Re:SpaceX SN9 Explodes on Landing
by jjoonathan on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @07:33PM
(#26009117)
Of course proving a simple design and sticking with it is safer! Not going to space and being content with remaining on the ground is safer still! Water is wet! The sky is blue!
We can all see what happened: the soviets stopped spending money on innovation and tried to re-frame their stagnation as operational brilliance. Sure, Soyuz has a reliability niche, and I'd rather ride on it too, but I'd rather fund efforts to advance space exploration, even if they wind up being a clusterfuck like the shuttle.
Re:SpaceX SN9 Explodes on Landing
by ricardobeat on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @08:35PM
(#26009570)
Aren't solid boosters, like those used by the Shuttle, a simpler design than liquid engines?
On top of that, the Raptor engines used in the Starship, which seem to be considered state-of-the-art, are based on a soviet design from the 60s.
Re:SpaceX SN9 Explodes on Landing
by jjoonathan on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @09:56AM
(#26014098)
Raptors are state of the art. They are based on a soviet design from the 60s in the same way that they are based on US designs from the 60s.
It's weird that people seem so keen to talk up the soviet part and talk down the US part.
I think he is referring to the Soviet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-270 full-flow staged combustion engine from the 60s.
The Americans had not been able to preserve the high-pressure hot oxygen from eating the preburner.
Soyuz has launched 394 people and killed 4 of them. The most recent fatality was 50 years ago. The Shuttle launched 833 people and killed 14 of them, most recently in 2003 (8 years before the program ended). That gives Soyuz a fatality rate of 1.0% and the Shuttle a fatality rate of 1.7%. In other words: You're 70% more likely to die if you ride the Shuttle instead of Soyuz.
The more you look into the specifics, the safer Soyuz seems. The Soyuz deaths were early in the program while the Shuttle deaths happened when the program was mature. (Soyuz 11 was the last fatality and it was the 10th manned mission. STS-51-L was the 25th Shuttle mission and was considered to be safe enough for a civilian teacher to ride along. Oops.)
Soyuz's design is inherently safer. It has a launch escape system (which saved the crew of Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L).[1] The Shuttle did not. Soyuz's heat shield is much more robust than the Shuttle's. Soyuz's crew section is on top of the rocket, reducing the chance that any falling debris (or shrapnel caused by an explosion) will harm the crew module. Lastly, Soyuz uses liquid fueled rockets that can be shut off at any time. The Shuttle's solid boosters could not be throttled or shut off. All of these design decisions make for a simpler and safer vehicle. If I had to pick one, I'd ride Soyuz for sure.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-ST_No.16L