Failures at the launchpad

I did watch the mostly-Superheavy-Booster test (with a Starship attached). I hadn't awakened on time for 17 April but, as with Elon, FO'TWENNY was the important day on the calendar. At the time I agreed with the SpaceX folx that hooray it worked. To certain values of "worked".

There was a lot of media attention but most of it was stupid, which I let Zim handle. AFP might not be stupid. The launch-site, aka "Stage Zero", was badly damaged.

Now: this work doesn't just appear from a vision at a mountain. If it had, maybe Elon could have built some... flame-trenches. Those problems at the pad SpaceX absolutely must solve, possibly before even changing-up the actual rocket - the one which mostly worked.

Now for those change-ups. The Teslarati commenters speculate that future prototypes won't have the hydraulics. The hydr- in "hydraulic" means fluid, and fluid expands under great heat especially when also being pounded by concrete and broken Raptors, from below. The best part is no part, as ever.

On topic, the commenters tell us that part of the test in the sky, the part which really did not work, was to flip the Superheavy so as to slingshot the Starship away. This would do without some of those latches and propellant-tanks used to separate the stages. Here it seems that no-part was a part that might need added back-in. This failure alternatively might be fixed by having more raptors functional at the altitude of separation, which altitude itself should be higher (so: air-pressure lower).

Much of this was done for data-collection, the remainder being done to discard a slightly-obsolete machine.