Then it killed 7 astronauts.
Then it worked again they said.
Then 7 more died.
> Also, are we all forgetting that within the past year SpaceX launches have had multiple unexpected catastrophic explosive failures?
Well that's just a straight up lie.
Due to their nature they're sensitive and easy to compromise. Which is also why NASA knew from day 1 that icing was going to be a huge issue on the shuttle. They were retrofitting the vehicle, the launch platform and even the software to reduce heat shield risks very early on.
Some of their earliest flights included EVA experiments where the astronauts translated themselves to the thermal tiles, did inspections, and even did mock repairs to test the feasibility of the idea and of the quality of the adhesives in near total vacuum.
After the final accident they started doing something they could have and should have been doing since the beginning. That was simply taking up a camera that could be attached to the Canadarm, swung "underneath" the shuttle, and used to take a comprehensive survey of the thermal management system immediately on orbit.
In any case, point is, human rated space flight will always require this level of attention to detail and ongoing effort to derisk every possible aspect of every mission performed. NASA management did an outright terrible job at this. From incentivizing the wrong behavior, falling in love with paper targets, and completely failing to audit their own internal risk estimations for errors.
First shuttle launch, Columbia STS-1 12 April 1981.[0]
The Canadarm was first tested in orbit in 1981, on Space Shuttle Columbia's STS-2 mission [1] (12 November 1981)
So, not exactly since the beginning
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_missions
They didn't call it "flying the arm" for nothing:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-image-sts077-307-017-19-29-may-1...
In any case, STS-1 was an insane test flight, and had it's own share of thermal tile problems.
> Well that's just a straight up lie.
I'm guessing they're confusing the expected, catastrophic explosive "failures" on experimental Starship prototypes with payload-carrying F9/FH flights.
That kid who got 1% on his test? He passed, if you redefine the threshold for passing to mean something that everyone else would consider a failure.
1. They were not unexpected. They very very clearly communicated months ahead.
2. "Catastrophic" is a bit much too, as they were indeed expected and planned for. In fact, the biggest failure in the Starship development was that the rocket did NOT explode fast enough once.
3. "Failures". Well.. no. These are prototypes intended to learn from. Experiments if you will. A scientist that never has a negative result is a fraud. Same here.