Yes, fuck Elon Musk. That doesn't mean Starship isn't still the most exciting topic in rocketry/spaceflight, and 100x more ambitious than what any other rocket manufacturer is attempting.

The Starship development cycle is hardware-rich, they have a literal conveyor belt full of rockets in various stages of completion for testing.

Their immediate goal isn't to go to orbit, they could have done that a long time ago. They're simultaneously testing hundreds of little to big changes to the vehicles with every launch. Stuff will go wrong along the way.

[–] hybridep@lemmy.wtf 5 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

They're simultaneously testing hundreds of little to big changes to the vehicles with every launch. Stuff will go wrong along the way.

If that results in their rockets exploding, perhaps they should not be allowed to do this? That’s not how science is performed.

Exploding rockets are not exactly friendly to nature or people.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org 0 points 51 minutes ago

That's quite literally how it's performed. You make a hypothesis, then you test it. If it fails, you alter the hypothesis and try again. A single rocket exploding once every couple months is absolutely nothing to the planet compared to all the other activities humans do.

They aren't just randomly lobbing these into the sky over populated areas (like China likes to do). The paths they follow are very much planned to account for accidents. That's why they launch them over oceans. And they will deliberate blow them up using what's called a "flight termination system" if it looks like things will get hairy.

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 2 points 3 hours ago

That’s not how science is performed

Starship is not a science project. No scientific breakthroughs are made or expected. It is an engineering project. And this is exactly how that is performed.

Also, how many people crashed how many planes before the Wright brothers managed to achieve powered flight ?

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