> Still, they blew up an awful lot less than other rockets of their size like N1 or Starship.

I think the only reasonable comparison would be after cost equivalency. The Starship has a long way to go, to catch up.

Cost equivalency ignores the R&D and decades of scientific progress and advancements in tooling capability. The prices of materials have shifted, but designing and manufacturing a precise propulsion system with modern CAD and simulation tools is a lot cheaper than the hand work hundreds of people used to be doing to verify much simpler engine designs. Precision machining and tools to inspect metal fatigue and imperfections have also come a long way.

Of course commercial rockets are always going to be as shoddy as they can get away with rather than as good as possible, but if it still takes SpaceX or Boeing as much money to build a rocket as it did back in the Saturn V days, they're doing something wrong.

If you use that as an argument any comparison becomes meaningless by default.

Many Saturns blew up during testing. Starship is still in testing.

Your arguments are strange, a mirage concocted to fit a narrative of denigration and darkness. You mock with zeal, yet have no point to the mocking.

Always with the mocking, you cause an ache which cannot be balmed. Cease, I pray you. Stop these machinations, this mad canter.

Falcon was built the same way. It blew up many times too, explosions aplenty. Now it is the most successful lift on the planet.

Would love to read about Saturn V explosions during testing. Have a link?

I recall reading the engines blew up in testing, the rockets on the pad, on and on. And why wouldnt it?

No one has ever built a plane, or even a car without breakage during testing. The very idea is absurd. There's a whole profession called "test pilot".

I don't know why anyone would suggest otherwise.

I'm sure there are links aplenty, but the absurd suggestion here would be building a rocket and having zero incidents of failure. That beyond weird. That's what needs a "do you have a link" question.

> I recall reading the engines blew up in testing, the rockets on the pad, on and on. And why wouldnt it?

You're recalling wrong, or you were reading nonsense. Lots of engines were destroyed in testing (particularly before computer modelling, this was basically how rocket engines were _developed_), but no, no Saturn V ever exploded on the pad. Prior to this incident, the most-impressive on-pad boom was one of the N1s.

No fully assembled Saturn V ever failed, though a few of them had near-misses.

Well we're discussing testing only here, so are you sure none explpded on a test a pad?

It's a weird debarc point to discuss non testing craft vs testing. And "fully assembled", when spacex is flying non-final builds on purpose, using a different test methodology.

> Well we're discussing testing only here, so are you sure none explpded on a test a pad?

Yes! I am sure! That did not happen!

Early development of Saturn V rocket engines involved destructive testing, but a whole rocket would not have been involved at that point.

Here's some later ground testing of final engines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rP6k18DVdg

Engines during testing, sure, but did a Saturn V ever sit fully fueled on a pad, and explode?

A fully fueled starship stack hasn't exploded either. Yesterday's anomaly was a failure of just the upper stage.

No Saturn V ever blew up on the pad.

The Saturn V second stage (S-II) has at least two examples listed as destroyed during testing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-II

"First all-up S-II stage, assembled between 1963 and 1965. Completed several engine tests at the Mississippi Test Facility (now the Stennis Space Center). Destroyed by accidental LH2 tank overpressurization during pressure testing May 28, 1966[7][6]"

and

"Destroyed in test stand September 29, 1965"

Also described here: http://heroicrelics.org/ussrc/s-ii/index.html

"The S-II program was beset with problems and delays. NASA had planned on North American making an S-II stage, S-II-D, for dynamic testing but the order for that stage was cancelled in early 1965 in favor of using the structural static test stage, S-II-S, as a combined static/dynamic test stage; that stage was renamed to S-II-S/D. Unfortunately, the S-II-S/D stage was destroyed during testing, leaving S-II-F to take on the added role of dynamic testing and being redesignated as S-II-F/D."

I though all of the Saturn V stages were destroyed during testing at least once but it looks like I remembered it wrong. :)

Upvote for phrasing.