so much more expensive for the tax payer too
so much more expensive for the tax payer too
You're viewing a single thread.
I'm all for shitting on Musk but this is a very poor comparison. The Starship is very much still being developed and failures are expected. The Falcon 9 rocket is what is currently used to launch LEO satellites into orbit. From wikipedia:
As of 24 May 2025, rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 490 times, with 487 full mission successes, three failures, and one partial failure.
I'd say they're doing pretty damn well, especially since they're doing what nobody else has ever done and the first stage comes back and is reused. Also from wikipedia:
A total of 47 boosters have flown multiple missions, with a record of 28 missions by a booster. SpaceX has also reflown fairing halves more than 300 times, with some being reflown at least twenty times.
Still, fuck Elon.
The design for the Saturn V wasn't handed down by the rocket gods. Several of those Saturn V launches were test flights and there were 3 ground tests before them. Starship has been in development for about as long as the Saturn program took to develop and fly 3 different models of rocket.
Still, the whole reusing the same boosters bit is pretty significant.
No FEA is also very significant.
The Starship is very much still being developed and failures are expected.
Every failure is a success! We're learning! Every negative is a positive if we cheer loud enough to keep the investors happy and the nerds defending our insane waste of taxpayers' money!
Failures aren't expected, actually. What's "expected" was that crewed missions to Mars were done regularly by 2025.
Meanwhile, every orbital flight ends up in the ocean.
considering the growing footprint spaceX represents to national launch priorities, they should be nationalized imho.
keep them independent enough to maintain development but get musk out of the decision tree entirely.
