Starship explosion: learning from mistakes is essential to innovate
A few days ago we watched the Starship explode, the most powerful rocket ever launched. However, what surprised many people most was the reaction of businessman Elon Musk, CEO of the company responsible for the project, who immediately celebrated a “great success”.
Most people thought: how can something that ended in an explosion, due to a failure in stage separation, be a success? Once the immediate reaction had passed, a lot of information came out and, on this point at least, we have to agree with the controversial businessman: the launch was, without a doubt, a successful experiment, despite the explosion.
The discussion of this event, which drew in people from the most diverse fields all over the world, once again revives the debate about the role of failures in innovation processes, which are so important for all companies.
It is worth recalling how the space race evolved. Anyone who enjoys the subject has surely studied how the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs created a succession of learnings until the first human voyage to the Moon became a reality.
In a succession of planned missions, important stages were tested and adjusted, such as docking different modules in space, the first flight in lunar orbit, etc. No matter how much engineers and scientists plan, only real tests can prove whether everything will work or reveal failures that need to be corrected. Each mission is designed as an experiment, with well-defined learning objectives. And things do not always go as planned, resulting in dozens of accidents reported over the years.
In the case of the recent Starship launch, several objectives were achieved, such as the most powerful launch to date without destroying the launch pad and getting past the point of maximum stress, among others. Some objectives failed, such as stage separation, but that also generates countless learnings so that the next flights will work.
This is how innovation evolves, whether in space programs or in companies: through experiments that prove or disprove certain hypotheses. Since it is something never tried before, it can go wrong, but that is part of the learning process.
That is why, in the startup environment, which deals with greater uncertainty because it tests entirely new products and business models, there is a much greater tolerance for error than in traditional corporate culture, since a prototype can always fail. “Fail fast” is a mantra in that world, in the sense that you need to test as early as possible and correct course before scaling your business model.
This must not be confused with errors resulting from poor planning, negligence or reckless initiatives, without studies or data indicating their potential viability. That kind of error is nothing more than bad management.
It means that in order to innovate we must conduct successive experiments that are well planned, with clear hypotheses and objectives to be tested on a controlled scale. And the company's culture must be prepared for the fact that failures will occur and that the most important thing is the learning generated. This is essential for the following stages to lead to the expected success.
A controlled environment, in a space program, takes place for example in tests with uncrewed vehicles (as this Starship test was) until it is safe enough to send human beings.
In a company, it may mean launching a product on a small scale or only in one region and measuring the results. Just as with Starship, where sensors provided valuable information that will be analyzed, in a business experiment we must establish indicators that make it possible to generate useful knowledge, whatever the outcome of the test.
It is not only startups that need a bold culture of innovation. All companies are being challenged to pursue innovations, whether incremental or radical, to meet society's growing challenges at an ever faster pace. This will not be achieved with voluntaristic, poorly structured initiatives, but rather through well-designed and well-monitored trials.
Just as in sophisticated space programs, companies' daily operations can also benefit from this culture of successive experiments and learning accumulated through both successes and failures.
