BOCA CHICA, TX — Following reports that its upgraded Starship suffered a fiery end during testing, SpaceX officials confirmed Friday that the rocket explosion was actually a successful demonstration of the vehicle’s new “Instant Fireworks” capability.

While critics called the event a setback for Elon Musk and his plans to reach Mars, company representatives insisted the fireball was a necessary step. They claimed the vehicle was simply gathering high-quality data on how quickly it could turn into scrap metal without human intervention.

“To go to Mars, you have to break a few eggs, or in this case, a few hundred million dollars of aluminum,” said Kyle Vapour, SpaceX’s Director of Planned Accidents. “We successfully tested the rocket’s ability to become a thousand smaller, hotter rockets in under a second. That is a feature, not a bug.”

Engineers are now studying the scattered pieces of the Starship to see if they can be reassembled using only duct tape and optimism. The company noted that the test provided valuable information on “thermal reconfiguration,” a term they are using to describe burning piles of money.

“This wasn’t a failure. It was a high-speed conversion of cash into smoke,” explained Sarah Spin, VP of Positive Interpretations. “Most companies take years to burn through a budget like that. We did it in four seconds.”

At publishing time, SpaceX announced the next test flight would skip the launch entirely and just detonate on the pad to save time.

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