I was going to mention this - it’s stunning to think of what the world could have seen, were it not for the Glushko / Korolev feud. An N1- equivalent that wasn’t a plumber’s nightmare would have been only the start, but that way lies a million speculative alternate histories.
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Maybe that explains the Twitter purchase and behavior, he’s just looking for a new crop of rocket scientists.
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Scott Manly posted a video earlier surmising that the rocket failed (yes, it failed, eat me) because the shoddily-built launch pad kicked debris into the engines as it disintegrated.
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FACTS!!!
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An entirely predictable result occured?
His insurance premiums are gonna just [space pun goes here]!
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Harsh
Possibly True.
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I prefer being allowed to not think about clothes while those that like to, get to do their thing.
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Challenger - management overruled engineering who said dont fly
Columbia - managers overruled engineers requests for on-orbit analysis
Starship - I’ll give you one guess
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Usually industrial drawings have a little person in them for scale. This picture is lacking that, however there is a staircase on the left side which will give an indication of how little this will buff out.
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So I have gone back and tried to understand how anyone here is claiming this as a “success”. The general point seems to be that it is part of more rapid development where instead of trying to plan everything in advance, you build prototypes and test them to see what succeeds and what fails, and then use that for the next version.
Do I understand that correctly? Because, well, that in no way says this wasn’t a failure? I understand the idea of trial and error just fine…it does not translate into every test version being successful, quite the opposite.
I’m also going to say that with the success NASA has had, and the damages from these tests, I’m surprised people are cheering for that style of development. I don’t know why it would be more important to do this fast than well.
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It’s a success because the launch tower didn’t fall over, a thing that also would have happened had no rocket launched at all. It’s successes all the way down! /S
Eta: luckily the rocket had an ablative shield of rocket engines to protect itself, otherwise some damage to the vehicle may of occurred
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A few cybertruck 
loads of clean fill from Ohio the local home depot, it’ll be fine. (/s if it wasn’t obvious)
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Also - I get that they are trying to get a rocket off the ground that is the largest… but it’s not like we don’t know HOW to get rockets off the ground.
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Obviously this test didn’t go as well as SpaceX wanted, but I don’t think that will change many minds on the general approach. People seem to be firmly in one camp or the other.
In defense of this general approach, testing and iterating the design quickly at least gives the possibly of creating affordable, reusable launch vehicles at some point in the future. For comparison, after 12 years of development NASA’s SLS program can only launch one expensive single-use rocket per year (at best) and even the NASA administrators have publicly said that they don’t think it’s a sustainable program as curently structured.
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So does being more careful and not just blowing shit up for giggles for 4/20…
NASA is who got us to space and to the moon in the first place. I really don’t understand why we MUST let blatantly FASCIST aligned billionaires take over from here. If that means I’m being unreasonable, then so be it.
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Ok, so nobody is going to consider going back to square one from this. But do we think they’re looking at this launch and hoping to do the same thing again with a few more improvements? Or do we think they’re looking at the wreckage and thinking about what they need to change to have the next test go completely differently?
A failed test isn’t always a bad thing. It’s part of development. But being unable to even call something a failed test sure feels like a bad sign.
Sure, but for the record NASA itself is still a public institution in a country that hates public institutions. I’m not saying I think they can do this now, just wondering if private companies might not do better with a similar approach instead of funding cool 4/20 explosions until they can figure out how to make one hold together for more than a couple seconds.
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And of course, that’s not inevitable. We used to love public institutions, NASA chief among them. It was a well-loved program, not just here, but around the world, because of what they accomplished and how. Post cold war, we could have moved forward with NASA working alongside other space agencies around the world to accomplish the goal of getting humanity back on the moon and possibly on to Mars. Instead we’ve let neo-liberalism take control of the narrative that ONLY private, for-profit corporations can do this work. But if they take the lead, space travel is not going to be about exploration or the public good - it’s gonna be about what is profitable. That’s gonna put more lives at risk in favor of ensuring that people like Musk get richer - because like much of everything else that neo-liberalism controls, human life is at the bottom of the list for what matters.
Wasn’t a criticisms of the Soviet space program was just that - not putting safety and human life at the forefront?
Why is rushing by a private corporation any different? This time, obviously, there was no loss of life… but if they’re willing to rush this to hit a date, why would they not rush some other time when it’s a manned crew, if the profit motive is on the line? 
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A valid criticism of both the American and Soviet space programs. Ultimately 15 astronauts have died on spaceflight missions, compared to four cosmonauts. (Not counting accidents during training or other ground-related incidents.)
Part of the reason the American death toll is so high is because NASA decided to strap the shuttle to the side of the fuel tank, with no launch abort system.
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