When Joe Rogan interviewed Elon Musk on the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, the topic of rocket failures came up in a surprisingly frank way. In one clip, Musk is asked: “Why do your rockets keep blowing up?” His answer: because you have to test the very limits. That exchange opens a window into the tension between innovation and risk inherent in modern rocketry—and in particular into the philosophy driving Musk’s company SpaceX.

This article digs into that question: Why do rockets continue to blow up? We’ll examine the context of the Musk‑Rogan discussion, the engineering and business pressures at play, the specific case of the Starship program’s failures, and what it all means for the future of reusable rockets.

The conversation: Rogan and Musk on failure

In the podcast transcript, Musk explains that in a development programme, a few rockets will blow up. He says:

When you do a new rocket development program, you have to… explore the limits, the corners of the box… we intentionally subject it to a flight regime that is much worse than what we expect in normal flight so that when we put people on board or valuable cargo, it doesn’t blow up.”

Joe Rogan then clarifies: “So it’s okay that they blow up?” and Musk says yes: some are intentionally put into extreme conditions. This exchange highlights a key philosophical point: a failure during testing may actually be acceptable if it reveals a limit or boundary.

Rogan in other commentary describes rockets as “cannons filled with rocket fuel” and says:

You’re just hoping all those O‑rings and all the f—– s— that blew up with the Challenger hold together.”

The tone here is blunt—and it reflects how Musk’s approach is viewed by some as high‑risk, high‑reward.

Engineering realities: Why rockets can blow up

There are several engineering factors that explain why rockets blow up (or exhibit catastrophic failures):

Extreme conditions: Rockets must survive enormous pressures, temperatures, dynamic stresses, vibration, and rapid changes in environment (from launch pad to vacuum, re‑entry, etc.). Musk’s example of removing heat‑shield tiles from the prototype to see what happens underscores this.

New technologies and reusability: SpaceX is pursuing fully reusable rockets (e.g., Starship + Super Heavy). Reusability introduces more complexity (thermal protection, landing, structural integrity, refurbishment) and more failure modes. Musk himself states: “The holy grail of rocketry is to have a fully and rapidly reusable rocket.”

Testing at the edge: As Musk said, you deliberately “go beyond” what you expect so you know what the boundary is. In doing so, you accept that failures will happen during testing.

Development vs. operational risk: A rocket blowing up during an early test is far less costly (in human life and mission value) than a failure during crewed flight or sensitive payload. Musk pointed this out.

In other words: failure is built into the process. But the difference is whether failures are tolerated and learned from, or whether they are surprises that derail programmes.

The Starship example: a case study

One prominent example is the test flight of the Starship system. According to publicly available data, the first integrated test of Starship (April 2023) ended in destruction less than four minutes into flight.

The Wikipedia page for the flight notes:

Multiple Raptor engines failed.

The vehicle lost thrust vector control, entered spin, and the autonomous flight‑termination system triggered.

The launch infrastructure was damaged severely because the pad lacked flame‑diverter systems and water‑deluge systems. Musk had tweeted that skipping these systems “could turn out to be a mistake.”

This illustrates several points:

The desire to minimise cost and launch pad infrastructure (skipping traditional flame‑diverter) which increased risk.

The acceptance of a flight failure as a test of systems.

The tension between schedule, budget, and safety.

Given Musk and SpaceX’s ambition to push fast, the Starship programme embodies the philosophy: push, test, fail, iterate.

Business, ambition and public perception

Beyond engineering, there are business pressures and public expectations. Musk has tied the success of SpaceX not merely to launching, but to achieving fully reusable rockets which will dramatically reduce costs of access to space.

That ambition brings scrutiny: when rockets blow up, critics say “See? He’s incompetent.” Musk and Rogan’s conversation pointed to this criticism: a TV interviewer reportedly asked “why do his rockets keep blowing up?” and called him a “fuckwit.” Musk recounts this.

But from Musk’s viewpoint, each failure is data, and each test that pushes beyond current norms is a step toward the goal. The business model depends on reducing cost per launch, which ultimately may require accepting more risk early on.

Public perception is another issue: many people expect rockets to work smoothly—because that’s what operational launches represent. But in R&D, failure is more tolerated—though the public and media don’t always understand that. As Rogan bluntly says, launching rockets is inherently dangerous and unpredictable.

So: Why do rockets keep blowing up?

Summarising from the engineering and business view:

Because they are being pushed into regimes beyond what prior rockets have done—especially with reusability goals.

Because to find out what works, you often have to test what doesn’t. Some failures are necessary. Musk: “You have to… explore the limits.”

Because infrastructure and design decisions (such as skipping traditional safety/launch‑pad features to save cost/time) introduce risk. The Starship pad damage case illustrates this.

Because publicly‐visible failures may be the tip of larger test programmes in flux; a system that is operational would have far fewer visible failures, but by then the design is mature.

Because there is tension between speed and safety: the faster you push, the more risk you accept—and companies like SpaceX choose speed.

The debate: risk vs safety, innovation vs caution

On one side, you have a traditional aerospace approach: incremental development, high margins of safety, few failures especially when people are on board. On the other side, you have the “fail fast, iterate fast” Silicon Valley ethos applied to rocketry.

Rogan and Musk’s conversation highlights that dichotomy. Musk embraces the idea of failure as part of the learning; Rogan frames the audience’s likely discomfort with rockets blowing up—even if the reasoning is sound. The question is: how much failure is acceptable, and at what cost?

There are also ethical and regulatory dimensions: rockets exploding can create debris, risk public infrastructure, and cause environmental damage. For example, the Starship flight damaged infrastructure and raised FAA oversight concerns.

The public watchdogs and regulators will inevitably ask: When does experimentation become reckless? And how should transparency and risk‑communication be managed in these high‑stakes contexts?

Implications for the future

If the philosophy of accepting failure leads to a breakthrough—say a fully reusable orbital rocket that significantly lowers cost—then the risk may be justified. Musk emphasises that fully reusable rockets are the “holy grail” that could make space travel radically cheaper.

However, if public perception turns against frequent failures, it could affect government contracts, insurance costs, investor confidence and regulatory scrutiny. SpaceX (and other companies) will need to demonstrate that as they mature, failure rates drop, and risk to people and payloads become minimal.

For the broader space industry, the lesson is clear: innovation in rocketry is still very risky. Even with the wealth, resources, and ambition of a company like SpaceX, rockets blowing up remain part of the reality. The difference is in how the failures are managed, communicated, learned from, and built upon.

Conclusion

In the end, the headline “Why do rockets keep blowing up?” has a straightforward but uncomfortable answer: because companies like SpaceX are purposely pushing frontiers and accepting failure in the process. The conversation between Joe Rogan and Elon Musk lays bare that truth.

When Musk says “you have to blow up a few” in testing, he is describing exactly a new paradigm of aerospace development—one where iteration is rapid, risk is accepted, and the goal is a transformative result (fully reusable rockets) rather than incremental improvement.

For the public and stakeholders, this means adjusting expectations: rockets will fail sometimes—not because of incompetence necessarily, but because failure is part of how new boundaries are explored. The key becomes: when will the failure rate drop? When will we shift from “test rockets blowing up” to “operational launches almost always succeed”? And when that shift comes, the cost savings and benefits Musk promises may finally materialise.

>Until then, when we see another rocket explode or disintegrate during a test, we might do well to watch and ask: What are they learning? Where are they pushing? And is this explosion part of design or accident? As Musk admitted, both can happen—but only one signposts progress.