Originally Posted by
Sam W
Yes I have. Note I said reusability, not survivability. Did you note the heat deformed engine nozzles on the booster? The problem is that non-running engines have no fuel cooling of the nozzle or engine core so are damaged due to reentry heating. Also the fire after landing at the base of the booster is not suppose to be the norm. Exposing hardware to these temperatures pretty well scraps them so no reusability.
As to the orbiter, 5’s orbiter violently exploded right after landing and 6 was last seen on fire so not ringing endorsements for reusability.
Do you understand that these are iterative test articles, not finished production types.
The deformed engine nozzles are a problem, I'm not sure how they are going to fix that, but fix it they will.
The cause of the fire at the base is known and fixed.
The Falcon 9 is exposed to similar temperatures regularly and is reusable. So far over 20 times per booster. Super Heavy will be even better.
Both Starships from IFT 5 & 6 soft landed in the designated spot exactly as planned, then fell over, exactly as expected. I would be more surprised if it didn't blow up. The Starships are being designed to be caught in the same way as the boosters not in the sea! Other versions will land on the moon and Mars. They have to learn how to walk before running. They can't have an untested vehicle of this size barreling in over California, New Mexico etc if they are not 100% certain it can be controlled with pinpoint accuracy. Besides that they only have one operational tower at the moment.