What was claimed to be most powerful rocket ever built, SpaceX’s Starship, took off from a launchpad South Texas, on Thursday. The unmanned rocket soared towards the sky with a lot of potential until it exploded mid-air. And in his monologue on “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert laughed about it and declared, “Houston we have a metaphor for Twitter.”
Referring, of course, to the way things are going at the social media company since Elon Musk bought it.
“Speaking of lightning up and burning down, today Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the Starship super-heavy booster rocket,” Colbert said. “Just shows what scientist can achieve when they put their minds together to achieve a common goal compensating for Elon Musk’s penis.”
Colbert played a clip of the rocket as it took off headed for the heavens but then it blew up.
“There it is – all systems nominal. It’s cleared the launchpad. Okay, time for the booster to separate. And, oh! Houston, we have a metaphor for Twitter,” Colbert said.
The explosion comes on the same day Musk decided to take away verification checks from legacy accounts that did not subscribe to Twitter Blue. Thursday was a “tumultuous,” day for Musk according to Bloomberg. In a 24-hours, amid a rocket explosion, disappointing earnings for Tesla, and the Twitter stuff, the world richest man lost $13 billon.
To see Colbert’s full monologue, click the video above.