I assume some of this is that the many early Falcon failures merely blew up the test vehicles. The starship test kind of blew up the launch site.

You can. You just can't legally do it in Texas. Maybe SpaceY will be based in North Korea or somewhere to escape the burdensome regulatory regime in the USA.

Maximum punishment for a launch failure in NK is a firing squad.

Countries with less burdensome rules are subject to ITAR restrictions.

Or just launch from a barge in the middle of the ocean or some uninhabited atoll.

He could fund a new company elsewhere in the world and start from scratch, perhaps.

But even if he was super-careful about ensuring that restricted information wasn't shared with the new company, I'm sure his political enemies would find ways to have him locked up if he tried that...

- "You can't blow up multiple nuclear rockets within the atmosphere just to learn what needs fixing for the next attempt."

Sure you can. Russia has blown up multiple experimental nuclear-powered cruise missiles in the last few years [0,1]. It's a political question of tradeoffs, of how much you value technological progress.

America hasn't blown up any atmospheric nuclear reactors in this century. America is also unlikely to learn how to build aerospace nuclear reactors in this century.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16509396 ("U.S. Has Been Watching Russia's Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missiles Crash and Burn (thedrive.com)")

> America is also unlikely to learn how to build aerospace nuclear reactors in this century.

Why should it? It already knows. Since last century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto

In a place called 'Jackass Flats', of all things...(Giggle)

Edit: Or take the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA mentioned here by credit_guy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38136383

Same place, name is program :-)

Nuclear rockets are good in space, not in atmosphere and they aren't radioactive until you turn them on. You test in space. Also that isn't "Elon's approach to development" that's just how everything good has ever been made. Also if you plan to fail then you usually wind up failing more safely than if you don't plan to fail.

If they blow up while being transported to space they usually are radioactive too.

A reactor that has never been turned on isn't a significant radiation hazard. It's the fission products that are hazardous, not the fuel, if it's never gone critical there are no fission products yet.

It’sa sufficiently big radiation hazard that I wouldn’t want to be under it.

How much under? I’m guessing the real fear is contact, which then begs the question of dose over time.

Because as I’m sure you know and can see where I’m going with this, you’re already living under an enormous amount of lethal radiation, you and everyone else has been for their entire lives… its called the van allen belts.

Starship is planning to launch soon according to ars technica, it was also posted to hacker news a few hours ago. So not too bad considering the red tape and damage to the launch pad.

Assuming Elon gets Starship working reliably, which will probably happen, you could use it to lift a nuclear rocket to orbit. You could then fire the nuclear bit up away from the earth and use it to shuttle around the solar system.