Originally Posted By: billt460
When the Shuttle Program was brought on line, NASA said that a total loss of payload, vehicle, and crew every 50 missions, was more than an acceptable rate of failure.
When the shuttle first flew--even up to when Challenger was lost--NASA were claiming about a 1 in 10,000 chance of losing a Space Shuttle. In reality, based on what we now know, the odds of losing Columbia on its first flight were probably about 1 in 10.
With hindsight, the Space Shuttle was probably the most dangerous manned spacecraft ever built. The earlier capsules probably had a higher chance of a launch failure, but they all had escape systems. The Shuttle was going to be so safe that there was no need for a launch escape system.
So much for that.
Quote:
Space-X is still very much in it's early stages. And they've had quite a few major failures already.
Falcon-9 has about a 96% success rate, which is quite typical for a new launcher in its first few dozen flights. As I mentioned above, now SpaceX can recover the first stages, they can see where there are problems in the design that might cause launch failures, and fix them.
When the Shuttle Program was brought on line, NASA said that a total loss of payload, vehicle, and crew every 50 missions, was more than an acceptable rate of failure.
When the shuttle first flew--even up to when Challenger was lost--NASA were claiming about a 1 in 10,000 chance of losing a Space Shuttle. In reality, based on what we now know, the odds of losing Columbia on its first flight were probably about 1 in 10.
With hindsight, the Space Shuttle was probably the most dangerous manned spacecraft ever built. The earlier capsules probably had a higher chance of a launch failure, but they all had escape systems. The Shuttle was going to be so safe that there was no need for a launch escape system.
So much for that.
Quote:
Space-X is still very much in it's early stages. And they've had quite a few major failures already.
Falcon-9 has about a 96% success rate, which is quite typical for a new launcher in its first few dozen flights. As I mentioned above, now SpaceX can recover the first stages, they can see where there are problems in the design that might cause launch failures, and fix them.