If I were writing for a major Condé Nast publication, I would not call a rocket launch "successful" if it failed in a way that would've killed its crew had they been aboard.
The booster behaved admirably, but Starship (which has no crew escape system) exploding late into flight is really bad and not what you'd expect. It's going to need an awful lot of expensive qual work before anyone rides it.
@simonbp I don't know why you would bring up the survivability of crew on a ship that was designed not to have a crew in the first place.
I call the rocket launch successful because it met the goals set out to define success.
It's kind of off to declare it a failure because it didn't meet some goals that you personally had for it, to replace the goals of the actual launch provider putting it up.
@volkris Um, yeah. It's absolutely intended as a crewed vehicle, and they've already sold at least three crewed commercial flights, plus of course, the NASA Human Landing System.
And because it is intended to be not just a crewed system, but a *NASA* crewed system, Starship will face continuous and intense scrutiny over its safety. And rightfully so considering the billions of tax dollars that are bankrolling the program.
@simonbp they have not sold this rocket as a crewed commercial flight. A crewed rocket has not yet been developed, and I imagine it won't be for a few years.
This is not intended to be a crewed rocket.
A future rocket is, but not this one.
Heck, one would think that if they intended this rocket to have a crew they would at least install a door for the crew to enter :-)
But no, you're confusing some different rockets.
