Elon Musk’s SpaceX Raptor Engines Kinda Look Like ‘Doctor Who’ Daleks

I’ve been watching a lot of classic Doctor Who lately, reveling in my favorite alien-villains, the Daleks. So I’m glad I wasn’t alone in seeing Elon Musk’s tweet on Tuesday about raptor engines and immediately thinking, “Ex-ter-min-ate!” 

When he isn’t busy buying Twitter, digging tunnels or pushing Teslas, Musk is keeping up on SpaceX’s progress. He shared an image of a large group of Raptor 2 rocket engines gathered together at the company’s Starbase headquarters in Texas. Starbase is the main hub of development for the next-gen Starship spacecraft.

The imposing lineup of engines with bell-shaped metal bodies was reminiscent of the look of a Dalek invasion force from the long-running British sci-fi TV series, minus the plungers and the raging desire to destroy humanity.

Plenty of Twitter users chimed in to note the Daleks feel of the photo. “Don’t try to fool us. These are not rocket engines, these are Dalek prototypes! Getting ready for mass production!” wrote Twitter user Madgician. 

“Anyone else feelin’ that vibe?” tweeted Cassandra Graham along with an illustration of Daleks. 

To be fair, the powerful Raptor 2 engines and the fictional Daleks are pretty far apart from each other. The Raptors are meant to power Starship to orbit and eventually to the moon and Mars, expanding humanity’s reach in space. The Daleks are looking to wipe out anything that isn’t a Dalek. Daleks probably wouldn’t like the idea of the Raptor 2 engines. 

Fortunately, Daleks aren’t real. So carry on, SpaceX, but keep a sonic screwdriver handy just in case.