[XorNot]

I am curious what milestone contracts SpaceX may have had sitting around waiting for a Starship flight to pay out actually.

If this was a sales pitch "the rocket destroyed the launchpad, and got damaged in the process - once we fix that it'll work" is a much better pitch then "we need another 2 years minimum of permitting in order to build the flame diverter to launch it" (though I'm content to put this one on Musk: once Starship started being delayed, building the flame diverter should've just been a time cost they ate immediately).

The stupider takes on this are the people doing the "this is so incompetent! This company can't be trusted" spiel as though the Falcon 9 hasn't been quietly throwing things into orbit and landing this entire time.