←back to thread

Starship Flight 7

(www.spacex.com)
649 points chinathrow | 3 comments | 16 Jan 25 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.746s | source
Show context
figassis ◴[17 Jan 25 07:48 UTC] No.42735060[source]▶
What worries me about space innovation is the fact that there is such little margin for error. Materials are being stressed so much while trying to defy the laws of physics that the smallest angle error, the smallest pressure mismatch, smallest timing error, and boom. This did not happen when we were inventing cars, trains and air planes. Now imagine these risks, while you're halfway to mars. Is it possible that we just have no found/invented the right materials or the right fuel/propulsion mechanism to de-risk this, and that is where we should be allocating a lot more resources?
replies(4): >>42735153 #>>42735292 #>>42735429 #>>42736565 #
1. floating-io ◴[17 Jan 25 08:33 UTC] No.42735292[source]▶
What makes you think this didn't happen in other industries? See the first iteration of the de Havilland Comet for a great example.

The Space Industry to date has killed many fewer people than planes, trains, or automobiles.

replies(1): >>42736191 #
2. dbspin ◴[17 Jan 25 10:48 UTC] No.42736191[source]▶
> The Space Industry to date has killed many fewer people than planes, trains, or automobiles.

Except as a proportion of passengers. In which case it's killed several of orders of magnitude more.

replies(1): >>42737129 #
3. floating-io ◴[17 Jan 25 13:07 UTC] No.42737129[source]▶
Because people rarely go to space, and it was much more dangerous when the last person died than it is today. The vast majority of flights are unmanned, just like this test was.

If you want to continue playing apples to oranges though, nobody has died on a spaceflight in the last twenty years. How many have died on airplanes in that timeframe?

[correction: there was one additional fatal flight in 2014 with the destruction of SpaceShipTwo. I would argue that one doesn't count, though, as it was more akin to a relatively mundane aircraft accident than anything else.]