For most people, the explosion of a rocket at cape canaveral would be a life-defining episode. But for billionaire Elon Musk, yesterday's blast was merely another incident in a turbulent career and love life that reads like a rather improbable movie script.
Musk actually has a hollywood counterpart: he is one of the inspirations behind the character of tony stark, the playboy magnate and engineer played by Robert Downey jJ in the Iron Man films.
As a boy, he loved 007. As an adult, he bought the Lotus Esprit from the James Bond film the Spy Who Loved Me for around £600,000 (nz$1090,000), with a plan to fix it so it can transform into a submarine in real life.
The 45-year-old, whose personal wealth is estimated at around £9billion (nz$16 billion), portrays himself as a visionary on a mission to rescue humankind from global warming with solar technology and tesla electric cars.
Just in case he doesn't manage to save this planet, he wants to hedge his bets by setting up a human colony on Mars by 2040 - and toyed with the idea of landing a greenhouse to grow crops on the red planet.