It absolutely applies here - they didn't want to build the launch mount in Florida until they had actual info from a launch. They also iterate their rockets with each new one (even production rockets, ie falcon 9, gets iterative changes). The lessons from this launch will be key to informing changes before future launches.
I dont know what you mean by having no opportunity to change anything. There are several full stacks of rockets constructed and waiting to fly. They'll likely take what they learned on this flight and perform some upgrades to those boosters while they're refurbishing the ground equipment. That particular rocket might be gone, but there are several newer ones waiting to go!
Well, yeah. In this sense, it's the second-worst thing that could have happened, with the worst outcome being injured or dead people. But they probably didn't expect such a bombastic finale so quickly.
> they probably didn't expect such a bombastic finale so quickly
Is this some mind game you are playing? They said they don't expect the test to go smoothly, and that their goal is to learn as much as possible. They did this multiple times, before the test, during the test, by the CEO, on the stream, everywhere.
They told us that if they can learn from the test that is success, if the rocket on top of that clears the tower that is a win.
And then you comment that they didn't actually mean any of that. Why? Why is it not easier to take them at their word?
> it's the second-worst thing that could have happened,
Not at all. As you say the worst thing would be injured or dead people. Second worst would be damage to third party property. Fourth would be breaching their allowed airspace. Third worst would be a failure where the telemetry and tracking also failed and that prevents them from learning.
You're not prototyping rockets correctly if you don't expect in the back of your mind some chance of bombastic events. They are the epitome of "engineer it to within an inch of its expected safety margins for the mission".
Sure once you are going for human rated you want all those bugs figured out, but how do you find those safety margins without pushing up to and over them?
