The orbiter (re-entry vehicle) is well know to lack range safety, unlike the full space shuttle (launch system). That is clear from my earlier comments. That is

The orbiter (re-entry vehicle) is well know to lack range safety, unlike the full space shuttle (launch system). That is clear from my earlier comments. That is not a point on which anyone is dis-agreeing. With that out of the way, lets look at the issue at hand. Two issues comprise range-safety and both are at play: (1) is the egineering; and (2) is the flight paths. Proper range safety requires both (1) and (2) combined. The orbiter-as-re-entry vehicle lacked both (1) and (2). Whist the shuttle launch system had them both. Certainly space X could engineer (1) and (2) using similar techniques at launch with no issue. The open question is simply providing for range safety for the re-entry/recovery portion of the flight. The shuttle providese little to no road-map in that regards. Just the opposite: it illustrates some of the difficulties.[0] Assuming an engineered solution is present (ie, pt1 above) what would the limitations on the flight-patch (ie, pt 2 above) need to be in order that the comination (1,2) together would qualify as "range safety" in the legitimate sense.[1] The ~rough~ answer seems to be (2') needs to be kept over water/open ocean. So, my question is more about ballistics math: what is the envelope of precision needed to keep something either (a) in the ocean; and/or (b) out of harms way if the event is triggered closer to land. The answer to that is something the engineers at SpaceX have surely considered. I don't know what those calculations show; it (surely) can be safely done up to some threshold. The question then simply is "what is the threshold"? _____________________ [0] The scale of the debris cone from a columbia's ("natually occurring") event @ 100,000+ ft is illustrative of a couple things. None of: China Lake, White Sands, and Barry Goldwater etc alone could ~readily contain such an event. We know this because all were proximate to the debbris path (ie, western CA, Southern AZ, South/Central NM). [1] see, eg s.6.2.1 (ff) of this report> http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/multimedia/docs/RangeSafetyManual.pdf http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/multimedia/docs/RangeSafetyManual....