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A Guardian report out today reveals that during a recent NATO trip, the US President was smuggled onto a secret flight in Turkey concealed inside a catering cart, amid what officials described as a credible threat from Iran. It is a striking image — the leader of the free world moving through an airport like contraband — and it raises real questions about the security calculus being made behind the scenes.
Turning to space, one of China's most reliable launch vehicles suffered a catastrophic failure this week, exploding mid-flight according to a report from Ars Technica. China has been aggressively expanding its launch cadence as part of a broader push to compete in low Earth orbit, and setbacks like this one are a reminder that rocket science does not respect ambition alone.
And over at SpaceX, a new analysis suggests Elon Musk is facing what the author calls a daily Starship problem — the gap between the program's stated timelines and operational reality appears to be widening rather than closing. Starship remains one of the most consequential engineering bets in history, but consequence and consistency are two very different things.
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