[valine]

The largest rocket ever built just got to space for the first time. Even without re-entry this is a milestone.

They have a production line to build these things. They’ll roll out the next one and try again. It’s not like SLS where everything is expected to work perfectly.

[s1artibartfast]

>They have a production line to build these things. They’ll roll out the next one and try again.

Yep. to be more specific, they have 6 more ships built and 5 under construction. Engines are being produced one per day. The scale of manufacturing is stupefying.

[aidos]

One. Per. Day?? That’s pretty wild.

[s1artibartfast]

They claim to be able to scale up to 4/day with the current factories. Obviously a bold handwavy claim , but people said that 1/Day.

I have to imagine 350 engines/yr is more than enough for now, even if the FAA has permitted up to 20 launches per year.

Like I said, the whole scale is staggering.

[fragmede]

Yes, and not to diminish it in any way, but keep in mind that they need 33 of them per.

[s1artibartfast]

39 if you count starship itself.

[sertbdfgbnfgsd]

Why is the size a milestone? I don't remember ever hearing NASA measure its achievements by the size of its rockets.

[friend_and_foe]

You've never heard the phrase "Saturn V is the largest rocket ever built"?

[gregjor]

I guess that’s one way to define success or a milestone. The Saturn V used for the Apollo program had different criteria, like not blowing up and having all engines ignite.

Now that we have the person who knows more about manufacturing than anyone else alive in charge I’m sure these glitches will get sorted out.

[godzillabrennus]

It’s nice when you have the backing of a super power nation and their blank check to do it vs having shareholders.

[aik]

Amazing the effect competency has when trying to win a blank check away from others.

[deadbeeves]

Doesn't SpaceX receive plenty of money from the US?

[spurgu]

They get money for launching stuff into space, i.e. it's a business.

[ralfd]

It depends on the definition of plenty. At the peak in 1965 NASA/Apollo funding was 5% of government budget. That would be hundreds of billions today.

[avhon1]

Ah yes, because the Apollo program is famous for never having any problems with unscheduled fires or explosions. Completely safe, it was.

Sarcasm aside, NASA has blown up plenty of rockets. It's not a problem to blow up a rocket if it doesn't pose any substantial risk. NASA doesn't much like to blow up rockets anymore because it's contrary to how their operational model works: Congress gives NASA a task, a deadline, and a budget, and NASA is expected to deliver on the task, and can ask for more time or money down the road. Any kind of high-profile public failure is risky to NASA because it looks bad to Congress, who might cancel the project. Asking Congress for more time or money is normal, so the safe strategy with NASA's undertakings (especially high-profile ones like the James Webb Space Telescope and the Space Launch System) is to deliver flawless performance, usually late and over-budget. Congress doesn't need to be paid back, and history mostly remembers program success rather than schedule and budget overruns.

Of SpaceX's current programs, Falcon 9 is operated most similarly to NASA. It's expected to be mature and reliable; it is trusted to fly billion-dollar spy satellites and human crew. Any kind of failure will be heavily scrutinized, so SpaceX is only pushing the envelope of reuse and flight performance with their in-house payload program, Starlink. All of their customer flights get to operate well within the established safe performance envelope of the rocket. With over 200 successful consecutive flights now, SpaceX's Falcon 9 obviously can be depended on.

Starship, on the other hand, is not being depended on by anybody at the moment. No project gets delayed or cancelled when it explodes; no missile complex goes unwatched, no humans get stranded in space, smacked into the ocean, or burned alive. Nobody, least of all SpaceX, needs it to be perfect now. What they need is for it to become good enough to sell, to sell lots once they're selling it, and to not cost too much once they're selling it, all of this ideally sooner rather than later. They have access to lots of money now to make this happen, but investors' money has to be paid back someday.

So the bar for Starship isn't set at "succeed". It's set at "maximize future return on investment".

SpaceX is counting on present failures to save them money in the future by proving exactly what is necessary to succeed, at a time when failure is relatively cheap for them. They've clearly improved from the previous launch. Key milestones were passed. Telemetry was collected, and the flight safety systems executed an authoritative conclusion to the flight. With the investment of only 212 days of time and money since their previous high-profile Starship explosion, SpaceX has gotten demonstrable progress towards future flight success.

[imtringued]

>Starship, on the other hand, is not being depended on by anybody at the moment. No project gets delayed or cancelled when it explodes;

Did you forget the Artemis 2 mission?

Starship appears to be a source of delays, not SLS.

[avhon1]

I did not forget Artemis. Artemis 2 will not require Starship; it's just the Orion capsule going around the moon and back. Starship Human Landing System won't be needed until Artemis 3, which is currently scheduled for December 2025. That is a lot of time use to get Starship in shape to operate beyond Earth, and even if it isn't enough, won't result in the cancellation of the Artemis project.

[bryanlarsen]

The gating factor for Artemis 3 (not 2) appears to be the space suits, not Starship.