So what was that? Was Starship’s launch a failure or a success?

Whatever you think about Elon, the push for innovation with Spacex has been admirable.<p>I&#x27;ve been more than a little disappointed with all the &quot;they tried but it blew up&quot; headlines that came in the days following the test flight.<p>The whole point is that this is bigger and more ambitious than any prior attempt - the failure is the most important part, it means you learn something.<p>Anything more than a failure to ignite should be considered a success in my book.

Kinda funny that the author didn&#x27;t draw a connection between the pad damage and the engine failures. If the rocket is blasting a hole in the pad and throwing chunks of concrete hundreds of meters, you figure some of those pieces of debris might have gone upwards and damaged rocket engines?

It survived Max Q on the first launch with older (and different iterations) versions of the engine, what else is needed to make the demo of a first try a success?

A bit of both, I guess?<p>The whole thing was a test. The ship and rocket themselves would always have been scrapped afterwards, and the goal of the whole endeavor was to get back as much data as possible.<p>They succeeded in launching the rocket, having it take off and reach max-Q and got valuable data on all that. That&#x27;s the successful part. They also learnt some hard lessons on launch pad construction.<p>Then the ship failed and the test was aborted - and they never got to test stage separation, which they had planned to do as well. That&#x27;s the unsuccessful part.<p>So, did they get the data they wanted? Not all they wanted - but an important chunk of it.

HN thread from 2015 for the last time SpaceX had a notable failure<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9793555" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9793555</a><p>I think sometimes it&#x27;s good to look back and learn from posterity

It wasn’t a complete failure. SpaceX will learn a lot from this launch. But I believe this design is not super reliable. Synchronizing 32 rocket engine is not easy. Perhaps this will be a great cargo ship. As for carrying astronauts to Mars, I’m not so sure. Only time will tell.

I was in South Padre for the first launch that got scrubbed. wasn’t able to catch the actual launch and explosion :(<p>The answer to the clickbait headline is obviously no :)<p>It was a tremendous success, and getting the rocket off the ground at all is totally remarkable.<p>For SpaceX, data might be the most valuable asset.

It failed successfully.<p>It was right from the word go, meant to be a destructive test flight. It flew, it was destroyed and in the process they learned a lot about stage 0 and about the performance of the engines and the structural strength of the whole thing.<p>very very successful.

It’s the biggest and most capable rocket yet and it flew higher and faster than the second most powerful (the N1) ever did. It’s progress. Success or failure of the test itself is secondary. We’re getting closer to the stars.

I think it is commendable that so many raptors failed yet no engine blew up and caused a catastrophic failure, remember what happened with SN11 and one of the boosters?

Most powerful rocket ever, with 33 engines, lifted off on first attempt and flew a few kms. From my point ot view, considering Spacex philosophy, it&#x27;s totally a success.

It was both. It could’ve ended much better, but the first stage worked for several minutes and provided a lot of data to improve in the future.

Elon had previously ruled out the trenches because of cost right? This was an expensive learning exercise.

rockets blow up. especially in development. i say it was a necessary stepping stone towards making starship a success.

Perhaps it was a successful failure?