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gertrunde | on: SpaceX Astronauts Begin Spacewalk, Putting New Spacesuits to Test
That incident probably underscores the parent poster's point quite effectively.

That launch was on 20th April 2023, and the next prototype test launch was only 212 days later on 18th November 2023, although I think the pad redesign/rebuild/repair work was complete by the end of July 2023.

So only 3-4 months to redesign/rebuild/repair the pad (although it's probably reasonable to assume some design work had already occurred).

jandrese | parent | next
At the end of the day it wasn't a major problem. SpaceX tried something new, it didn't work out, so they had to fix it. Nobody was hurt. Property damage was minimal. The repair didn't take very long. All in all a good example of learning from your mistakes without spending too much time or money overthinking it.
michaelt | parent
In civil engineering terms, if falling apart with debris thrown thousands of feet doesn't count as a "technical issue" what does?

I'm no rocketry expert, but I'm old enough to remember the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster; I'm pretty sure if you've got falling chunks of steel-reinforced concrete hitting your space vehicle during launch, that's an issue.

jjk166 | root | parent | next
The launch pad didn't explode, the rocket on the launch pad exploded. A fully fueled falcon 9 has about as much energy as a small nuclear bomb, it's not a technical issue if your structure is unable to survive that at point blank range.
gertrunde | root | parent
Oh, definitely, of course it wasn't a good or desirable outcome.

But it was also a prototype being deliberately tested to destruction, so the context as compared to Columbia was quite different. (And it wasn't just the rocket itself that was a prototype, the pad and tower were at least a little as well).

And this has always been SpaceX's approach, rapidly iterating their design by building, testing, destroying, rinse/repeat - so it sometimes feels a little difficult to compare to a more NASA-style design process where a (usually) small number of items are produced with a significantly lower tolerance for failure.

(Edit: And how much better is it to learn these design lessons before the cargo is more fragile/delicate/squishy?)