I’m kinda coming to the conclusion that the biggest hole and biggest problem in this project is the launchpad.
It’s difficult to avoid that conclusion. Digging a huge crater under the rocket and throwing the debris all over the launch site isn’t normal, and shouldn’t become “the new normal”. As we saw from Challenger and Columbia, it doesn’t take much damage at all to wreck a spacecraft.
I now wonder if the old Soviet N-1 disaster wasn’t caused by debris strikes from the “rapid unplanned disassembly” of the launch structure. We’ll never know ...