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Be careful with that assumption: the standards for reliability and safety for crew-rated vs. uncrewed vehicles are very different. I've heard figures at around
by ajarmst 10y ago
Be careful with that assumption: the standards for reliability and safety for crew-rated vs. uncrewed vehicles are very different. I've heard figures at around 10% hull-loss accident rates as expected for uncrewed, vs. an order of magnitude less for crew-rated. There's a very good reason that the pad had been cleared of personnel, and no one was injured in this launch. While spectacular, this explosion didn't inflate any body counts, because the risks were understood and well-managed. Spaceflight is hard, and people die, but we need to make sure we are comparing the same categories when we assess risk, reliability and cost. Trimming that 10% hull-loss rate down to 1% can be done, but probably not at anything like a cost that would make it commercially viable. The only other way to ensure reliability is the way commercial aviation did it: break enough vehicles (and lose enough people) that you understand the failure modes so well you can very nearly eliminate them.