Donald Trump said he wouldn't want to travel on one of SpaceX's Starship launches while watching its sixth test flight on November 19, according to granddaughter Kai Trump, who also attended.
Kai, the 17-year-old daughter of Donald Trump Jr. and ex-wife Vanessa Haydon, made the humorous remark in an 11-minute, 40-second video of the launch posted on her YouTube channel. Following the launch, she said: "I've never seen something like that, and the noise of it when it was going up, insane. I asked Grandpa, 'Would you go in it?' and he goes, 'No' [laugh]."
The sixth Starship flight began with the 400-foot-tall rocket launching into space. The rocket booster detached from the vehicle's upper stage about two minutes after liftoff. A problem with the launch tower meant the initial plan to catch the booster on the launchpad, as was done in October during the fifth test, didn't go ahead. Instead, the booster splashed down gently in the Gulf of Mexico, and the main vehicle landed in the Indian Ocean as planned.
The president-elect attended the launch as the guest of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, along with other members of his family, including Donald Trump Jr. and Kai. Musk was a prominent supporter of Trump during his recent campaign and has been named the co-head of a newly created Department of Government Efficiency by the incoming president.
In October, Kai began posting YouTube videos that focus on her life and her passion for golf and has since racked up 393,000 subscribers. Her most popular video, receiving 3.8 million views, shows the Trump family on election night. Her footage from the SpaceX launch has drawn 1.8 million.
The latest video begins with Kai traveling to the launch site, SpaceX's Starbase in South Texas, on a private aircraft. At one point, she enters the cockpit to film.
At Starbase, Kai and other Trump family members joined Musk in a viewing area, complete with buffet, before watching the test flight.
Kai's footage includes Musk explaining to Trump why the Starship booster wouldn't be returning to its launch tower. Addressing the president-elect, Musk says, "We had some concerns about the tower so it was commanded to land out to sea."
During the video, Kai speaks to Musk, asking him, "Did you ever play Fortnite," to which he replies "no" before adding that he did play "a bunch of other first-person shooters." Referencing the popular video game League of Legends, Musk later jokes: "If I started playing League it would damage the space program."
Newsweek contacted via email the SpaceX press office and Trump's presidential transition team for comment.
Musk has repeatedly said the ultimate objective of Starship is to land humans on Mars and establish an eventually self-sustaining human colony.
Later this decade, NASA is planning to return humans to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years with its Artemis program, which SpaceX is working on.
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