Space X on the manufacturing yard, Boca Chica, TX. Photo by Steve Jurvetson via Wikimedia Commons

Yup, SpaceX blows up a lot of test rockets. It’s something we should want.

If all goes according to current schedules, SpaceX (the rocket company that was first to prove that a rocket booster could land itself and be re-used over and over again) plans to perform a test launch of its prototype Starship vehicle. The plan is to send it up to 12.5 km (a little over 7.75 miles), and have it come back down and land. Well, if they’ve done it before with their current rockets, what’s the big deal? And didn’t their last test end in a fiery explosion, a failure? All the headlines proclaimed that

Glad you asked. Yes, it’s a big deal. Yes, it exploded. Spectacularly. And no, that explosion capped a test that can only be called a rousing success. Huh? What? How is something that is supposed to stay intact, yet instead exploding in a massive fireball, a rousing success? You could be excused for thinking that if all you read were the headlines from most media outlets. Even ignoring the click-baity sites that out and out inferred a massive failure, reputable, mainstream news outlets’ headlines would still make you believe it failed its test.

The Guardian: “SpaceX Starship SN8 explodes on landing after test flight.”

ABC News: “Unmanned SpaceX Starship test flight explodes during landing.”

Any one of a myriad of local news stations who all ran the same article under the same headline: “SpaceX Starship SN8 prototype explodes upon landing.”

Explosion = Success?

So, how is an explosion a success? We don’t want rockets that explode. Yup, that’s true for the ones that will send cargo and definitely the ones that send people. But SpaceX does something no other rocket company before them was willing to do: encourages failure. And that’s a wonderful thing. Unlike virtually all the “old space” companies that started as contractors for the government/NASA, SpaceX does not have a problem with failing on their test flights. Old Space, like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, their red-headed stepchild of a joint venture, ULA, and others don’t show off their failures like SpaceX does. Old Space operates in a way that indicates they believe that any failure will cause the public not to trust them, and without public trust the public money spigot will be cut off. Thus, everything they try must go perfectly the first time.

This mindset is the reason that the Space Launch System (SLS for short) that is being built by Boeing to send NASA Astronauts back to the moon has been in official development since 2011, but really is just an iteration of the Constellation program begun in 2005 by the Bush Administration. The SLS was supposed to be “easy” and “cheap” due to the fact that the majority of the design was based off existing Space Shuttle hardware. However, neither has been true and the program is now 9 or 15 years old depending on how you count, has so far cost $18 billion, and has not even done a single test fire of a completed rocket yet. Oh, and when it finally is operational, each flight is going to cost an additional $2 billion per flight. And maybe, at best, launch twice a year. Ouch.

But that is necessary, right? We need a huge rocket to be large enough to send us to the moon. Something on par with the original Saturn V that could launch 140 tonnes to Earth orbit. Yeah, the concept is correct. And SLS will be able to launch 95 tonnes into Earth orbit in its first version. A few years later SLS will have a version that can lift 130 tonnes to Earth orbit. That’s a lot, and we need that kind of power to get to the moon. But SpaceX will be able to provide that kind of power too. Starship and the accompanying Super Heavy booster will be able to launch 100 tonnes to Earth orbit. Not quite as much as SLS or Saturn V, but good enough. And in the long run, that will beat SLS in total tonnage lifted to Earth orbit.

Consider this: SpaceX first reached orbit in 2008. The current rocket they launch with, first reached orbit in 2010. And the concept for their newest rockets, Starship and the accompanying Super Heavy booster, started in 2016. How can they move so fast? Because they encourage appropriate risks and are not afraid to fail. They’re willing to say that if a test can teach them something useful, go ahead and try it. You learn from failure more than you do from calculations and simulations. That’s not to say they try to do things they aren’t ready to do, it just means they don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Explosion = Success

SpaceX’s goal with Starship is to make a heavy lift class vehicle that is super cheap. As a private company, no one knows exactly how much money SpaceX has put into development of Starship and Super Heavy. But it most certainly is not $18 billion. It’s probably not even the $2 billion that SLS will cost per operational flight. And due to this, SpaceX can afford to churn out prototypes. They can crash and explode all of them if needed, as long as each successive one continues to improve on the last one. Heck, right now in addition to SN9, they have SNs 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 in progress. They’ll get there cheaper, and they’ll know what works because they simply tried it out.

So, when they attempt to launch their next prototype, dubbed SN9, cheer no matter what the outcome. The previous test that exploded actually succeeded in demonstrating some revolutionary, never-tried-before methods for returning to Earth from high altitudes, using one of the most powerful new rocket engines ever developed. Who knows what they’ll learn from the next. Hopefully they can land the sucker this time. But even if they don’t, know that it is not a failure. They just now have a little more insight in what works well and what doesn’t, and will adjust for the next test.

Explosion = success!