- Nasa isn't demanding 100% reliability from SpaceX and Boeing. "For every hundred missions, how many missions could you analytically show are going to be safe and return the crew safely to Earth?" asks Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at Nasa. "The number we've come up with is: for every 270 flights, we might have one where we’re going to have a bad day."
I heard an interview with one of the primary engineers for the space shuttle years ago, he said there was no way he would ride the space shuttle. This was while the program was still running. His take was that rockets are just controlled explosions and that it's an inherently dangerous way to travel. Expecting space travel to be safe is unrealistic.
I think a good way to look at it is, seafaring travel wasn't exactly the safest of ideas either way back when. It took hundreds of years of technological development to get to the point where the risk was minimal. Space travel will more than likely follow a similar safety/technology curve. Though if what francopoli says is true, we're already starting to see that development curve. Maybe 100 years from now, we'll look back at our current space program and shake our heads in disbelief as we mumble "those crazy bastards."
1 crew loss per 270 flights. The Shuttle has 2 per 135 flights. Apollo had 0 per ELEVEN with one failure on the ground. Soyuz 126 is in orbit now, and there have been two crew losses. In short, this sounds alarmist and "FUD" like. So I looked into the other stories the author wrote. Then I noted that the site is 'The Verge." Yeap, fear and clickbait. The author seems to like sensationalist headlines and disaster porn, to the point she has an article Stop Saying Space is Hard that honestly I don't get what she is trying to say really. I've noticed an uptick in articles panning private space flight lately. Next year, when they start launching the Falcon 9 heavy and the first private manned missions, I expect more of it.
I was thinking it sounds like "just asking the question." That usually translates to "we have no basis for doubting it, but we feel like we should."this sounds alarmist and "FUD" like
As with defense contractors, the companies that build rockets for NASA enjoy a protected position in which they can make insane amounts of money. SpaceX is the first and only credible that to that because their entire goal as a company is to dramatically reduce the cost of space travel.I've noticed an uptick in articles panning private space flight lately. Next year, when they start launching the Falcon 9 heavy and the first private manned missions, I expect more of it