Once starship makes it to orbit how many ships do you think will incinerate on reentry before successfully landing?

Well joining in on the fun of this speculating prediction game...

I'm actually going to say zero!

I say that because:

A) By that time they will have probably landed several high altitude hop tests successfully.

B) I don't think the heat-tiles will give them as much problem as people are anticipating, because mainly:

If the tiles survive a lot of prior hop tests and seem pretty securely attached, and the tiles survive a lot of heat blasting tests with blow torches!... Then it's not too much of a stretch to see them surviving the first few orbital re-entries just fine.

For example: even given all their issues and design problems, the shuttle tiles survived the first many re-entries just fine, and nailed the first re-entry test with STS-1 in 1981.

/r/SpaceXLounge Thread