Let’s be a bit more truthful: the Starship had some successes with booster recovery and the first stage. The issues are currently with the upper stage. The Saturn V did not have even that potential to fail. The new projects are close to what can be done with current engineering and aim for commercial success. It is mich more difficult to do that engineering as you can test less. The Saturn V did not try to be as efficient as possible but to get to the moon.
The Saturn V didn’t have near as much existing knowledge to build off of, and doing what it did with the technology available at the time was absolutely incredible.
The manufacturing of rockets out of stainless steel also does not have much existing knowledge behind it. Nor does landing a rocket booster or first stage back on earth. Or staging a rocket this large and reusable.
What the engineers at SpaceX are pulling off on a regular basis is crazy. Having a reusable rocket system of this kind and size was unthinkable at many points in history. Just a shame their work gets overshadowed by a guy who takes all the credit while doing almost none of the work.
Let’s be a bit more truthful: the Starship had some successes with booster recovery and the first stage. The issues are currently with the upper stage. The Saturn V did not have even that potential to fail. The new projects are close to what can be done with current engineering and aim for commercial success. It is mich more difficult to do that engineering as you can test less. The Saturn V did not try to be as efficient as possible but to get to the moon.
The Saturn V didn’t have near as much existing knowledge to build off of, and doing what it did with the technology available at the time was absolutely incredible.
The manufacturing of rockets out of stainless steel also does not have much existing knowledge behind it. Nor does landing a rocket booster or first stage back on earth. Or staging a rocket this large and reusable.
What the engineers at SpaceX are pulling off on a regular basis is crazy. Having a reusable rocket system of this kind and size was unthinkable at many points in history. Just a shame their work gets overshadowed by a guy who takes all the credit while doing almost none of the work.