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A comment on NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space Station. Parent comment

Re:NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space St... by dantillberg on Friday November 20, 2015 @05:23PM (#10604272)
I dug up the number for Shuttle missions for comparison: Out of 135 total missions, 2 shuttles were destroyed in accidents [0].

While it is certainly great to aim for 100% success, it's helpful to remember that astronauts are willing to take measured risks in order to perform their missions, and that we must select rockets/etc from the options available, not from the options we might wish to have.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_missions

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Re:NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space St... by lutorm on Friday November 20, 2015 @05:40PM (#10604361)
Although if you count F9-4 as a failure, you should also count the STS-51-F Abort-to-Orbit as a failure, which brings it to 3/135.
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Re:NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space St... by mikeash on Friday November 20, 2015 @05:52PM (#10604414)
Probably STS-93 too.
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Re:NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space St... by goodcanadian on Saturday November 21, 2015 @06:49AM (#10606555)
These two bring up an interesting philosophical point. Are they successes of failures? To me, it sounds like engineering done right. "Something bad" happened, and yet the vehicle survived and even completed its mission.
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Re:NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space St... by Already__Taken on Saturday November 21, 2015 @07:47AM (#10606659)
Well then it's only 1 spacex failure.

People aren't arguing the merits of success they just want to use the same rules to talk about nasa and spacex

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Re:NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space St... by programd on Saturday November 21, 2015 @01:36PM (#10607582)
As I recall the original engineering estimate was a 2% catastrophic failure rate - i.e. loss of orbiter - on the Shuttle [1]. Columbia was STS 107. The estimate was spot on. You have to respect the level of engineering involved here.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Development-Shuttle-1972-1981-History-...

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