My point is that this flight wasn’t $100 out of $1000. It was $999 out of $1000. If the engines burned for a couple of seconds longer, it would have been a stable orbit. But their intended orbit was eccentric and had a low perigee, so that it would reenter after half an orbit.
Are we talking about the same flight I watched today? It made it through re-entry and made a controlled, powered, soft splash down exactly where it was supposed to.
Saying a suborbital flight is a partial orbit is like saying a cessna can partially achieve hypersonic velocities
Starship reached over 26000km/h, it had enough energy to be in orbit if it was in a circular orbit. The orbit was intentionally left eccentric enough that the perigee was within the atmosphere, so that a deorbit burn was not required.
This is a cessna going mach 4.99 and you’re being pedantic enough to say it was not hypersonic.
I agree with the rest of what you say though. As fun as it is to watch, Starship is over budget and behind schedule. Elon has over promised (pronounced “lied to get government subsidies”) on timelines and capabilities so much that it may jeopardize the Artemis program. Which makes me mad.
Pretend you are running a scam call centre. Wouldn’t you like a curated list of known real phone numbers and names of people that are likely to answer their phones because they are used to only getting legitimate calls?
These list also make you a likely target for scam calls.
That’s my point though? Making the decision to drive under the influence and getting stopped by the police are completely separate events. And you only have control over one of them.
Or just don’t drive high
Its called enshitification. Its a process that’s been happening in all areas of tech for a while now.