Technology

See, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you keep showing more and more that you're not following what's happening in the launch business at all.

So for coming up on 10 years now, SpaceX has been absolutely kicking everyone's ass. China is now coming up on being second.

They're following processes of rapid iteration. During design, they build quickly (and relatively cheaply). They launch frequently. Those launches may not go perfectly. Sometimes they explode. But they get a LOT of data. This helps them iterate quickly.

This is different from what Boeing, Blue Origin, etc have been doing (and at different points, at NASA's direction) - the "try to build it slow but steady, and perfect the first time" method. Guess what? That has been working horribly. It takes way way longer, costs way way more, etc. And they've left the door open for SpaceX to take over. They're quickly becoming the ONLY game in town. And neither they nor, say, Blue Origin have really been focused that much on profit.

Rapid Iteration is also what we did early on in the space program. A lot of stuff failed (blew up) but we were making REALLY rapid progress.

Now - once the rockets go into production, they absolutely CAN'T blow up. ESPECIALLY with people inside. That's a totally different thing.

SpaceX just lost had their first operation failure in like a decade. After hundreds of successful launches. It's the best record I believe any rocket series has ever had.

You also picked tbe Shuttle as an example of things working well. It's ironic - that's specifically when everything started turning to shit - massive cost overruns, massive, years-long project delays. The delays for manned spaceflight, for launch systems, were a brand new thing starting with STS.

Blowing shit up is absolutely a valid part of the learning/development phase of rocket design.