>Yea but consider the cost. Just slinging weld on a tank costs time and material Sure, but its what, A few 10's of thousands of dollars for steel and welding f

>Yea but consider the cost. Just slinging weld on a tank costs time and material Sure, but its what, A few 10's of thousands of dollars for steel and welding for the test? If it saves a day of double or triple checking to just ""see if the damned thing blows up "" you have to weigh success odds and lessons learned vs. overhead costs. I wonder what a few days or weeks of overhead costs a company like SpaceX that would have had to be spent to make sure the test succeeded. As a rule of thumb, calendar time is generally more expensive than equipment and man-hours - even in hard tech.