No I’m not counting those because as you’ve said it yourself the stated and intended purpose of those flights as to (actually) blow them up to study the upper atmosphere.

....and hopefully the fourth one should make it back down to Earth in one piece,....

Meanwhile,.....

I love how everyone is jumping in to remind me that it (technically.....and...barely) made it into space, but glibly ignoring the other parts of the expectation of a successful test (i.e. the make it into actual low Eart orbit, which was THEIR stated objective for the first launch, before they lowered the bar for the…

Shouldn’t one actually get the first version of the rocket they’re developing into space and (at least) Low Earth Orbit........and possibly even bring it back down again,....before beginning plans on the sequel?

Oh, that’s easy.

Except it’s not Musk’s billions that are funding (most of) this.

The marketing tag lines write themselves:-

It would instantly make Gunn’s new Superman movie 2000% better.

And he shall ride Glorious to Valhalla.......

You’d be more believeable as not being an Elon Musk fan if you weren’t so (to borrow you own phrase)...”frothing in the mouth” needlessly bashing SLS - a system that’s ACTUALLY succeeded in its base objective of getting it’s payload to the orbit of the (first of the) intended targets in the Moon, and go it back to…

Hey, now!!!

All of this (What you’ve written up there) would mean something were it not for this simple fact :-

>>>>”Two totally different approaches to space flight. I personally think it is reckless and stupid to just launch things to see if it works instead of putting in the time and effort to actually design something that works first.”

“No humans launched with the first SLS rocket, so I don’t get why you try to imply that was the case. They also spent almost twelve BILLION dollars on SLS up to the first launch. That’s an INSANE amount of money, one which literally nobody can afford.”

>>>Yes, prototypes fail when you embrace an iterative, development process. But you save money and time doing it.”

“......mmmBut....DATA!!! We got useful data!!!

Did it get to Space, though?

Amazing how goalposts are constantly shifted and bars lowered just so Elmo can be gifted his little “victories”

>>>>”Yes, it just took them 14 years to do it with modified Shuttle hardware* and with cost overruns in the billions of dollars. If you’re willing to violate your deadlines and can blow out your budget by billions of dollars because you have an Alabama Senator covering for you on the Appropriations Committee, then you…