A shining pillar of steel rose into the sky balanced on a pillar of flame. Clouds of dust seethed over the landscape, and a grinding roar ripped across the southernmost point of Texas.
Elon Musk promised excitement, and he delivered. If you’d stuck around after the launch you’d have seen the rocket tumbling before exploding. However, Musk set his own criteria for success – take off without destroying the launch pad – and by that measure he passed.
Yes the launch drilled a hole in Texas, and damaged the pad, but holes can be filled in and metalwork fixed. Yes the rocket exploded, but this is rocket science, and Space X received a lot of data from the flight. Their next launch has a great chance of going further.
Yet some talk of failure. They focus on the explosion and the sand deposited over nearby settlements They highlight the noise and the threats to wildlife. There’s no denying these concerns, but like the rocket’s unlit engines they’re problems to fix.
Elon Musk’s engineers have tweaked the engine, redesigned the hardware, and they’ve installed a massive upside-down shower head to fix the issues.
There’s one lesson. Keep making mistakes and keep moving forward. If you don’t repeat yourself you’ll eventually run out of mistakes. Elon Musk’s Starship will surely reach orbit soon.
There’s another lesson here about those naysayers. Some get jealous when others are successful. They’ll clutch at any sign of weakness or failure and celebrate any explosions. Anything so they don’t have to think about others being successful, anything to diminish others. Maybe they’re compensating.
They celebrated when Space X’s first three Falcon rockets blew up after launch. You can hear them now with their ‘Starship is too big to fly, it’ll pollute too much, it’s not needed’ complaints. Perhaps there’s resistance to change, and the uncertainty change brings.
But there’s a hard fact waiting for those critics.
Elon Musk’s fourth rocket reached orbit.
As I write, the last 200 Falcon 9 rockets have all succeeded. Initial failure doesn’t mean doomed to failure.
Is there a lesson for copywriters?
If you’re pitching for work you should expect a lot of rejections. Do examine your pitches, seek out advice from others and adjust your wording as needed. Never stop learning, try out new ideas and approaches. Be systematic and organised, but keep going.
Never give up. Don’t let those nay-sayers carping knock you off course.
Success is what happens when you move from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. In this case, success means sending out regular pitches, and never giving up.