@aekis_projects When I say SpaceX is successful, I mean this in a narrow sense. I mean they have set many ambitious engineering goals in their history and have mostly succeeded at reaching them, even when experts predicted failure.

With Starship they have set the goal of eventually building a working system, while moving quickly and blowing up a few things along the way as the system matures. By their own standards, they are succeeding.

So when people online say they are failing because their rocket blew up, it is hard for me to see how that could be true. Since their very first rocket they have always blown things up a few times before something works. I do not see how this time would be any different. Explosions are not failure to them.

@aekis_projects As far as the engineering method. I am not saying it is superior period. NASA's method is fine for NASA. But if you want to have a rapidly reusable rocket with a low per-unit cost, then yes this method is in my view more likely to produce that result.

Now, is launching lots of rockets a good idea? Or a policy failure? In this discussion I have attempted to steer clear of that question. I am trying to make the narrow claim that SpaceX is not failing to achieve their own engineering goals. Whether those goals are worthwhile is something I think I am not equipped to discuss. I am biased. I grew up in a spaceflight family since childhood. I want to believe. It's a good question, but not one I am well suited to discuss.

@aekis_projects From my view, with all the dreams, I have had, it is hard to say whether this goal is worthwhile.

But what I can say is that if you have an engineering goal of building human cities on the Moon or Mars, you're going to need a huge payload to orbit capability. Not just per launch but per year. And NASA, through their partners Boeing, ULA, Northrop Grumman, and Aerojet Rocketdyne, has not even remotely delivered that with SLS - a rocket which will launch once every few years at best, at over $2 billion per launch.

The only organization with a clear path to such an annual payload to orbit is SpaceX. And blowing up one rocket is not a sign of failure, it is a milestone on a development process they chose with intention.

@tlalexander I probably won't be able to get back to you before next week, but I wanted to say a quick thanks for the patience to keep the conversation going, quite a while ago that I was last able to have a discussion online of this quality, already gained quite a few valuable insights. Appreciate it!