# Starship keeps exploding **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** elon-musk\ **Created:** [May 28, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911 "2025-05-28T16:54:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/21 "2025-06-02T13:07:36Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The short version is SpaceX is far more willing to screw up in public & learn quickly and cheaply. I had no grasp of this at the onset, so I was kind of horrified at the failures. I interpreted it as an alarming level of incompetence. I understand that, financially, the sooner they perfect what they need, the sooner they will begin to reap the rewards of their efforts. I’m suspecting, however, that there is more to their haste than just money. Despite the fact that all those rich republicans staunchly support a party that vehemently downplays man made climate change, they actually know we are well underway to destroying our environment. Then need to establish a permanent foothold in space that, in my opinion, will include “Elysium” (see movie), a haven for the rich, powerful, and privileged. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/22 "2025-06-02T13:10:00Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I’m suspecting, however, that there is more to their haste than just money. Despite the fact that all those rich republicans staunchly support a part that vehemently downplays man made climate change, they actually know we are well underway to destroying our environment. Then need to establish a permanent foothold in space that, in my opinion, will include “Elysium” (see movie), a haven for the rich, powerful, and privileged. That’s silly. It would be much easier to engineer a place that’s _almost_ perfectly habitable to be perfect - say, an Earth we screw up the environment off - then it would be to take a place that’s completely 100% hostile to life - like, oh I don’t know, space - and engineer it to be perfectly habitable. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/23 "2025-06-02T13:26:02Z")
Well, the fact that humans have been able to maintain a Skylab for many years without fatal results or even severe injury indicates to me that maintaining a large, self-sufficient, and permanent community in space is far from impossible. By being much, much larger and much more modern, it would have safeguards that a small Skylab could never have. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/24 "2025-06-02T13:28:24Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Well, the fact that humans have been able to maintain a Skylab for many years without fatal results or even severe injury indicates to me that maintaining a large, self-sufficient, and permanent community in space is far from impossible Skylab was neither particularly large nor self sufficient and it absolutely did not involve a pemenant community in space. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/25 "2025-06-02T13:34:53Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Skylab was neither particularly large nor self sufficient and it absolutely did not involve a pemenant community in space. Agreed, nor did I say that it did. It was a beginning of something I consider to be inevitable, and I believe it is inevitable because we cannot continue a manned space program to deep space that involves earth launches. The amount of resources needed just to escape earth’s gravity is ridiculous, and the majority of the dangers seem to involve leaving earth and returning to earth. You may be right. Only time will tell. 150 years ago, we rode horses and heavier than air flight seemed impossible. What some consider impossible today may be the norm 150 years from now. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/26 "2025-06-02T13:40:05Z")
I agree that habitation in space is possible, and something we will likely want to do in the near future in order to access all the resources space has to offer. I _dis_agree that this is an off ramp for rich people if the climate gets too terrible. If rich people wanted to build a self contained sustainable habitat for themselves to hide out in while the world burned, they could do it on Earth, which - not matter how bad climate change gets - will remain _more hospitable_ than fucking _space_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/27 "2025-06-02T13:46:00Z")
Or to put it another way, if you can build a paradise space station in space, then you can build it on Earth, too. And much more easily and reliably. The only thing that being in space would help with is it’d prevent you from being swarmed by the hoi polloi with torches and pitchforks, but there are plenty of ways to do that on Earth, too. Say, putting it on a remote island. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/28 "2025-06-02T13:56:02Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > they could do it on Earth, which - not matter how bad climate change gets - will remain _more hospitable_ than fucking _space_. I truly, truly hope you are right about this assertion. LOL ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/29 "2025-06-02T14:12:12Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I truly, truly hope you are right about this assertion. Unless you have climate change projections showing that we’re going to strip away the entire atmosphere and blow up the planet itself, I’m certainly right about that incredibly low bar. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/30 "2025-06-02T14:13:30Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I truly, truly hope you are right about this assertion. LOL It’s not a hope, it’s simple fact. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, if your habitat on Earth springs a leak, you let in some hot, steamy air, and you’re a little uncomfortable until you patch it. If your habitat in orbit springs a leak, you die. It’s hard to overstate how big of a difference that is. