If the rocket had exploded on the pad, that would’ve been an unsuccessful test. The launch pad and tower are way more expensive than the rockets and take much more time to replace. They call it “stage 0.”
Btw this isn’t moving the goalposts. Clearing the launch tower was always the success criterion; the rest is gravy.
yeah I think many people saw the launch as the launch of the finished Starship+booster when what was really happening was a test of maybe v0.0.2 if not pre-alpha. It's not done yet, there's a long ways to go before the expectation becomes 100% success.
Btw this isn’t moving the goalposts. Clearing the launch tower was always the success criterion; the rest is gravy.