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Mercury was flown on Redstone rockets for suborbital flights and Atlas rockets for orbital flights. Redstone had a success rate of 5/6. [1] Atlas had a success

Mercury was flown on Redstone rockets for suborbital flights and Atlas rockets for orbital flights. Redstone had a success rate of 5/6. [1] Atlas had a success rate of 13/24. [2] It was certainly a different time, but spaceflight has always been really risky. There has also always been more attention paid to human rated flights during the manufacturing & testing process. I also imagine SpaceX will not be doing first flights of new Falcon 9 variations with humans aboard. That's not to say it is low risk, but 23/25 considering these are unmanned and largely R&D flights is not bad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_Launch_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_Launch_Vehicl... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas#Atlas-D_deployment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas#Atlas-D_deployment

Shivetya 11y ago
Well the D was the first operational and it did not have that failure rate that the A,B, and C, models had. I doubt NASA would have ever launched a version that didn't have a high nineties success rate.
- krschultz 11y ago
  That's flat out not true. Take a look at the list of Atlas D launched and look at the failures. The first time they strapped a Mercury capsule to an Atlas D is failed. There was an Atlas D failure in February 1962, and Scott Carpenter rode it for the first manned flight only 3 months later in May 1962. The day before Walter Schirra launched there was an Atlas D failure. Two months before Gordon Cooper launched there was an Atlas D failure. What I don't know is how much they were pushing the limits on the other tests vs the manned flights, or how much more QA they were putting into the manned rockets, but it is certainly not the case that NASA only flew on rockets with high success rates at that time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1960%E2%80%9369) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1960%E... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1957%E2%80%9359) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1957%E...

Shivetya 11y ago

Well the D was the first operational and it did not have that failure rate that the A,B, and C, models had. I doubt NASA would have ever launched a version that didn't have a high nineties success rate.

krschultz 11y ago
That's flat out not true. Take a look at the list of Atlas D launched and look at the failures. The first time they strapped a Mercury capsule to an Atlas D is failed. There was an Atlas D failure in February 1962, and Scott Carpenter rode it for the first manned flight only 3 months later in May 1962. The day before Walter Schirra launched there was an Atlas D failure. Two months before Gordon Cooper launched there was an Atlas D failure. What I don't know is how much they were pushing the limits on the other tests vs the manned flights, or how much more QA they were putting into the manned rockets, but it is certainly not the case that NASA only flew on rockets with high success rates at that time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1960%E2%80%9369) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1960%E... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1957%E2%80%9359) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1957%E...