That's not my problem. Space X can define their limit for what counts as success as they see fit. I totally acknowledge that getting this huge thing to any height is an achievement. But there's still a mismatch between what the general audience would label 'success' and what they do. So maybe talking about 'milestones' or something to that effect would be better. After all, in itself it is not yet a useful workhorse to put something in orbit at this stage (pun not intended), even though it's a probably necessary and helpful intermediate step given how finicky and complex rockets are. I was actually only poking fun at your 'not moving goalposts' combined with the idea that 'we call it OK if it doesn't explode right on the ground'. That sounds a lot like a moved goalpost if the aim is to get to the moon or even mars and back. It's a bit like that 'draw an owl in three easy steps' meme: draw a circle for the head, draw an oval for the body, now draw the rest of the owl.

I can't tell if you are serious. The equivalent would be: a child is trying to draw an owl. Instead of praising the child for drawing a crude owl on their first attempt, we are disappointed that the child did not meet the final goal of drawing a photorealistic owl at some point in the future. Just because the general public has a wrong idea about something does not mean that it is reasonable to reinforce the wrong idea.

So this thread is 5 days old at this point but for the record I still want to point out that whereas initially I was willing to play along and say, OK if those responsible for the launch define 'success' to mean 'clearing the launchpad' well than that was a 'success' alright. Even if it wasn't a success when you leave off the quotes.

But in the intervening days I read up quite a bit and found quite a spectrum of opinions. Turns out this launch made a loss of at least $300M (not to forget, of tax payer money) based on estimated costs of engines alone. Both the rocket and the launch pad suffered from design errors. The launch pad suffered heavy damage because it was apparently not built to withstand the forces present at launch. There's video footage of a parked car next to a palm tree at least a mile or so from the launch pad which both got peltered by debris and then engulfed in fast moving smoke clouds.

This is happening right in the middle of a nature reserve which none of those responsible have the slightest respect for.

But this is the state of affairs when you have a billionaire conman with a captive audience of fanboys, gullible media and those who are just hoping too hard for advancements in spaceflight.