Blowing up on the pad is incredibly worse from a design data collection perspective, a risk to life perspective, and a downstream impact to future launches perspective (nobody can use that site for a couple of months).

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HerbManic 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair the last Starship to blowup on launchpad/ground was less than a year ago. It is a set back but it appears nobody has avoided this issue yet.

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/spacexs-...

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testing22321 12 hours ago | parent [-]

That was on a test stand, NOT a launchpad.

Vastly different destroying each of those.

	▲	HerbManic 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I will give you that. Better to blow up in a test rather than ready for launch.

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senectus1 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

not to mention 7 days before it was meant to deliver a payload to space... a proper commercial payload. not just a POC payload.