ClaimsRodney Brooks

“The biggest story of the last year is the lack of any further flights of SpaceX’s Starship.”

Rodney Brooks, blog author 1 January 2023 Predictions Scorecard, 2023 January 01 (rodneybrooks.com) archived copy

Factual Technology

SpaceX's Starship made no further flights during 2022.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

True: no SpaceX Starship vehicle (including prototype hops or suborbital test flights) flew during calendar 2022. Mostly true: there were no Starship flights in 2022, but a minor detail is off, e.g. a brief tethered or ground-only test happened. False: one or more Starship flights took place in 2022. The judgment of whether this was the 'biggest story' is opinion and is not tested.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 SpaceX Starship (spacecraft) - Wikipedia Wikipedia

    “Booster 7 and Ship 24 conducted several static fire and spin prime tests before launch,[103]: 20 with the first such test doing significant damage to Booster 7 on July 11, 2022.[104]”

  2. E2 SpaceX Starship (spacecraft) - Wikipedia Wikipedia

    “After a launch attempt aborted on April 17, 2023,[105] Booster 7 and Ship 24 lifted off on 20 April at 13:33 UTC in the first orbital flight test, with the vehicle being destroyed before stage separation.[76]”

  3. E3 SpaceX Starship (spacecraft) - Wikipedia Wikipedia

    “On May 5, 2021, SN15 launched, completed the same maneuvers as older prototypes, and landed safely.”

  4. E4 Starship static fire test sparks grass fire at SpaceX Boca Chica site KRGV · 8 September 2022

    “The team at Boca Chica Starbase was performing a static fire test of Starship 24 as part of its pre-flight checks before they attempt to send Starship and its superheavy booster into suborbital flight.”

Reasoning

The evidence records ground tests of Booster 7 and Ship 24 in 2022 (E1, E4), a prototype flight on May 5, 2021 (E3) and the first orbital flight test in April 2023 (E2). None of it states whether any Starship flight, including prototype hops, took place in calendar 2022, so the criteria cannot be settled.

Cite this claim

Rodney Brooks, “SpaceX's Starship made no further flights during 2022.” (said 1 January 2023). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_ad8ac41669fe, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ad8ac41669fe

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Rodney Brooks, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

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  4. Mostly true Factual 1 January 2024
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  5. Resolved true Factual 22 June 2023
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All of them

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