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A comment on When science was the best show in America. Parent comment

Re:When science was the best show in America by JohnJamesRambo on Sunday November 22, 2020 @11:24AM (#25178668)
Why do you think SpaceX won’t have deaths or accidents? SpaceX has had plenty of accidents and going to Mars is so much more dangerous than any space exploration ever attempted.
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Re:When science was the best show in America by thrav on Sunday November 22, 2020 @11:46AM (#25178808)
SpaceX seems to have an ability to test without human risk that far exceeds past space missions. (Thanks to reusable rockets and autonomous / remote systems)
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Re:When science was the best show in America by mulmen on Sunday November 22, 2020 @02:46PM (#25180403)
Not really.

All launches of Mercury era rockets had non-crewed test flights of the spacecraft. And they were on proven boosters. One benefit of using ICBMs is they start out autonomous.

Both launch vehicles for Gemini (Atlas and Titan) were again completely autonomous because they were ICBMs. They were tested and proven before astronauts flew them.

The first Saturn V launch was not crewed.

As I understand all US spacecraft were largely autonomous, especially in the boost phase.

SpaceX has refined that to automate docking but it’s not new.

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Re:When science was the best show in America by henvic on Sunday November 22, 2020 @11:58AM (#25178919)
Exactly. I'd argue also that NASA was specially bad regarding safety in its infancy, probably because it was very militaristic and they don't need to care about profit, given its nature – so dozens of accidents might happen and they might still be in business.
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Re:When science was the best show in America by mulmen on Sunday November 22, 2020 @02:26PM (#25180231)
What are these dozens of accidents? How many fatal human space flight accidents did NASA have? I can only think of three, two of which came during the shuttle program.
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