Originally Posted by
meleagertoo
And FFS put an end to the God-awful expression RUD. It is so, so silly, undignified and pointless. (and not the least bit clever, which I sense they think it is)
I think there's a serious purpose to that: Even this thread shows that there are people out there who don't understand iterative development and view flights like yesterday's as failures (SLS didn't blow up on its first launch, so it must be better, right?) So SpaceX have to keep reminding viewers that these events are expected and part of the process, and the term RUD helps them control that narrative.
Anyway, what else are you going to call it? You don't really want to use the word "failure" because it takes the narrative the wrong way. The term "explosion" is misleading; a lot of rocket failures aren't caused by explosions at all (Challenger being a good example) and even when there is an explosion it's often caused by the FTS responding to a different failure (eg the first Starship launch).