It took SpaceX 19 attempts before they landed their Falcon 9 rocket. By all means, they managed to land starship during their 3rd attempt, even if it blew up 8 minutes later due to a hard landing.
Rather fail fast, than fail slow. SpaceX takes this to the next level of space hardware testing with their willingness to fail. Good on them.
Ps: it is a prototype (i said it!). It's expected to fail at some point. Otherwise it would be production hardware...
19 attempts to land it from orbit, with many of those being onto boats. They had lots of "easy" success with low altitude test flights, and a booster isn't ever going to have people on it. this will.
I don't understand how the belly flop is even possible.
I'm far from a rocket scientist, but I thought that rockets were kind of like soda cans - very strong on the long axis, but not at all perpendicular to that.
If you make them strong in both directions, I wonder how that doesn't make them prohibitively heavy.
Well, sure that is generally what is the case. But of course the designer can design it as he likes depending on the situation.
Generally, of course this is more true when the stages are empty. If the tanks are pressurized, as they are during the whole flight, they actually become very stable in both directions.
Starship is specifically designed to survive a reentry (heating) into the atmosphere at an angle, just like the Spaceshuttle.
Rather fail fast, than fail slow. SpaceX takes this to the next level of space hardware testing with their willingness to fail. Good on them.
Ps: it is a prototype (i said it!). It's expected to fail at some point. Otherwise it would be production hardware...