Why SpaceX's Starship launch was hailed as both a great success and a colossal mess

Last week, SpaceX demonstrated that its massive 120-metre-tall Starship can actually clear the launchpad — something the company and many rocket aficionados were gauging as a mark of success, including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk himself. 

But clear the pad it did. The rocket cleared the launch tower … then cleared out a lot of concrete around it, with pieces of the launchpad being thrust upwards, outwards, everywhere — some of it even taking out several of the remote cameras and the back end of an unoccupied vehicle belonging to YouTube's NASASpaceflight. 

As the rocket ascended, SpaceX employees and people on nearby beaches cheered. However, when the rocket exploded and employees were still seen cheering in online coverage of the launch, people were perplexed, and some even speculated they were forced to cheer no matter what happened.

The rocket blew up after all, so why would they continue to cheer after all their work went up in flames? Surely, this was a failure, right?

Not exactly.

First, let's talk about Starship itself.

Starship is the name of the spaceship that will carry astronauts or cargo. Below that is the Super Heavy booster that provides the thrust with its 33 powerful engines. When the two are stacked together, they're also called Starship.

Once at the correct altitude, the ship and booster separate and the booster returns to Earth, eventually being caught by arms dubbed "chopsticks" that can be raised and lowered on the top of the launch tower.

This is the SpaceX ship that Musk hopes will take humans to Mars. It's also critical for NASA's Artemis III mission that will return astronauts to the surface of the moon some time in 2025 or 2026. 

This latest uncrewed launch was the first test of what SpaceX calls its "integrated" rocket, meaning both the booster and Starship launched together. SpaceX has tested Starship on its own several times, and most of them blew up.

Because that's the way SpaceX operates. 

Musk even had SpaceX produce a YouTube video of all the failures (set to John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell) of his now very successful Falcon 9 booster.

For those following the advancements of the company, explosions are part of the process, and in fact, there's even some wicked, childish delight in seeing things blow up (there's a reason Mythbusters was so popular).

"It's OK to have fun when things are not carrying customers," said Scott Manley, an astrophysicist and rocket launch enthusiast.