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| Photo of a Super Heavy booster explosion (REUTERS) |
While working on my rational argument I decide to go into some more detail about an event relative too the topic. Two weeks ago SpaceX launched their Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage on their second test flight. Many media outlets reported this as a failure, but that is not really the case.
In order to judge this success of this flight, it is important to understand the goals of the launch, which was to solve the issues of the first test launch in April. These issues were:
1. Engine failure leading to a fire and loss of control.
2. Failure to make it to stage separation to test the separation.
3. The launch pad concrete was heavily damaged
The second flight fixed all of these issues, with no engine failures, no pad damage, and stage separation went perfectly. The flight did eventually result in the explosion of both vehicles, but there were no repeats from the first flight. The third flight in a few months will solve the issues of the 2nd, all the way to the first fully successful test. The explosions are part of the testing process and SpaceX makes no attempts to hide their failures.
Watching this launch live was an awesome experience for me, being very interested in aerospace. I hope that these test launches will help inspire more people to become interested in aerospace.
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