Was Exploding Starship SN8 a Failure?

The 8th prototype of Starship built by Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, exploded spectacularly on 9th of December. Does that mean Elon Musk screwed up?

The launch of SN8 was quite dramatic as SpaceX sent Starship to a higher altitude than ever before and performed the belly flop maneuver, which will be absolutely crucial for SpaceX to master if they are to land Starship on Mars or on Earth. Naturally this event caused quite a lot of spectacle, especially since the rocket exploded in a massive pyrotechnic show at the very end.

Judging by the media response this was some kind of failure. What was worth reporting seemed to have been that SN8 exploded, but was that really the story?

Prototypes are Not Final Products

Whether a rocket explosion represents failure or success really depends on what sort of rocket it is an what the goal of the launch is. SN8 was not a finished rocket but a prototype. A prototype isn’t merely an early version of something. A prototype is something designed to test one or more specific things of the final product.

E.g. the first prototypes of the Palm Pilot handheld computer was simply blocks of wood. How is that useful? Because…