This has always been the downside of the commercialization of space flight in the current environment. NASA may have its problems but they always knew the priority was making things work and be repeatable. This is antithetical to how Musk and the tech bros work - any success on their part is a fluke not a predictable result.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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NASA built a super-heavy lifter in the 60s to throw a 2 ton mass at the Moon.
SpaceX built a super-heavy lifter in the 2010s to retain 50% of its 420 tons of mass in low Earth orbit, and purportedly go to Mars.
See the problem?
I have no idea what you're trying to say
Quoted from the article/link in this thread:
All that energy has to go somewhere, and managing that is one hell of an engineering challenge. On top of that, Starship’s landing is also far more complex, as it has to reenter the atmosphere at those speeds. Not only does this process present significant aerodynamic challenges, but it also exposes Starship to enough heat energy to literally melt every gram of steel it is made from.
Okay, so what does that have to do with Starship’s repeated failures?
One word: weight.