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Why is there is so much fuss about Falcon Heavy exploding on the way?
I don't understand why would they purposely design a rocket having a good chance of explosion during launch. If they are not confident in it, why are they launching?
Looks like a lot of risk and waste of time and money to me.
Who would even try to sit in such a rocket even in future when there is such a high chance of explosion? Do they have a plan to mitigate this risk?
The question misinterprets the comments of Elon Musk, who is trying to set expectations appropriately.
That is, this is a new vehicle, and there are issues that are next to impossible to model on the ground, nor test on the ground.
They have tested and planned for everything they can, but they accept there is complexity for which they cannot prepare.
So is this poorly designed? No, it is designed by some of the best rocket engineers in the world. (Demonstrably so — developed a new engine, Merlin, through 4 or 5 major iterations (1A → 1B → 1C → 1D → final build), developed a booster through multiple iterations (Falcon 9 Block 5 is due soon, from the 5 you can infer a number of previous iterations). Then they added on recoverability and reusability. Amazing stuff.
They have built a reusable capsule that has flown 14 times, and 2 have been reflown. Amazing stuff.
Yet, even so there is complexity that they cannot predict with complete confidence.
Now there is a different kind of confidence, not in practical things (have we covered all possible launch issues?) but economic confidence, where the actual performance of some physical things does not match with the economic reactions. (Ever see a company come in with higher earnings than expected and yet somehow tank its stock?)
Musk is trying to set expectations appropriately. This is a new booster. It is very complicated. They are as sure as they can be it will work. They are also sure there may be things they missed or could not test.
Thus this is really a test flight, and if it fails, they shall test again. If that fails, again shall they test until they succeed.
Musk himself talked about some of the challenges
“One of my biggest concerns is booster-to-booster interaction,” Musk explained. “You’ve got a lot of dynamics going on there. Those rockets are very flexible; if they flex in unexpected ways they could potentially impact one another.”
With three Falcon 9 cores, the acoustical noise generated by the launch is three times greater than a single Falcon 9 launch. SpaceX engineers think they understand these interactions, but they haven’t tested them in flight. Some unexpected resonancy could cause a structural failure. These systems have all been tested extensively on the ground, but ultimately, nothing compares to an actual flight test.
Every orbital rocket launch comes with a risk of failure; modern, proven rockets are running about a 98%-99% success rate. I imagine that SpaceX is well over 90% confident in the success of this flight; the Falcon Heavy builds on the design of the Falcon 9 so there are fewer unknowns than there would be in an all new design.
By reminding people that this is a test flight, and there are unknowns, and it could fail, SpaceX both inoculates themselves against the failure case (because they can say "yeah, we told you so") and makes a successful flight look more exciting.
