<p>Getting awfully fed up with all the stupid comparisons between SpaceX and NASA.</p><p>NASA pulled one silly political stunt in the 1960s then has done nearly nothing useful, in comparison, since as far as developing launch methods are concerned.</p><p>SpaceX has at least got re-usable orbital boosters working reasonably safely and cheaply - something nobody else has done. (No, the Shuttle was neither safe nor cheap. An approximately 1 in 70 chance a launch is going to kill the crew is less than acceptable. Maybe a 1 in 70 chance of a launch failure with, say, a 1 in 30 chance that the launch escape system fails is closer.)</p><p>Now SpaceX are having lots of troubles with Starship. Maybe the whole concept is fundamentally flawed or maybe they're just pushing a bit too hard and quality control has gone out the nozzle. I suspect quite a few people within the company have a good idea of which (or both) of these applies but maybe they're not up for telling the shithead in chief. From the outside it's hard to tell.</p><p>These are both problems NASA has had. E.g., quality control before the AS 204 fire or the under-trained & overworked trajectory team for the Mars Climate Orbiter which failed to pick up on the famous SI/US customary units problem or the fundamental mess which was the Shuttle program which should have been canned well before its first launch.</p><p>(The lack of a credible crew escape system on both the Shuttle and on Starship is one commonality that bothers me. At the very least SpaceX needs to get rid of the hot-staging requirement, but I suspect they know that.)</p><p>SpaceX failed to make a controlled re-entry of one second stage resulting in a uncontrolled re-entry over Poland. Oops, shouldn't have happened but the outrage is interesting to compare with that of China leaving some 300 second stages (IIRC) in orbit which will eventually make uncontrolled re-entries.</p><p>Generally, I think SpaceX has been pushing too hard with Starship but that's fairly easy to say in retrospect. It's at least worth a try compared with the almost complete lack of progress though out the rest of the space industry.</p>
