7 ms·

I'm unsure of the specifics of the Dragon capsule, but I know that on the Soyuz even the seats themselves are custom molded to each astronaut. You've gotta keep

I'm unsure of the specifics of the Dragon capsule, but I know that on the Soyuz even the seats themselves are custom molded to each astronaut. You've gotta keep in mind that the capsules are designed for failure scenarios. That includes things like extremely high g force ejections (pushing close to 20g) from a failing rocket, depressurization scenarios, and so on. It all seems a bit over the top when things go well, but especially as we start to up the rate of sending people into space - things don't go well quite often. The Space Shuttle only sent people to space 135 times, and there was a complete loss of life on two of those missions. If aircraft had that sort of failure rate then you'd see a plane dropping out of the sky about once a minute, literally.

jonplackett 2y ago
That is quite the analogy. Not sure if it says more about the insane dangers of space or the insane reliability of airplanes.
- stbenjam 2y ago
  Aviation is insanely reliable. The 777 flew thousands of flights per day, every day for 18 years before its first fatality. It’s why scandals like the 737 Max are so appalling. We know better. Boeing knew better.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Personally I am amazed just what the focus on safety has achieved. The 737 Max was objectively surprisingly safe to fly at the time of the groundings. As in for the average flying passenger their odds were significantly higher to die of something else on the day of their flight than from a crash. But still we know how to do better and things improved. Imagine if we treated each individual car accident as a failure and millions of like could have been saved. It may have involved making breathalyzers a mandatory feature etc, but I suspect there’s a lot more we could do even without that.
    - beerandt 2y ago
      Decades of focusing on safety are being unwound because of ~decade plus (so far) focus on efficiency and environmental regulation. You can't maximize both.
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        What efficiency and environmental aspects of car design do you see as causes car accidents?
        beerandt 2y ago
        Dozens. #1 most obvious atm is autostop. Starter gives you enough juice to enter the intersection, but engine sputters and you get tboned. Same for not providing enough acceleration/ hp. Also 1 pedal driving. Electric cars that outweigh the 'old' 'inefficient' light trucks because batteries are heavy. Harder to stop, more wear on roads. Tires that are designed to extract breaking energy over stopping. Lithium fires (not cause but much more dangerous result). Aluminum crush zones in cars not big enough to have crush zones. Every design decision is a compromise.
      - dmd 2y ago
        That's right. It's definitely those darn environmental regulations. Nothing at all to do with short-term profits and MBA-syndrome.
        beerandt 2y ago
        Yet you probably loved cash for clunkers.
        Retric 2y ago
        Getting old cars off the road meaningfully improved safety even if it didn’t do much for the environment.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - phire 2y ago
    And none of the fatalities were the fault of the aircraft. One crashed on the runway after pilot error, killing three people (two of them weren't wearing seatbelts) One was shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile, killing all on board. And the other is a mystery, we can't even find the crash site. But most evidence points towards deliberate pilot suicide.
    - core_dumped 2y ago
      [EDIT]: apologies, my reading comprehension needs work. I thought you were referring to the 737 MAX, not the 777 What? Do you have a source for the last one? That sounds like corporate propaganda. It’s well understood AND PROVEN that the MCAS system (which was a system borrowed from decades old military code) was at fault for this incident. Saying it was suicide seems incredibly disrespectful to both pilots… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610 In the article it even states they found the wreckage…
      - ak217 2y ago
        The flight you linked was a Boeing 737. We are talking about the 777. To date, neither the 777 nor the 787 have had any passenger fatalities from any aircraft engineering flaw. That is a monumental achievement.
        core_dumped 2y ago
        I guess I misunderstood the comment I was replying to. The parent comment mentions the 737 MAX so I assumed that’s what the commenter was referencing. I have read up on the 777 and yes, I agree it’s incredibly safe statistically (as is the 787). I didn’t realize the commenter was talking about the Malaysia flight either. Apologies to them
- kevinventullo 2y ago
  Both I reckon. Still, I wonder what the safety record for airplanes was back when the total number of airplane flights ever taken was the same number as today’s total number of space flights ever taken.
- caconym_ 2y ago
  It says a lot about the insane dangers of the Space Shuttle in particular. There were several issues with its design that made it an accident waiting to happen, notably its spotty abort coverage on ascent (even worse pre-Challenger) and the exposure of its fragile thermal tiles to debris falling off the external tank. Both issues stem from basic architectural choices and could not easily have been solved without a radical redesign. I think Dragon 2 could easily be roughly an order of magnitude more reliable than the shuttle, if not more. It has full abort coverage and a TPS that doesn't habitually receive damage from falling debris, and is more robust to impacts besides; and its record so far is exemplary.
avmich 2y ago
> on the Soyuz even the seats themselves are custom molded to each astronaut The seats are standard, but each astronaut has their own mold, taken on Earth, which is put into the seat.
- dudeinjapan 2y ago
  Startup idea #18463: Butt molds as a service
- schiffern 2y ago
  The Soyuz seat liner (head is toward the right): https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/preview/5fe115c032f6b55acddad881-preview.jpg https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/preview/5fe115c... The completed Soyuz seat (head is toward the left): https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/middle/5de8f6c276d2313cf405e7f6-middle.jpg https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/middle/5de8f6c2... Source https://ar.culture.ru/en/subject/lozhement-kosmonavta-kov https://ar.culture.ru/en/subject/lozhement-kosmonavta-kov
  - avmich 2y ago
    Yes, the liner is quite comparable to the seat in size, if you mean that. Not sure about the weight.
philwelch 2y ago
When aircraft had that sort of failure rate, everyone involved learned from their mistakes and improved things until they became safer.

