Honda says growing expectations of a “data system in outer space” are going to increase the demand for rockets to launch satellites. So, the Japanese automaker quietly built one and tested it successfully.
Japan’s second-largest carmaker, Honda, has successfully tested an experimental reusable space rocket on the nothern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the company said in a surprise announcement.
“The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters (1,000 feet),” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The carmaker aims to achieve suborbital space flight in 2029. In 2021, Honda said it was studying space technologies such as reusable rockets but made no announcements prior to Tuesday’s test
Fair enough, though he builds all his personal image on completely associating his whole being with the companies he runs. Apparently he is even the chief engineer of spaceX probably because he wants to feel like Tony Stark. It is hard to trust a company where he names him self the chief engineer because that means he can enforce stupid decisions only because it sounds cool to him. Then once in a while he comes up with ridiculous stuff like donating his sperm for the mars mission or stuff like this:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/
https://aflcio.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/Memo on Elon Musk OSHA cases_.pdf
https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/elon-musk-told-spacex-workers-181406484.html
Otherwise kudos to all the great engineers who work there but I am not optimistic unless he lessens his influence there.