Nice. Now they know how to not build that specific one

Trial and error correction people

The best thing is that these launchs are getting cheaper with time

The falcon 9 has an internal launch cost per kilogram of about 1000 USD/KG

If they get starship right (and all evidence points to it getting ready soon) internal launch cost is estimated to be between 200 to 300 USD/KG

We are very close to seeing 25k USD or less tickets to space

Get ready for the future bois, it won't wait for you

SpaceX ≠ Elon Musk

I'm making a note here: Huge Success

I'm starting to wonder how much of these explosions are acts of corporate sabotage.

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Please read a bit about Gwynne Shotwell. She's amazing and runs the company very competently.

... And we need 25k space tickets why? For a cool selfie?

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You're looking for a "gotcha" but my whole point is that people are judging SpaceX entirely on Elon being involved, rather than it's actual merits.

My opinion shouldn't matter here.

Why go anywhere in the world? It's all about the experience man, 25k to have experienced being in space is an incredibly unique and cool experience is it not?

I understand from your comment that, within your limited capacity, it is actually hard , next to impossible even, to imagine the benefits of having cheap orbital and suborbital transportation and infrastructure.

I imagine it must be difficult living that way so I just want to say you are very brave by raising awareness to such disabilities, keep at it, champ, you are doing a great job

Because the world has actual things in it like people, wildlife, culture and history. Space has none of those things. Unless you're there working as a scientist to study things that can't be studied on earth, it's pointless.

As of now it's a glorified roller coaster. At its best private space travel could be Disneyland in space. At worst it's just rich people paying to be carried up mount everest for clout but with exponentially more resources wasted.

I understand from your comment that you've read too many sci-fi books to understand what a massive resource sink that would be with negligible benefit. It's pretty basic physics.

We've already got cheap transportation, look how that's turning out for the planet. But I'm sure burning God knows how much energy to launch more junk into space will save the world.

We're already approaching a critical mass of private equity space trash in orbit, what's a few more lowest-bidder megastructures? At least the ultra rich will get their life rafts while we burn.

How difficult is it to communicate to others without letting your ego get in the way? I swear, you people act like literal children sometimes haha

Maybe. Regardless, problem either in design or build.

Designing under-reinforced tanks indicates that the design can’t make payload and they’re cutting too far into structure allocations to make up for it.

Rupture could also be poor materials (sign of Boeing-style disregard for standards and safety) or a bad weld (same plus maybe training issues on the line). Means they’re running bad QA/QC protocols if the faulty material/construction made it to flight.

Chasing performance at the cost of safety sounds right down Musk’s alley.

Oh c’mon.

Cannot possibly spin “blew up randomly during test prep” as a positive outcome. They probably don’t know how not to build that specific one unless they happened to instrument the faulty prop system components - they know that it failed but likely not why or how to fix it.

All evidence points to Starship having a super-finicky MPS that fails on the regular… which probably means they’re chasing performance by removing mass from the MPS and tank structure… which means either this design doesn’t work (totally possible) or that the as-built performance falls short of what was promised.

If you want to stan for Musk, I guess everyone has a type and I’m not going to shame you over it… but blowing up during test prep is not a good news story.

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

No, not necessarily a problem in either of those things. As I said, it ruptured way below the pressure the tank was rated for - nothing wrong with the design there. And I don't know if it's been explicitly confirmed or not, but those tanks get tested above that pressure before they get installed. The ship had already done a single-engine test firing so it must have actually been pressured up to that already when it did that previously.

It sounds to me like something happened that damaged the tank after it was already in place. That would be my guess. Something banged into it and nobody noticed.

SpaceX playing soccer with COPVs and then bolting them on the vehicle doesn’t feel like a more comforting answer but I agree it’s one I didn’t list. Not sure I understand why people would be rattling around inside the vehicle after a single engine test and then not re-running the single engine for a regression test.

/shrug, still you’re right. Unreported damage post-installation would totally do this, it’s just not a root cause I’ve seen. Would speak to a breakdown in safety culture for my folks, not sure what the safety culture looks like on the Starship line.

Are the cars shitty, or are they ranked 3rd?