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Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

Well considering the point of it is the make orbit, it would be a bit useless if it didn't.

Would HN describe a huge program that didn't do the thing it was designed to do a "feat of engineering"?

Yes. The Starship program is pushing the limits of engineering, if it fails today it doesn't make it unimpressive

I'd also consider the attempts at fusion energy to be very impressive engineering projects even though none have them have yielded a stable source of fusion energy

Could someone give me a eli5 of what makes that launch impressive compared to other rocket launches?

It’s big.

36 full flow staged combustion engines all working is no easy feat

It’s the largest, heaviest rocket ever, with double the thrust of the last record holder, and it is the first one that is supposed to be reusable.

It’s a lot of records that just got broken.

Thanks for actually answering

I think for a sense of scale if this works as the SpaceX team wants, they will be able to launch more mass to orbit in a single day than all payloads ever before 2022 (rough math). And at a cost roughly 1/100th the prior average.

Also getting to "orbit" is a huge feat, because you need to be going over 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h), get into a designated orbit, and in this case, they're also deploying starlink satellites.

This rocket is the largest rocket ever made by humans, and the largest to even reach orbit, which is insane considering it's by a private company and not a national space program.

Full reuse. Both Superheavy (booster) and Starship (the spaceship). Especially Starship. It has never been been done (don't say Shuttle).

Falcon 9 achieved reusable 10 years ago. Other rockets have only started getting there recently. Starship is a big step forward.

Blowing something up so hard it almost gets into space is a feat of engineering, even if all it does is rain debris from ahigh.

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