When you write a test case, you define what "Passed" means. If this test flight overall meets SpaceX's definition of "Passed", then it was a success, regardless of what anyone else thinks it should mean.
The Starship program so far has soaked up as much money as SLS, and hasn't even left orbit.
Full-flow staged combustion metholox engines.
Stainless steel construction.
Biggest rocket to have ever flown.
Highest thrust at launch of any rocket by a factor of two or so.
Live streaming of reentry via a space Internet network.
Etc…
Quantity has a quality all of its own.
You should be familiar with this from IT: there’s nothing fundamentally different about the first computer that I’ve ever used to the one I have right now, other than the factor of a million difference in performance!
Why not? With the capability demonstrated today, they can just as easily tweak the ascent profile to end up in a stable orbit outside the atmosphere. Their trajectory was suborbital on this flight on purpose.
There's a bit of nuance to what you are claiming here.
SLS cost $11B to develop, which is estimated to be in the neighborhood of what Starship will cost when development is complete. We don't know how much has been spent so far.
A huge difference is that producing and launching an SLS rocket costs over $2B, while SpaceX is estimating $10M for Starship. Now, I don't trust that $10M number, that's what they aspire for it to cost. To do it they need to be able to reuse the stages dozens of times. It could take a long time to achieve that or they might not make it at all. However, $2B+ per launch is a whole 'nother level of expense.
- More expensive than Starship, or
- Took longer to develop than Starship, or
- Are significantly less ambitious than Starship
(and those are definitely not exclusive ORs)
- Not sure where you're getting the SLS number, the GAO report at https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105609.pdf claims, "Since 2011, NASA has spent $11.8 billion to develop the initial SLS capability."
- I think the marginal cost is a fair question. The whole party line out of NASA was that this time Moon exploration would be sustainable. If each trip costs > $1B before you even put a payload on the rocket that's a big problem.
SLS use leftover engines from the Shuttle era. Yet it still cost 160 millions. Each. Thrown away after each flight.
Vulcan is a conservative design with no reuse. It also uses BE-4 engine, which costs them nothing to develop.
Space flight is hard and different testing methodologies are no silver bullet. But, I suppose we will know them by their fruits.
It is quite a manipulative word to use.
Its true that SpaceX has gotten federal money contract for landing on the moon to the tune of $2.9B. But the Starship program is going to cost a lot more than that, Musk estimated $10B and has done stock offerings to raise money. And you have to take into account that the federal money has to support 100% of the moon specific parts of development.
So, its true that the feds are helping w/ Starship development but "all" is not accurate.