Starship orbital at the 26-minute mark — at which point, witnesses say, the spacecraft’s itinerary began visibly shrinking like a Valley snow cone in August.
‘We Had A Great Time, But We Gotta Go’
The email to the Herald, timestamped 10:02 a.m., read in part: ‘Hi! Wonderful morning. Splashdown is now targeted for 3 hours 8 minutes after launch. So, like, 11:15. Hawaii-adjacent. Chile sends its regrets. Anyway, great working with you, dan.’
Meanwhile the Super Heavy booster, which splashed down softly in the Gulf just off Boca Chica at 7:56 a.m., had already completed its entire workday, gone home, showered, and was reportedly back at the pad eating breakfast tacos before Brownsville finished its second cup of coffee.
‘That booster put in a full eight-hour shift in seven minutes,’ said Port Isabel launch-watcher Ruben Cavazos, 61, who has watched every launch from the same folding chair since 2023. ‘Meanwhile the spaceship that actually went to orbit is already home. Nobody in the Valley has had a day this efficient since H-E-B on a Tuesday.’
The 26 Starlink V3 satellites were deployed one by one to cheers at Starbase, though several reportedly asked whether they were still going to see Chile and were told to look at the new itinerary email.
Chile Responds
Officials in Chile confirmed the South American nation learned of the change ‘the way everyone learns things now,’ which is to say a spaceship emailed a newspaper in Brownsville, Texas, and the newspaper told everybody.
SpaceX declined to give a reason for shortening the flight, though internal sources described the decision as ‘orbital insertion went great, but have you seen the drive to Chile?’
At press time, Starship S41 had splashed down in the Pacific, tipped over, and caught fire, which commentators described as ‘standard water-landing behavior’ and locals described as ‘basically a Sunday barbecue with more paperwork.’
