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SpaceX's Falcon 9 had two (full) failures (in 2015 and 2016), but the crazy high cadence since then made it the safest vehicle in the history of spaceflight. Th

SpaceX's Falcon 9 had two (full) failures (in 2015 and 2016), but the crazy high cadence since then made it the safest vehicle in the history of spaceflight. The next vehicle with comparable safety was the Soyuz rocket (which had various versions of the same design from the 60's, and has been launched a total of almost 2000 times!), one version of which had a streak of 112 consecutive successful launches in the 90's, but sadly Russian space program has declined since (they have more and more reliability problems). The last (major) version of Falcon 9 has 100% success rate with 225 successes out of 225 launches. NASA never before used a vehicle as reliable as Falcon 9, so... You can't compare crazy ambitious development program to established vehicles, and as Falcon 9 shows, given enough time, SpaceX can achieve something close to perfection.

demondemidi 3y ago
> SpaceX can achieve something close to perfection. Question: How did SpaceX acquire all the knowledge that brought it to the Falcon 9? Answer: 70 years of NASA research as their starting point (which was built on the V2 program's learnings thanks to Von Braun). Being born on third base isn't the same as hitting a home run.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Finding publicly available information on how to get to third base might be as valuable as hitting a triple, though. (It's not as hard, but it might be as valuable, in that it still puts you on third base.)
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    That's where I was going. There's a bias in these discussions that overlooks a century of contributions (previous poster referred to them as perfection). SpaceX didn't invent space travel from square one, they are optimizing the last 10%: larger size, and better re-usability. Elevating them to gods pisses in the face of the century of previous experts who learned the hard way because there was no NASA before them.
    - CydeWeys 3y ago
      I don't think anyone is elevating them to gods, and also, it's true that no one was seriously working on cheap reusability until SpaceX did it. Yeah sure SpaceX didn't invent orbital rockets (no one claimed they did!), but they did in fact invent commercially viable reusable rockets, and that's a big deal.
- Tommstein 3y ago
  I especially like how people act like SpaceX invented reusable rockets. These people simultaneously know about SpaceX and yet somehow don't know about the Space Shuttle, whose design started over 50 years ago.
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    By the end of the program, the space shuttle cost $1.6 BILLION per flight, or more than disposable designs. There's no point in doing reusable if it's insanely expensive! The SpaceX innovation was actually making reusability pay off. Sadly the government contractors only ever had an incentive to make each launch as expensive as possible, which they absolutely accomplished.
    - demondemidi 3y ago
      Yes, but NASA has had the GOP looking over its shoulder trying to literally cancel it for decades (and not the "whiny cancel" that dudes throw around today, instead actual, real cancellation). The GOP was ready to pounce on ANY failure NASA had as an excuse to cancel it, which is a large part of the reason for the huge safety precautions. The o-ring fuckup almost did them in. If NASA was loose with regulations, they would have gotten cancelled, and if they are too strict with regulations, they get ridiculed. It's a lose-lose. SpaceX has no such oversight, and the GOP loves Musk. A SpaceX rocket could kill a hundred people and SpaceX would just keep truckin' like nothing happened (recall, Musk has said repeatedly deaths are part of progress). NASA had no such luxury. I'm certain there was waste due to nepotism, but let's not pretend Musk isn't the beneficiary of the same nepotism. (It all should end, and hope some day it does, call me naive.)

demondemidi 3y ago

> SpaceX can achieve something close to perfection. Question: How did SpaceX acquire all the knowledge that brought it to the Falcon 9? Answer: 70 years of NASA research as their starting point (which was built on the V2 program's learnings thanks to Von Braun). Being born on third base isn't the same as hitting a home run.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Finding publicly available information on how to get to third base might be as valuable as hitting a triple, though. (It's not as hard, but it might be as valuable, in that it still puts you on third base.)
- demondemidi 3y ago
  That's where I was going. There's a bias in these discussions that overlooks a century of contributions (previous poster referred to them as perfection). SpaceX didn't invent space travel from square one, they are optimizing the last 10%: larger size, and better re-usability. Elevating them to gods pisses in the face of the century of previous experts who learned the hard way because there was no NASA before them.
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    I don't think anyone is elevating them to gods, and also, it's true that no one was seriously working on cheap reusability until SpaceX did it. Yeah sure SpaceX didn't invent orbital rockets (no one claimed they did!), but they did in fact invent commercially viable reusable rockets, and that's a big deal.
Tommstein 3y ago
I especially like how people act like SpaceX invented reusable rockets. These people simultaneously know about SpaceX and yet somehow don't know about the Space Shuttle, whose design started over 50 years ago.
- CydeWeys 3y ago
  By the end of the program, the space shuttle cost $1.6 BILLION per flight, or more than disposable designs. There's no point in doing reusable if it's insanely expensive! The SpaceX innovation was actually making reusability pay off. Sadly the government contractors only ever had an incentive to make each launch as expensive as possible, which they absolutely accomplished.
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    Yes, but NASA has had the GOP looking over its shoulder trying to literally cancel it for decades (and not the "whiny cancel" that dudes throw around today, instead actual, real cancellation). The GOP was ready to pounce on ANY failure NASA had as an excuse to cancel it, which is a large part of the reason for the huge safety precautions. The o-ring fuckup almost did them in. If NASA was loose with regulations, they would have gotten cancelled, and if they are too strict with regulations, they get ridiculed. It's a lose-lose. SpaceX has no such oversight, and the GOP loves Musk. A SpaceX rocket could kill a hundred people and SpaceX would just keep truckin' like nothing happened (recall, Musk has said repeatedly deaths are part of progress). NASA had no such luxury. I'm certain there was waste due to nepotism, but let's not pretend Musk isn't the beneficiary of the same nepotism. (It all should end, and hope some day it does, call me naive.)