Some times you just have to try. This was way bigger than anything that's gone before. I'm sure they'll have plenty of data now to make the launch pad even better than it would otherwise have been.
Videos of the debris storm were pretty mind boggling to watch - it's difficult to comprehend the sheer amount of energy expended.
I am truly looking forward to the learnings published from this.
> 3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount.
> Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.
To me, it sounds like people that would have been considered experts (and probably still are) made assessments than turned out to be incorrect.