How BFR Earth-to-Earth Might Actually Get Started

[TripleSeven]

John Smith 19

very well said...your post was one of the best on this thread, and perhaps on this board

and thanks for reminding me of Lee Majors other trip into space...

I agree with everything you have wrote

in my view Musk will eventually get some version of BFR flying...but it wont be the B9 to B707 or even KC97 leap that many here hope for all the reasons you mention. 

what I think will happen is that BFR will replace the Falcon stick more as a counter to what BO is doing, and the fact that except for a methane burner upper stage...the stick has more or less gone as far as it can go.  But BFR will not be the last rocket they build and they will build quite a few versions of it

I have asked the question here before and either did not see an answer or it never came...but I really doubt Musk has a clue why the B747 does nto have an LAS...why it nor the generations of air transport that have preceeded it DONT is simple.  the complexity of such a system would ADD not subtract from the overall risk of flight.

military pilots have ejection systems because of the risk of combat.  small plane pilots have the "chute" on their plane because of pilot training and error which add a risk factor to the plane greater then teh risk and complexity of the chute

that is not true of rockets, and will likely not be for sometime.  my guess is by the time my four year old is my age...they will probably be there...if of course a market develops which funds all this

again a very good post

[colbourne]

I cant accept that there is much of a market for freight to totally justify P2P as there are not many goods where it is worth paying such high prices to save only max 20 hours of delivery time, but agree that it will be freight that is offered first (at subsidised rates) until the safety has been proven. Initially delays in launches , poor schedules ie 1 a day, and the unreliability of the early craft will lose much of the margin in time of such a service, but for light weight  items such as replacement computer parts there may be demand for such a service especially when there are several flights a day to each destination.

Only when the safety level has been shown will commercial passengers be allowed to fly, but there are other passengers where safety is of less concern and speed is essential, such as military fast response , and emergency workers.

I expect to see the first P2P flight within 10 years just to prove that it can be done. Once safety has been proven, if the cost is reasonable their is much potential for such a service.
I disagree that 1st class passengers (those expecting high class service and food) are the market, as the flight time is so short and will never be classed as luxury because of the high G- loads and zero-G element of the flight. Even food and drink might not be sensible in such circumstances. It might still appeal to people who would have been 1st class passengers on planes, so the prices can still be kept high, as these people probably value their time highly.
Aiming to cover the most distant mass routes first, makes sense. Many people dont like sitting on a plane for 20 hours and will gladly pay a high premium for a short (in time) flight and for the experience of space.
Concorde only made relatively short flights  where the time savings were not that great after all the time wasted getting to and from the airport and the hassles of customs and airports are allowed for. A flight from NY to Perth(Aus) or Hong Kong taking only 30 minutes would be of much greater benefit.
There will still be many people who will want to simply experience a space flight, and this may be the cheapest way for them , also allowing them to visit distant places at the same time. I see this being a very large market, even if each person only makes one flight.

[john smith 19]

Only when the safety level has been shown will commercial passengers be allowed to fly, but there are other passengers where safety is of less concern and speed is essential, such as military fast response , and emergency workers.

Sort of, assuming a safe landing area can be secured. Otherwise they will make quite tempting targets for opposing forces.  Blowing up a countries transports on the ground always seems a pretty sensible idea to me (as it did to the SAS in the Western Desert in 1943).

I disagree that 1st class passengers (those expecting high class service and food) are the market, as the flight time is so short and will never be classed as luxury because of the high G- loads and zero-G element of the flight. Even food and drink might not be sensible in such circumstances. It might still appeal to people who would have been 1st class passengers on planes, so the prices can still be kept high, as these people probably value their time highly.

The price is about the time saved.

Aiming to cover the most distant mass routes first, makes sense. Many people dont like sitting on a plane for 20 hours and will gladly pay a high premium for a short (in time) flight and for the experience of space.
Concorde only made relatively short flights  where the time savings were not that great after all the time wasted getting to and from the airport and the hassles of customs and airports are allowed for.

NYC to London or Paris and back in a day seemed to worth it.  If that had included Frankfurt the market would have been much bigger (note all are key financial centres).
Higher grade fares offer more amenities because they can't offer what business travelers really want.
Less time on the aircraft.

A flight from NY to Perth(Aus) or Hong Kong taking only 30 minutes would be of much greater benefit.
There will still be many people who will want to simply experience a space flight, and this may be the cheapest way for them , also allowing them to visit distant places at the same time. I see this being a very large market, even if each person only makes one flight.

I think we can all see the potential (as Philip Bono did in the late 60's).
It's a question of how to exploit that potential, given the limitations of the technology.

[meekGee]

I cant accept that there is much of a market for freight to totally justify P2P as there are not many goods where it is worth paying such high prices to save only max 20 hours of delivery time, but agree that it will be freight that is offered first (at subsidised rates) until the safety has been proven. Initially delays in launches , poor schedules ie 1 a day, and the unreliability of the early craft will lose much of the margin in time of such a service, but for light weight  items such as replacement computer parts there may be demand for such a service especially when there are several flights a day to each destination.

Only when the safety level has been shown will commercial passengers be allowed to fly, but there are other passengers where safety is of less concern and speed is essential, such as military fast response , and emergency workers.

