Did I See What I Think I Saw?

OP, how dare you question the brilliance of our inspired leader? He needs to blow up many, many rockets on his relentless path to perfecting them. You'll be grateful when you're farming lichens on Mars, far away from Earth's sad turmoils.

Yes, you did see that, but nobody died, so it's OK.

Yeah there was coverage of it. You're not seeing things. Everything Elon touches turns to shit.

I saw the clip. When the booster separated there were loud cheers.

But then, the detached booster blew up.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

The rocket blew up, too

There were a lot of impressive successes, even if they didn't achieve all their goals. It was successful at fixing things that failed on the first test flight. The launchpad wasn't destroyed (it was hardened and the new fantastic water deluge system worked well). The first stage flight was flawless (no failed engines this time). The stages separated flawlessly (last time it spun out of contol). The 2nd stage burn was flawless (first fully-fueled flight in space), etc. Musk is an asshole, but SpaceX is unquestionably the most impressive company flying.

That’s because he’s basically let Gwynne Shotwell run SpaceX r6. SpaceX hired a ton of people who were laid off during the 90s and 2000s when the shuttle and other space programs were winding down.

ArsTechnica is arguing the test achieved what it set out to do.

Agreed, R7. Its success is becoming more and more in spite of Elon than because of him.

The operation was a success, but the patient died, r8.

I think the author's point is that these Starship test rockets are expendable so that future Starships won't be. They need to nail the launch and they did manage to achieve that. Now onto landing, then actually breaking orbit.

This is the same process they used in developing the Falcon 9, which is now the most reliable, least wasteful, and cheapest launch system in the world. It works.

OP

First: you missed it because the entire world stopped and there is no longer any news since Israel went to war.

2. Elon said the rocket did exactly what it was supposed to do (because he would never tell us otherwise) so it was no big deal.

I believe they described the explosion as an “unintentional detonation.”

Sort of like when the Russian lunar lander crashed after it “successfully intercepted” the moon.

Exactly r9, I worked in the industry, we were potential customers of the rocket back then. Met Elon once years and years ago, never thinking he was really impressive. But met Gwynne many times, she’s the real deal.