If the public and government are no longer willing to put up with the disruption that Starship causes to flights, the environment etc, because they believe it's a waste of time, then SpaceX won't be able to just go again
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100000% If NASA had the failure rates of SpaceX it would have been dissolved decades ago as a massive waste of public funds. They've made real technological progress as an entity, but the drag factors of public perception and Musk himself are what will bring them down.
aug 22, 2025, 1:17 pm • 1 0 • view
Operational rocket failure rates are higher on NASA rockets than on SpaceX rockets. The difference is that NASA does not test that much in launches. (but they have had ~450 failures in 3200 launches, before SpaceX)
aug 24, 2025, 11:37 am • 0 0 • view
To be clear do you mean that the NASA failures are found before any test launches are made? Or do they cancel launch tests if they suspect possible failure?
aug 24, 2025, 11:42 am • 1 0 • view
NASA has been testing more on ground before trying a real launch. And because their launches are 10 x more expensive and more political, they can not afford to spectacularly fail in launch -> they do years of over-design to avoid a failure -> 1/3
aug 24, 2025, 11:58 am • 1 0 • view
NASA rockets become complex and too expensive to develop and use -> that's why the Space Shuttle failed. But that's why they seem to have less failures. And they have not developed anything new since 1982. 2/3
aug 24, 2025, 11:58 am • 1 0 • view
Around June there was a booster explosion on SLS test site, it was more expensive than a Starship failure, but not much news came from it. 3/3
aug 24, 2025, 11:58 am • 1 0 • view
Okay, thank you for elaborating 💙 I feel like the lesson is that the best path is somewhere in between the two approaches; space X got further for less cost by being under much fewer restrictions than NASA but the constant rocket explosions and disruptive launches have damaged their PR...
aug 24, 2025, 12:25 pm • 1 0 • view
meanwhile NASA is hypercautious because bureaucracy and politics has bloated their development time and launch costs, but each launch is itself less of a risk. I feel like there is a more sensible path down the middle where we get the most bang for cost (both dollar and environmental).
aug 24, 2025, 12:25 pm • 1 0 • view
not the exact middle, but between the two approaches.
aug 24, 2025, 12:25 pm • 1 0 • view
Yep. The SpaceX method works best on simpler and cheaper things. Super Heavy booster was a huge success. And up until IFT6 everything seemed to proceed well. After that, there has been no progress. And perhaps IFT8 failure or IFT9 failure could have been avoided with more carefull "ground work".
aug 24, 2025, 12:36 pm • 1 0 • view