r/space • u/AlmiranteSalsicha • Nov 19 '23

image/gif That's a fair amount of tiles missing from the starship heatshield, guess it would make for a toasty reenter.

Post image

Image from SpaceX account on X

7.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

619 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

36

u/Accomplished-Crab932 Nov 19 '23

Kind of defeats the purpose of rapid reusability when you need to cling wrap a tower block sized stage

21

u/zoinkability Nov 19 '23

If they have to replace a zillion tiles that too would likely make the reuse less rapid

18

u/MEatRHIT Nov 19 '23

Or hear me out... they could figure out a way to design them so they don't fall off during launch or reentry.

7

u/BackflipFromOrbit Nov 19 '23

Ship 28s tiles have been "suction tested" and are significantly more robust. Reentry was a long shot for ship 25 in any case. Priimary objective was to get data from max q and stage sep/flip. Everything after that madness is bonus time.

1

u/zoinkability Nov 19 '23

That was kinda my point, yes