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> If American astronauts die this year because of inadequate testing, that will be the last time you see American astronauts being launched into space on a NASA
by FeepingCreature 7y ago
> If American astronauts die this year because of inadequate testing, that will be the last time you see American astronauts being launched into space on a NASA sponsored platform.
And that's why the US shut down the manned space program after Challenger.
> If Americans die because this was rushed, you can kiss NASA's manned space efforts goodbye. We'll pay the Russians what it takes to keep going to ISS.
The lack of recent fatalities with the Soyuz does not mean the Soyuz is "safe". 141 safe launches just implies that the probability of success is p^141=0.5 (since I have no idea how likely this outcome was, I default to 50/50), so 99.5%. (edit: 99.3% with Laplace's rule.) That's very good, but it's also very very far from the safety record of airplanes.