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Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Soviet/Russian space program has a much better track record than the US: the US accounts for 15 of 19 spaceflight fat

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Soviet/Russian space program has a much better track record than the US: the US accounts for 15 of 19 spaceflight fatalities, and 9 of 11 training or test fatalities (including 1 for Virgin, not NASA). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac... In fairness, the US has flown around 2.5x more people into space, but the Soyuz also ferried a whole lot of them up and down.

pacificmint 5y ago
> the US accounts for 15 of 19 spaceflight fatalities That’s skewed though because the US craft had more people on board. The two shuttle accidents killed 14 astronauts while the two Soyuz accidents killed 4. In terms of number of fatal incidents they are even if you discount the X-15, or pretty close if you don’t.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  Surely the Soviets deserve some credit for never designing and continuing to fly something as hysterically unreliable and dangerous as the Shuttle? Although you do have to wonder how the Buran would have fared if it has survived the Soviet collapse.
hoseja 5y ago
(published fatalities, the same way a jammed tunnel with thousands of cars recently flooded and the official death toll in all of China was 53.)
- Clewza313 5y ago
  I hate to disappoint you, comrade, but the "lost cosmonauts" have been pretty thoroughly debunked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts
redis_mlc 5y ago
Actually, the Soviets had a rocket blow up on the pad near their control center, and lost hundreds of staff. Also, they deliberately launched one of their early large rockets with known defects even more serious than tiles for political reasons, and killed one of Gagarin's friends.
fsagx 5y ago
Does the training or test fatalities include 3 for the Apollo 1 fire? If counting ground-based accidents, it seems incomplete to leave out the Soviet N-1 explosion that killed more than all the other incidents combined.

pacificmint 5y ago

> the US accounts for 15 of 19 spaceflight fatalities That’s skewed though because the US craft had more people on board. The two shuttle accidents killed 14 astronauts while the two Soyuz accidents killed 4. In terms of number of fatal incidents they are even if you discount the X-15, or pretty close if you don’t.

Clewza313 5y ago
Surely the Soviets deserve some credit for never designing and continuing to fly something as hysterically unreliable and dangerous as the Shuttle? Although you do have to wonder how the Buran would have fared if it has survived the Soviet collapse.

hoseja 5y ago

(published fatalities, the same way a jammed tunnel with thousands of cars recently flooded and the official death toll in all of China was 53.)

Clewza313 5y ago
I hate to disappoint you, comrade, but the "lost cosmonauts" have been pretty thoroughly debunked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts

redis_mlc 5y ago

Actually, the Soviets had a rocket blow up on the pad near their control center, and lost hundreds of staff. Also, they deliberately launched one of their early large rockets with known defects even more serious than tiles for political reasons, and killed one of Gagarin's friends.

fsagx 5y ago

Does the training or test fatalities include 3 for the Apollo 1 fire? If counting ground-based accidents, it seems incomplete to leave out the Soviet N-1 explosion that killed more than all the other incidents combined.