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I'm betting on a spectacular crash, but they did nail Falcon Heavy on the first go.

• azernik 6y ago
  They actually lost the center booster, so not entirely nailed. Unfortunately we didn't get good imagery of that particular catastrophe, but if Starship goes down in flames it will be within reach of lots of ground-based cameras. Would make for pretty fireworks.
  • alangibson 6y ago
    Booster recovery isn't a mission objective. But now that you mention it, they did miss Mars so I guess they didn't quite nail it after all.
    • jonplackett 6y ago
      I don't think they ever actually tried to hit mars. mars was in completely the wrong orbit at time of launch - they just wanted to get to about where mars would have been.
    • Cogito 6y ago
      In case people don't know, they hit the orbit they were going for. This was a solar orbit that goes out as far as Mars orbit, but does not actually rendezvous with Mars. It's similar to the first part of a Hohmann transfer, but without course correction and circularisation burns. Trying to actually hit Mars would require launching within a specific window, as well as all the other things required for planetary missions - powered upper stage (not a car), planetary protection protocols, etc. So actually hitting Mars would not only restrict launch opportunities (bad for a test launch) but would also add a whole suite of costs associated with going to another planet (also bad for a test).
  • orangecat 6y ago
    Unfortunately we didn't get good imagery of that particular catastrophe The best footage I've seen is at 1:10 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0FZIwabctw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0FZIwabctw