New Delhi, July 22 -- IT IS A launch of a more bureaucratic sort than normal for SpaceX, but still characteristically spectacular. On May 20th, after America's financial markets had closed, Elon Musk, the rocketry firm's founder and the world's richest man, lit the blue touch paper on the biggest initial public offering ever. Documents filed with American regulators pave the way for SpaceX, which has conquered space but is spending a fortune on artificial intelligence (ai), to make its debut on the NASDAQ exchange in June.

Mr Musk had hoped to mark the occasion with a test flight of the latest version of the firm's gigantic, troublesome Starship rocket, upon whose stainless-steel frame the company's astronomical ambitions rest. But the t...