jonplackett 2y ago

That is quite the analogy. Not sure if it says more about the insane dangers of space or the insane reliability of airplanes.

stbenjam 2y ago
Aviation is insanely reliable. The 777 flew thousands of flights per day, every day for 18 years before its first fatality. It’s why scandals like the 737 Max are so appalling. We know better. Boeing knew better.
- Retric 2y ago
  Personally I am amazed just what the focus on safety has achieved. The 737 Max was objectively surprisingly safe to fly at the time of the groundings. As in for the average flying passenger their odds were significantly higher to die of something else on the day of their flight than from a crash. But still we know how to do better and things improved. Imagine if we treated each individual car accident as a failure and millions of like could have been saved. It may have involved making breathalyzers a mandatory feature etc, but I suspect there’s a lot more we could do even without that.
  - beerandt 2y ago
    Decades of focusing on safety are being unwound because of ~decade plus (so far) focus on efficiency and environmental regulation. You can't maximize both.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      What efficiency and environmental aspects of car design do you see as causes car accidents?
      - beerandt 2y ago
        Dozens. #1 most obvious atm is autostop. Starter gives you enough juice to enter the intersection, but engine sputters and you get tboned. Same for not providing enough acceleration/ hp. Also 1 pedal driving. Electric cars that outweigh the 'old' 'inefficient' light trucks because batteries are heavy. Harder to stop, more wear on roads. Tires that are designed to extract breaking energy over stopping. Lithium fires (not cause but much more dangerous result). Aluminum crush zones in cars not big enough to have crush zones. Every design decision is a compromise.
    - dmd 2y ago
      That's right. It's definitely those darn environmental regulations. Nothing at all to do with short-term profits and MBA-syndrome.
      - beerandt 2y ago
        Yet you probably loved cash for clunkers.
        Retric 2y ago
        Getting old cars off the road meaningfully improved safety even if it didn’t do much for the environment.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- phire 2y ago
  And none of the fatalities were the fault of the aircraft. One crashed on the runway after pilot error, killing three people (two of them weren't wearing seatbelts) One was shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile, killing all on board. And the other is a mystery, we can't even find the crash site. But most evidence points towards deliberate pilot suicide.
  - core_dumped 2y ago
    [EDIT]: apologies, my reading comprehension needs work. I thought you were referring to the 737 MAX, not the 777 What? Do you have a source for the last one? That sounds like corporate propaganda. It’s well understood AND PROVEN that the MCAS system (which was a system borrowed from decades old military code) was at fault for this incident. Saying it was suicide seems incredibly disrespectful to both pilots… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610 In the article it even states they found the wreckage…
    - ak217 2y ago
      The flight you linked was a Boeing 737. We are talking about the 777. To date, neither the 777 nor the 787 have had any passenger fatalities from any aircraft engineering flaw. That is a monumental achievement.
      - core_dumped 2y ago
        I guess I misunderstood the comment I was replying to. The parent comment mentions the 737 MAX so I assumed that’s what the commenter was referencing. I have read up on the 777 and yes, I agree it’s incredibly safe statistically (as is the 787). I didn’t realize the commenter was talking about the Malaysia flight either. Apologies to them
kevinventullo 2y ago
Both I reckon. Still, I wonder what the safety record for airplanes was back when the total number of airplane flights ever taken was the same number as today’s total number of space flights ever taken.
caconym_ 2y ago
It says a lot about the insane dangers of the Space Shuttle in particular. There were several issues with its design that made it an accident waiting to happen, notably its spotty abort coverage on ascent (even worse pre-Challenger) and the exposure of its fragile thermal tiles to debris falling off the external tank. Both issues stem from basic architectural choices and could not easily have been solved without a radical redesign. I think Dragon 2 could easily be roughly an order of magnitude more reliable than the shuttle, if not more. It has full abort coverage and a TPS that doesn't habitually receive damage from falling debris, and is more robust to impacts besides; and its record so far is exemplary.

avmich 2y ago

> on the Soyuz even the seats themselves are custom molded to each astronaut The seats are standard, but each astronaut has their own mold, taken on Earth, which is put into the seat.

dudeinjapan 2y ago
Startup idea #18463: Butt molds as a service
schiffern 2y ago
The Soyuz seat liner (head is toward the right): https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/preview/5fe115c032f6b55acddad881-preview.jpg https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/preview/5fe115c... The completed Soyuz seat (head is toward the left): https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/middle/5de8f6c276d2313cf405e7f6-middle.jpg https://ar.culture.ru/attachments/attachment/middle/5de8f6c2... Source https://ar.culture.ru/en/subject/lozhement-kosmonavta-kov https://ar.culture.ru/en/subject/lozhement-kosmonavta-kov
- avmich 2y ago
  Yes, the liner is quite comparable to the seat in size, if you mean that. Not sure about the weight.

philwelch 2y ago

When aircraft had that sort of failure rate, everyone involved learned from their mistakes and improved things until they became safer.