Sure, but there it a huge chasm between “catastrophic failure” and “looks good to go again next week”, and even minor structural damage will prevent rapid resuse.
Sure, but the rare catastrophic failure issue is not why the Spaceshuttle is widely considered an engineering failure. The real issue with it was that the re-usability of it turned out to be a huge money sink. Spaceship might face a similar fate with those heat-tiles.
Sure, but there it a huge chasm between “catastrophic failure” and “looks good to go again next week”, and even minor structural damage will prevent rapid resuse.
I’d much rather be on a spacecraft that wore out too soon than one that catastrophically failed
Sure, but the rare catastrophic failure issue is not why the Spaceshuttle is widely considered an engineering failure. The real issue with it was that the re-usability of it turned out to be a huge money sink. Spaceship might face a similar fate with those heat-tiles.