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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

They don't necessarily have to redesign the booster. The booster completed its primary mission of boosting successfully. It survived long enough that it seems reasonable to say that if they wouldn't have attempted boost back it would successfully coasted to a splash in the ocean. So the SuperHeavy booster can likely be used as is, if they're willing to spend an extra ~$50M per mission on not recover the booster.

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Pretty sure NASA doesn't care about losing the booster for a moonshot mission. Shuttle was 1.6 billion per flight.

Having a rocket explode next to the shuttle might be a bit too much danger though imo.

I guess it depends on the test program priorities. If Elon has promised everyone a succulent ham if they can get Starship to orbit before some deadline, then you're absolutely right. If instead they want to get the most out of every flight test, then they'll take the time to fly a fix for the "bottom half blows up" issue.

So more booms by Christmas?

I is a lot more complicated than that.

There is a trade off between data per flight, total timeline, and overall cost.

I dont think data per flight is the driving goal. There are lots of unknown, and if you stop completely for every problem, you are aren't learning about new problems.

As long as they get the ship up and make some progress, it isnt critical if these boosters blow up or sink the bottom of the ocean as planned

They have 4 boosters built and 3 more in production, and FAA license for 20 launches per year. My guess is that if the fix takes substantial time, they will work it into future production and keep going with what they have.

Plus you get extra tonnage from not having to save enough fuel for landing.

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