Why do these spacecraft keep blowing up?
Because they are
test flights and SX pushes things to the point of failure sometimes. Knowing what you do know is fine but you really don't learn anything new A proper test flight, you're trying to find out what you don't know for sure. I have found most of the best "learning lessons" in life have happened with my failures.
The only way you learn to hit a curve ball by missing it and striking out.
If you listen to all the old-timers from Apollo, they all say without the Apollo 1 fire most likely they would of never made it to the moon. Yes it was a horrible event, but it forced them to make the necessary fixes to the systems that needed to be made. I rather the explosions happen with these test test flights with no one on board.
In the long run, you're going to move along faster because you can fix problems and/or optimize as you're developing the systems not at the end when 99% of the development is finished.
For example, hot staging was tested in the last flight and they addressed the other engine out problems from the 1st flight. They also tested the re-designed Flight termination systems that didn't work properly in the 1st flight. They also discovered an issue with re-firing the SH stage, after staging. The real time data from an actual flight will help them refine their simulators to develop a better solution.
Considering SX had a few more rockets built and ready to go it really isn't a big deal that these rockets blew up.
Just knowing something basically is working properly via an actual flight, allows a freedom to move forward with confidence. Also knowing EXACTLY where it failed is maybe much much more important.
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