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SpaceX Keeps Proving My Little Starship Theory Right
Why on Earth do they keep exploding?
Over the weekend, another Starship exploded on the test pad, making it the second to do so in a year. Except, this time, it wasn’t the upper stage; it was the Super Heavy Booster. And to make matters worse, this was the latest V3 variant that was designed to remedy all of Starship’s truly woeful payload issues. Thankfully, though, the Booster was only undergoing pressure testing and had no fuel onboard, so this explosion was more akin to a balloon popping than a giant bomb. This meant far less damage to SpaceX’s infrastructure, but potentially just as large a setback for Starship development. The fact that these explosions are happening at all is deeply embarrassing for SpaceX, but this goes beyond embarrassment. This incident is even more evidence to support my little theory as to why Starship is, and will continue to be, a failure, and it all boils down to SpaceX forgoing very basic engineering.
Okay, so what is this theory? Well, it goes something like this:
Starship has a significant payload issue. The latest version’s payload to LEO is still around 80% short of what was promised, rendering the entire rocket useless. To resolve this, SpaceX is stripping out as much mass as possible and pushing the engines far harder. However, this is making…
