Oh c’mon.
Cannot possibly spin “blew up randomly during test prep” as a positive outcome. They probably don’t know how not to build that specific one unless they happened to instrument the faulty prop system components - they know that it failed but likely not why or how to fix it.
All evidence points to Starship having a super-finicky MPS that fails on the regular… which probably means they’re chasing performance by removing mass from the MPS and tank structure… which means either this design doesn’t work (totally possible) or that the as-built performance falls short of what was promised.
If you want to stan for Musk, I guess everyone has a type and I’m not going to shame you over it… but blowing up during test prep is not a good news story.
SpaceX playing soccer with COPVs and then bolting them on the vehicle doesn’t feel like a more comforting answer but I agree it’s one I didn’t list. Not sure I understand why people would be rattling around inside the vehicle after a single engine test and then not re-running the single engine for a regression test.
/shrug, still you’re right. Unreported damage post-installation would totally do this, it’s just not a root cause I’ve seen. Would speak to a breakdown in safety culture for my folks, not sure what the safety culture looks like on the Starship line.