NASA orders press not to photograph launch site after moon mission takes off (futurism.com)

Every single Space Shuttle launch damaged the launch tower, in some manner.

Here's an old article about the post-launch inspection team used after shuttle launches.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/post...

Because of the "energetic" nature of space launches, damage of some kind is to be expected when they occur.

Sometimes the damage is minimal. Scorched and bent metal bits that can be painted and bent back into place. Sometimes there is FOD which gets blasted around and punctures things. Sometimes protective equipment doesn't work and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage is done. Sometimes there is total failure of the physical infrastructure which requires millions in repairs.

Here is damage on the more expensive end of the spectrum: https://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts124/080601pad/dama...

Here is a partial archive of space shuttle damage/debris reports: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/foia/ksc_debris.h...

Fun fact, sometimes like, every handrail on the tower gets blown away so welders have to go up and reweld everything after a launch before people can go up. Also, depending on the recent weather massive fires start around the launch site and firetrucks have to race to put them out.

SLS is like the shuttle but bigger, when it comes to damage. It's unavoidable and they're not hiding anything.

They probably don't want people taking pictures of some of the neato highly specialized hyper spectral cameras they've got.

Edit: honestly, if your rocket doesn't smash up the launch pad as it ascends, I'm not really interested in it.

Another example of when you say "nothing to see here" everyone goes "wait there's something to see here?"

If they hadn't said anything no one would be talking about it except for some really niche space aficionados.