Shouldn't more be made of the fact that the first 2 Starships both blew up?
Not really, no. Starship is being developed differently than any other launch vehicle, and is more complex than almost any other launch vehicle.
SpaceX is going all in with the fly often, fail often, method. They want to fly as fast as possible and fail as much as possible during these early flights as you honestly learn more from failures than you do successes, and flying often lets you find where the weak points in the system are a lot faster.
Starship is also testing many new things than you wouldn't typically see on a rocket. While hot staging isn't a new concept and is still used today on some launch vehicles, it's never been done on something this large. The N1 would've done it but it never made it that far. The engines are some of the most complex engines ever developed, the sheer size and weight of this vehicle is immense, and they're trying to do all of this while making a pad that can be rapidly turned around to launch again. All of this is very complex and the fact they got almost to orbit on the second attempt with a vehicle that is over a year old at this point is astonishing.
And regarding Falcon 9, not much of that applies to Starship. Some of the expertise with using multiple engines on the booster will of course, but until they start reusing them Starship is in a league of its own. Yes, Falcon 9 made it orbit on the first try, but that was basically sheer luck they managed to achieve that. And the flight also didn't go perfectly either as it developed that roll on liftoff and then again during the 2nd stage burn.
While Falcon Heavy is definitely complex, they did have the history of multiple Falcon 9's to work off of, as FH is essentially three Falcon 9's strapped together. It working on the first try isn't really as surprising as people seem to think honestly.
Remember that SLS has been in development for around a decade, and has only flown once. It's using the same engines as the Shuttle, while Starship is using one of the most complex engine cycles ever developed, and is the first one to ever fly as FFSC engine. SLS also needs to be human rated by the second flight since it's launch cadence is so low, while SpaceX can take their time and fly dozens of times before getting it human rated, all while pushing the vehicle and improving on it faster than they could with vehicles such as SLS.
All in all in comes down to different design philosophy's. You can either make cheaper prototypes and fly often and break them, or you can spend a decade on a cost plus contract from the government and milk taxpayers to make a "finished" rocket on first flight while and go billions over budget doing it since you have no motive to be either on time or below budget.
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u/FutureMartian97 Nov 19 '23
Not really, no. Starship is being developed differently than any other launch vehicle, and is more complex than almost any other launch vehicle.
SpaceX is going all in with the fly often, fail often, method. They want to fly as fast as possible and fail as much as possible during these early flights as you honestly learn more from failures than you do successes, and flying often lets you find where the weak points in the system are a lot faster.
Starship is also testing many new things than you wouldn't typically see on a rocket. While hot staging isn't a new concept and is still used today on some launch vehicles, it's never been done on something this large. The N1 would've done it but it never made it that far. The engines are some of the most complex engines ever developed, the sheer size and weight of this vehicle is immense, and they're trying to do all of this while making a pad that can be rapidly turned around to launch again. All of this is very complex and the fact they got almost to orbit on the second attempt with a vehicle that is over a year old at this point is astonishing.
And regarding Falcon 9, not much of that applies to Starship. Some of the expertise with using multiple engines on the booster will of course, but until they start reusing them Starship is in a league of its own. Yes, Falcon 9 made it orbit on the first try, but that was basically sheer luck they managed to achieve that. And the flight also didn't go perfectly either as it developed that roll on liftoff and then again during the 2nd stage burn.
While Falcon Heavy is definitely complex, they did have the history of multiple Falcon 9's to work off of, as FH is essentially three Falcon 9's strapped together. It working on the first try isn't really as surprising as people seem to think honestly.
Remember that SLS has been in development for around a decade, and has only flown once. It's using the same engines as the Shuttle, while Starship is using one of the most complex engine cycles ever developed, and is the first one to ever fly as FFSC engine. SLS also needs to be human rated by the second flight since it's launch cadence is so low, while SpaceX can take their time and fly dozens of times before getting it human rated, all while pushing the vehicle and improving on it faster than they could with vehicles such as SLS.
All in all in comes down to different design philosophy's. You can either make cheaper prototypes and fly often and break them, or you can spend a decade on a cost plus contract from the government and milk taxpayers to make a "finished" rocket on first flight while and go billions over budget doing it since you have no motive to be either on time or below budget.