this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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I'm not sure that the technical concept is fundamentally flawed, it's just that "agile" project management philosophy was never meant to apply to rocketry.
I don't say this as a Musk/SpaceX fanboy in any way, I just don't think the failures of the Starship design are comparable to failures of a traditionally managed rocketry project like the Space Shuttle due to the differences in management philosophy.
We'll see, I'm sure. Best case scenario here is that the Chinese space program actually pulls it off, at worst they figure out why it may not be feasible and shelf the idea until they come up with solutions. None of this "crash it repeatedly until it works" nonsense.
Agile doesn't work that well ANYWHERE, especially in software. A lot of devs burn out purely because of that silicon valley nepokid bullshit