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/31 "2025-06-02T14:32:52Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > That’s very much _not_ how engineers design bridges. While there are plenty of failed bridges to learn from, none of them are going to help you design, say, the new [Gordie Howe International Bridge](https://gordiehoweinternationalbridge.com/) linking Detroit and Windsor, because there are no nearly identical bridges that have failed to learn from. Engineers design bridges by using math to predict the types and magnitudes of loads on individual elements of the bridge, and then choose material/size of those elements to match the expected load. This is exactly correct, and the bare suggestion that bridge design is iterative is a sign of how deeply Silicon Valley brain rot has seeped into the general public’s understanding. Twitter was built like that. Nobody dies if Twitter goes down for an hour. You can break it as much as you want. In the early days Twitter crashed multiple times a day, and in later days this is also becoming more common. While this has some financial cost to someone, nobody dies, it doesn’t really impact society at large. It’s erroneous to translate this approach to an enterprise that has an enormously high cost of failure like a space program. Sure, some trial-and-error is inevitable. But it’s expensive. The best assumption right now is that we don’t know if this approach is superior or inferior. It’s simply the thing you do when you have a lot of money with low accountability. Nobody can say whether this approach is right or wrong until the business starts to pay off, and then we can see how badly Musk overpaid for his rocket education. Personally I don’t think Musk ever gets to manned spaceflight. The human equation is what’s missing from everything he does. He finds humans unreliable, inconvenient, and annoying, so it’s hard to imagine him inspiring anyone to risk their life riding a rocket that he himself absolutely will never ride. Most likely he’ll just keep blowing up tests forever and brag about all the awesome data he’s collecting. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/32 "2025-06-02T14:39:58Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Personally I don’t think Musk ever gets to manned spaceflight. The human equation is what’s missing from everything he does. He finds humans unreliable, inconvenient, and annoying, so it’s hard to imagine him inspiring anyone to risk their life riding a rocket that he himself absolutely will never ride. Most likely he’ll just keep blowing up tests forever and brag about all the awesome data he’s collecting. SpaceX is already sending astronauts to the ISS on their own rockets and in a capsule that they built, as well as doing private space tourism launches. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/33 "2025-06-02T14:50:27Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > SpaceX is already sending astronauts to the ISS on their own rockets and in a capsule that they built, as well as doing private space tourism launches Not to mention launching 80% of the total tonnage humanity puts into orbit each year. Tell me more about how it’s not a real company and will never be viable… ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/34 "2025-06-02T14:54:18Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Do you feel uncomfortable driving your car because while it was being designed a bunch of that model got crash tested? I’d be uncomfortable until the car had many models on the road with many miles driven _without_ exploding. “We had ten launches now that haven’t exploded. Safe now!” would not be good enough for me. “SpaceX. Three launches without an explosion!” is not the sales pitch that comforts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/35 "2025-06-02T14:55:18Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > This is exactly correct, and the bare suggestion that bridge design is iterative is a sign of how deeply Silicon Valley brain rot has seeped into the general public’s understanding. Of course it’s iterative. All design is iterative. Bridge-building is what iterative design looks like, after many, many iterations. Rocketry is fundamentally different, because it doesn’t yet have millennia of iterations behind it. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/36 "2025-06-02T15:37:11Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I’d be uncomfortable until the car had many models on the road with many miles driven _without_ exploding. Isn’t that what I said in the part of the post you cropped out of your quote? Oh, yeah, it is: > [@Babale](#): > > Once Starship is complete, and actually goes into service, it will develop a service record for the actual finished product; presumably it will fly a bunch of payload missions before it ever flies an astronaut; and again presumably, it will land unmanned thousands of times before it starts reentering with humans on board. > > People should (and IMO will) figure out their comfort level based on the safety record of the finished product. > [@DSeid](#): > > “We had ten launches now that haven’t exploded. Safe now!” would not be good enough for me. > > “SpaceX. Three launches without an explosion!” is not the sales pitch that comforts. I’m sure that, just like Falcon, there will be thousands of launches with no incidents before humans get involved. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/37 "2025-06-02T15:47:15Z")
And my concern was hiring for those payloads. I did not mention astronauts. Expensive and mission critical payloads. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/38 "2025-06-02T17:15:50Z")
So the thing with the Starship program is that unlike traditional the rocket development cycle the focus has been on developing a mass-production rocket factory that can pump out vehicles an order of magnitude faster than has ever been done before. You end up flying rockets where issues are known and have been fixed in the design of future versions and band-aided in nearly finished vehicles. These are not dumb people. Having said that, I’ve heard they have a massive turnover rate with the engineering teams and that they also don’t believe in training green engineers (sink or swim). So you may have a senior engineer move on and the replacement may be fresh out of school but given the same responsibilities. I sometimes feel like hubris gained from SpaceX’s other successful programs may be affecting Starship’s success. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/39 "2025-06-02T18:11:36Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And my concern was hiring for those payloads. I did not mention astronauts. Expensive and mission critical payloads. One part of SpaceX’s success is that their primary customer, right now, is Starlink, which has an extremely large number of nearly completely interchangeable payloads to be launched. If you’ve got a one-of-a-kind, bleeding-edge super-advanced satellite that you want to launch, you really don’t want to put it on a rocket that has a 1 in 10 chance of failure, because that’s a 1 in 10 chance that all of those years of hard work will be lost. But if you’ve got ten thousand identical satellites that you want to launch, a 1 in 10 failure rate on each launch just means that you make 10% more of them. Of course, they’ll eventually be used for all sorts of other payloads… after they’ve already figured everything out on those interchangeable, risk-tolerant payloads, and have thereby gotten the failure rate down by orders of magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911/40 "2025-06-02T19:02:35Z")
Starship whole sales point is that it is for huge payload items. This is not intended as a way to get more starlink or other interchangeables up there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starship-keeps-exploding/1018911.md?page=3)