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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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I very much disagree with you. SpaceX has a completely different approach than NASA. NASA plans everything ahead and the first flight is expected to work flawlessly. That takes years and years of preparation. While SpaceX sends half finished prototypes knowing they will not finish their journey. The then iterate to fix the issues they discovered on the previous iteration. This was how they worked on the Falcons as well. Remember how they even started sending satellites on commercial flights as well as Starlinks before they were even able to safely land a booster? They knew their vehicle was able to reach orbit (from the many previous attempts and failures) and were still figuring out landing while they were using them.
You do remember that they signed a contract with NASA to have a lunar lander ready this year, right? A lander that requires more than a few launches and reuse of both the first stage and tanker Starships?
These launches are less about iteration than they are marketing. They are burning money and need to maintain interest in their magic Starship. They need just as many years as NASA and they need NASA's money. The difference is, SpaceX have not demonstrated they can achieve their technical goals and they gloss over all the challenges while at the same time they waste money and Raptor engines on these publicity flights.
Remember, Falcon 9 was earning them money while they experimented with landing. And they hyped up its capabilities and cost before eventually under delivering. Starship will be different in that it may not even male them money.
They may not have a lunar lander this year but they are making strides towards it. I it’s current state, it seems Starship is already apt to perform Starlink V2 (non mini version) launches since the launch worked up to that point without issues. The landing only matters to bring people back. We’ll get there in time. All that matters for now is getting to send that school but into space. If you can’t understand that then I’m sorry.