SpaceX's uncrewed Starship explodes on launch attempt

Karim Iliya, a photographer currently based in Iceland, is one of eight artists and creatives who were selected to join Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a future Starship launch slated to travel around the moon — a mission called "Dear Moon."

Today, he watched Starship take off from South Padre Island in Texas.

"This wave of sound just smashed into my body, and I could feel it and I could hear it and I thought: 'Am I really going inside that machine?' It was absolutely wild," Iliya told CNN. "It was just this feeling of joy and energy running through the crowd and through the people."

Iliya added that watching the rocket explode today didn't give him any extra nerves for his future spaceflight. He understood it was an early fight test and he was essentially watching a prototype take flight.

What did give him a "feeling of intensity" was visiting the rocket shortly after the scrubbed launch attempt on Monday.

He said members of the Dear Moon crew were invited to get an up-close look at the rocket shortly after the scrubbed launch attempt. The vehicle was still venting.

"We heard this very loud sound. Many of us — I think — we're ready to scramble," he said.

"That's when I realized how alive this machine is and how intense it is and will be when we actually strap ourselves in and leave the planet — which is in itself an absurd thought."