F9 was a much more conventional rocket. It's first party trick, the Merlin engine was iterated on heavily and destructively independent of the rocket. It's seco

F9 was a much more conventional rocket. It's first party trick, the Merlin engine was iterated on heavily and destructively independent of the rocket. It's second and main party trick, the landing and reuse of a booster was definitely iterated on destructively many times before they got consistent performance out of it. They're plan is to mass produce Starship and work towards operating them continuously like a 737 to space. Blowing up the first few generates great data for identifying problems and helps get that production line rolling.