John Carmack is an engineer who is best known by the gaming community as the lead programmer of popular video games like Doom, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake. Carmack is the co-founder of the video game company ‘id Software’ and has made signature innovations in 3D computer graphics. Carmack resigned from id Software in 2013 to work full-time at Oculus VR, where he serves as Consulting Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Oculus VR is one of the leading virtual reality games, hardware and software companies. 

Before dedicating his time to develop video games full-time, Carmack founded Armadillo Aerospace in 2000 to develop rockets for space tourism but the company no longer exists since 2013. Carmack admires the work SpaceX has achieved throughout the years. In a Twitter post, he shared a photo of SpaceX’s latest Starship test vehicle captioned –“A troll was trying to get a rise out of me yesterday, suggesting that I should somehow feel bad about Elon's success after my failed aerospace venture. I can't overstate how alien that thought is to me -- my joy at these things being built is deep,” Carmack wrote on August 4.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk saw the post and invited Carmack to South Texas to see the Starship development progress. “It would be an honor to have you visit Starbase,” he told Carmack in a response to his Tweet. A couple of weeks later, on August 24, Carmack shared a photo of him with Musk at Starbase, a giant stainless-steel Starship vehicle can be seen in the background. “Starbase is extremely impressive,” he captioned the photo via Twitter. “There is a lot of bemoaning that we culturally can't build physical things anymore, but this is China Speed and then some. Rows of engines, hangars full of structures, 24/7 shifts -- it is a sight to behold,” Carmack said.

Musk is known to be an avid gamer and Carmack has made games about Alien invasions. They likely discussed video games, as well as technical details about the Starship launch system, and SpaceX’s plans to make life multiplanetary. The company is actively preparing to launch the first fully-stacked Super Heavy Starship launch vehicle to orbit before this year ends.

Starbase is extremely impressive. There is a lot of bemoaning that we culturally can't build physical things anymore, but this is China Speed and then some. Rows of engines, hangars full of structures, 24/7 shifts -- it is a sight to behold. https://t.co/WfYalSyZ6e pic.twitter.com/kFYTJtZbar

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 23, 2021

Image Source: Tesmanian.com