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Why is it amazing that it left the pad?

• stetrain 3y ago
  It’s the first time this rocket has had all 33 engines attempt to light and fully throttle up. SpaceX has no test facility capable of withstanding a full thrust booster test on the ground. Also SpaceX has more boosters and ships complete and in various stages of assembly. A complete loss of the pad would have been much more damaging to the program.
• AYBABTME 3y ago
  It's a giant shaking and trembling structure built in a fail-fast iterative manner using unexpected materials (stainless steel) and processes (regular welding). Assemble all this in history's largest rocket ever, and expect everything to go perfect the first time? I wouldn't have been surprised if the whole thing shook itself apart on the lift pad and blew up. I don't know about you, but when I rapidly build and assemble large complex structures like a cowboy, I certainly expect a ton of failures on my first trials. When stuff goes much further than I expected, I'm in awe and disbelief.