True, the damaged pad isn't a problem.
After the launch.
But i can be a problem during launch.

To give you some ideas, during the SpaceX Starship static fire with six engines:
- A camera that was mounted at the side of one of the legs of the launch mount was torn off. It was found around 400-600 meters away after the test. The camera, including the steel case it was mounted in, weights around 6-10 pounds. Imagine what happens to the rocket if such a projectile bounces off the ground and up into the engines (in this case unlikely due to the where it was mounted, but not impossible).
- Gravel torn off the concrete below the launhc mount was raining down - literally - at a distance of around 1 to 1.5 kilometers from the launch mount. It destroyed about a dozen heat protection tiles on the starship and its wings, damaged cables and tubing on the underside of the launch mount (and possible on the rockets engines...the visual evidence available isn't clear about that), and damaged the nozzle of (at least) one engine.

This was on the suborbital testing pad that has shorter legs, so you can't directly compare that to an orbital launch mount. But only six engines where fired, a fraction of the thrust the SLS engines produce.

While the damage to heat tiles can't happen with SLS, i don't think NASA wants to see a torn of fuel hose or a dented nozzle during liftoff...much less, worst case, a perforated fuel tank.

Hey, come on, of course the pad can fly, what did you expect from an 4+ billion/flight launch system...

Well, a RUD that is 50/50 expected usually is no big deal. Otherwise you would not risk a RUD.

If we are talking about the starship booster, a RUD on the pad IS a big deal. With the amount of propellant involved it would cause severe damage to the pad (and not only the pad), probably setting things back by half a year. At least that is what Elon Musk said about that topic...

That is also a part of the reason why SpaceX has slowed down testing and why they switched from "forge ahead and test it till it breaks" to "one slow step after the other".

Basically, SpaceX is currently testing what NASA has (obviously) not tested (enough): stage 0 (tanking and pad/launch mount).
And they found out that the damage to the pad is a problem - something NASA only found out AFTER the launch.

So may i ask, who is risking a RUD here and has not done enough testing? NASA or SpaceX/Musk?

As a side note:
The damage to the pad is exactly the problem SpaceX is currently working on. The last booster static fire test, with only 14 out of 33 engines at once, caused severe damage to the launch mount (and especially the concrete below it). And even so static fire is a lot more damaging than a real launch, their target is rapid reuse, while NASA now has years to repair the pad before the next launch. So, to be fair, SpaceX has a reason to prevent damage to the pad, while for NASA it doesn't really matter.

So the difference is that you *can* invest more money, while you got the "all included" package before.
What about DLCs, formerly known as addons?

Yes, with free to play games there is the risk that you can't play it the way it was tomorrow. But that is true for _every_ game, no matter what monetization method it uses. Just add enough time and it won't run/won't be playable anymore.

Or, the other way around, you *had* to pay to even play the basic game in the past, now you can play the (basic) game for free. But "have" to pay if you want to play... more? better? stronger? - or you don't pay at all because you didn't like what you got for free....

With free to play it is about "what is this game worth to me", and not much else, except for perhaps "i want to support the developers" (yes, thats a thing for me), but thats about it. It is just a matter of self-control.

Sorry, i still don't see the "timebomb" that - especially - applies to free to play games.

Well, what you actually say is that because it is free to play, it is less of a timebomb because "what were you expecting to happen"...

To me this looks like an artificial differentiation.
If i play a free to play game that needs an online connection, it *will* shut down at some point in the future.
If i play a pay to play game that needs an online connection, it *will* shut down at some point in the future.
But i can't make _any_ assumption about the "when", because it has nothing to do with my expectations or with what i payed for the game.

There are plenty of examples of pay to play games that shut down after a few months or a year. In some cases the publisher offered a refund, in most cases not. In some cases only the online content stops working after several years (recent example: older Ubisoft titles), in other cases the entire game goes to the limbo after a few months (Examples: Paragon, LawBreakers,...)

Perhaps i'm blind (or dumb), but i still can't see the difference.

And why can i "legitimately expect" a game publisher to care about the customers he screwed? Because it hurts it bussiness if he doesn't? EA anyone?

Or is this this article only talking about expections and feelings that only exist for free to play but not for any kind of payed games? Don't think so.
It explicitly states "Free to play games" as ticking timebomb. The very same bomb that ticks every online game.

And where is the difference to a pay to play or subscription based game that shuts down after a year or two?
Sure, if no microtransactions are included, you may have invested less money - but i see no difference for emotional investment.

If the servers go down the game is dead. This is true for each and every game that requires online access for whatever reason.
So shouldn't it be "The Ticking Time Bomb of Modern Online Games"?

What exactly is the point here that applies only to free to play games?

This video is a perfect example of how to spread misinformation and doubt without actually saying something thats wrong.
Classic method:
- Make a claim
- Provide evidence for your claim, but mention that some of it might(!) be explained by other "theories" (truth)
- Provide evidence for your claim that is already disproven, but don't mention that little fact (truth, but some omissions)
- Provide evidence against your claim but mention that most of it is "unproven theories" (truth, but irrelevant)
- Leave out any evidence against your claim that is proven and can't be questioned by anyone that doesn't think that every (government) organisation or scientist is always lying (not mentioned, thus at least no lie)

In this case, the hollow moon theorie falls with the (many) measurements that were made, they simply don't line up with a hollow moon.
If you want to do your own research, as a start there is wiki page about those hollow moon theories.

If you live in China, it doesn't matter much. If i lived in china i'd still prefer them to freeze my digital yuan instead of "freezing" me when they find out i use crypto.

Granted, it might take them a bit more effort, sending some enforcers instead of pressing a few buttons, but that wont help me.

And no it doesn't matter if its illegal or not (no idea what the current state of that is), if the regime finds me in opposition i'll disapear. And no, not silently but with a lot of pulicity to show others what happens when you step out of the line.

What i don't get with all those estimates of how far other civilization may have expanded, why they didn't visit us, us looking for habitable worlds and all that stuff is - why?

Why _should_ a civilization spread out far, why should it settle distant worlds?

If you colonize a planet that only brings problems. You have to fight against the environment (to hot, to cold, no atmosphere, toxic athmosphere, ...) on most planets, and even if you find one that has the right parameters, chances are that there is already some form of life - and a single bacteria can ruin your day. Not even to speak of other problems like weather, volcanism, floods and all that - things you simply don't know when you are new to a planet and that take a *long* time to figure out. Finding a place to build a somewhat safe first colony on another planet would take dozens of years at least.

In my opinion any civilization advanced enough to colonize planets in solar systems x+ lightyears away can also build large space stations. There you can control the environment, have easy (easy for an civilization that advanced) access to ressources, for example asteroids or gas giants, and can scale the habitats as needed.

I don't see the point to spread over vast distances in space - any system with a reasonably suited sun and some stuff to gather resources from would do. In my opinion the entire research in that area misses the point.

Maybe i'm just paranoid (most likely) but...does this look like preparing the public for a planned nuclear war?