They even removed some near fuel tanks. In the past the missing tiles were in less critical areas.
I'm surprised they didn't take less risks just to avoid a narrative of failure.
I'm surprised they didn't take less risks just to avoid a narrative of failure.
That's the advantage of being privately owned. "Vibes" (hah) don't matter. Public opinion doesn't matter. What matters is executing on your vision / goals. And they're doing that.
The fact that they're bringing in loads of cash from Starlink surely helps. They haven't had the need to raise money in a while, now.
There's a lot more eyes on them now a days, and Musk is much more well known, so it creates a lot more drama - but they've done the exact same process with everything. They even published a montage of failures [1] on the way to their first successful landing 'back in the day.' It was fiery, but mostly peaceful. They didn't even hit a shark!
It's privately own, might as well learn as much as possible with each dollar spent.