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They're not expanding it for experiments. It's just an old model that costs too much to refurbish, and they've got a new one coming up which will be a lot cheaper and easier to refurbish than the current (which is one model ahead of the just-launched rocket).

And once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments.

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> And once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments.

I understand what you're saying here, but the extent to which the aerospace industry just does not work this way is staggering.

This is a fairly unique quality of SpaceX.

.. not to mention the fact that "once you're throwing it out, might as well do some experiments" is not how the incumbent space companies was operating, before SpaceX came along. For them, it was more like "we've got a near-infinite supply of cash from the government, lets just submit another PO for the next round of experiments" ..

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