If nobody else can or will do it, perhaps it is an opportunity for me

With respect to the first post of the day, I note that few sources that I look at will take something of a more serious dive into the news of the day-- in this case SpaceX's Starship. It's feast or famine for SpaceX, in more ways than one. If you support them, you'll get a lot of fan boys/girls who won't really do anything deep in terms of news. But you might get the advocacy on the other side, meaning Musk haters.

So I've been looking for news about what actually happened with the last two flights, and this was the only thing that seemed to be anywhere close to a serious explanation. Otherwise, it is the fan boys/girls v the Musk haters. The point is that nothing much is being learned. Unless of course, you are determined about finding out something or anything about what actually happened.

So I can segue from the particular to the general. It is advocacy journalism's weakness. You are with one side or the other. In case of Musk, who has allied with Trump, it is the same garbage that masquerades as "news", and provides no insight whatever in what is actually going on out there in the world.

If nobody else will do it, I will make an effort to do it here.

So what exactly did happen?  There's only my speculation and the one mentioned above.  If it is POGO, then it isn't a show-stopper.  Musk haters would like it to be, but all rockets have POGO problems, as it is a fairly common problem.  Therefore, solutions are pretty well known.  What may be the real news is that SpaceX isn't saying that it is POGO.  Why not?  I detect a pattern.  SpaceX doesn't necessarily follow best practices.

They launched the first test flight without a flame trench. Flame trenches are pretty well established in launching rockets. Why did SpaceX follow the path that produced the "rock tornado"? It must be some sort of hard-headed attitude of doing it their own way that sometimes gets SpaceX into trouble.

Best practices would also have included well-established ways of dealing with POGO. But if SpaceX didn't follow those practices, then why not? It may well be understandable that they'd rather not be upfront about mistakes. Not accounting for POGO would have to be considered a major mistake. Not having a flame trench is also a major mistake. Notice a pattern?

Fortunately, if POGO is the case, it isn't a show-stopper.

You won't read anything like this on fan boys/girls hangouts. But you will get it here, as well with whatever else happens out there in the world. I'm not going to be a fan boy.