I expect to see the first P2P flight within 10 years just to prove that it can be done. Once safety has been proven, if the cost is reasonable their is much potential for such a service.
I disagree that 1st class passengers (those expecting high class service and food) are the market, as the flight time is so short and will never be classed as luxury because of the high G- loads and zero-G element of the flight. Even food and drink might not be sensible in such circumstances. It might still appeal to people who would have been 1st class passengers on planes, so the prices can still be kept high, as these people probably value their time highly.
Aiming to cover the most distant mass routes first, makes sense. Many people dont like sitting on a plane for 20 hours and will gladly pay a high premium for a short (in time) flight and for the experience of space.
Concorde only made relatively short flights  where the time savings were not that great after all the time wasted getting to and from the airport and the hassles of customs and airports are allowed for. A flight from NY to Perth(Aus) or Hong Kong taking only 30 minutes would be of much greater benefit.
There will still be many people who will want to simply experience a space flight, and this may be the cheapest way for them , also allowing them to visit distant places at the same time. I see this being a very large market, even if each person only makes one flight.

P2P prices are a function of fuel cost, crew cost, amortized equioment cost, and MRO.

BFS can fly with comparable-ish fuel, no crew, many times per day (helps amortization cost), and with yet-unknown MRO costs.

I don't think you can call it yet as far as the eventual BFS service cost being higher than jetliners. Some of these factors favor BFS.

-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down

[TripleSeven]

I cant accept that there is much of a market for freight to totally justify P2P as there are not many goods where it is worth paying such high prices to save only max 20 hours of delivery time, but agree that it will be freight that is offered first (at subsidised rates) until the safety has been proven. Initially delays in launches , poor schedules ie 1 a day, and the unreliability of the early craft will lose much of the margin in time of such a service, but for light weight  items such as replacement computer parts there may be demand for such a service especially when there are several flights a day to each destination.

Only when the safety level has been shown will commercial passengers be allowed to fly, but there are other passengers where safety is of less concern and speed is essential, such as military fast response , and emergency workers.

I expect to see the first P2P flight within 10 years just to prove that it can be done. Once safety has been proven, if the cost is reasonable their is much potential for such a service.
I disagree that 1st class passengers (those expecting high class service and food) are the market, as the flight time is so short and will never be classed as luxury because of the high G- loads and zero-G element of the flight. Even food and drink might not be sensible in such circumstances. It might still appeal to people who would have been 1st class passengers on planes, so the prices can still be kept high, as these people probably value their time highly.
Aiming to cover the most distant mass routes first, makes sense. Many people dont like sitting on a plane for 20 hours and will gladly pay a high premium for a short (in time) flight and for the experience of space.
Concorde only made relatively short flights  where the time savings were not that great after all the time wasted getting to and from the airport and the hassles of customs and airports are allowed for. A flight from NY to Perth(Aus) or Hong Kong taking only 30 minutes would be of much greater benefit.
There will still be many people who will want to simply experience a space flight, and this may be the cheapest way for them , also allowing them to visit distant places at the same time. I see this being a very large market, even if each person only makes one flight.

P2P prices are a function of fuel cost, crew cost, amortized equioment cost, and MRO.

BFS can fly with comparable-ish fuel, no crew, many times per day, and with yet unknown MRO costs.

I don't think you can call it yet as far as the eventual service cost being higher than jetliners.

-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down

  depends on when "eventually" is for the next 20 years...not a chance

the fly in all this is if the Skylon engine works...if that works the world changes

[LMT]

Destination Noodling

I think the appeal of BFR for point to point will more likely come in the form of slower travel, not faster.

The cruise ship industry in 2015 was $23.3B, people pay a huge amount of money to take a slow form of transportation for the sake of the experience. Offer people a luxury travel package, New York to Hong Kong via an 8 hour orbit or multi day trip and you offer people an unforgettable experience that justifies a higher, and slower travel time.

Cruise ships end at their starting points.  That's the whole point of a cruise ship as opposed to an ocean liner.  Ocean liners died out.

The equivalent of a cruise ship for BFR would be to go into orbit for a while, then come back to land where the flight took off.  In other words, space tourism, not point-to-point.

Cruise lines charge more for trips to interesting destinations.  For this reason much effort and investment goes into creation of the most interesting destinations.  So, at a LEO resort, what would be the most interesting things?  And how might you deliver them to LEO, efficiently?  Open questions.

As ticket price is tightly coupled to destination value, this "destination noodling" is more important to the initial business case than, say, the price of LOX, the number of windows in transit, or crew salaries.

Would you pay $1,599 to use a beach cabana for a day? Royal Caribbean is betting that at least a few people will.

The line has released a price list for its soon-to-be-revamped private island in The Bahamas, CocoCay, that shows new over-water cabanas will cost up to $1,599 in peak season.

[envy887]

I have asked the question here before and either did not see an answer or it never came...but I really doubt Musk has a clue why the B747 does nto have an LAS...why it nor the generations of air transport that have preceeded it DONT is simple.  the complexity of such a system would ADD not subtract from the overall risk of flight. ... that is not true of rockets, and will likely not be for sometime.  my guess is by the time my four year old is my age...they will probably be there...if of course a market develops which funds all this

This has been pointed out many times on this forum, and Musk is certainly well aware of it.

Since an escape system for a orbital transport is necessarily much more complex and dangerous and heavy than one for a 747 (you would never see hypergolic propellants or large solid rockets on a 747 for that purpose!), I doubt that the time to such a tipping point in risk is nearly as far away as you think. It should follow shortly after a gas-and-go fully reusable orbital architecture is operational, and will within a couple of generations at most.

This does not mean that orbital flight will be as safe as commercial aviation in that time period. It just means that the weight, complexity, and risk added by a LES will no longer work to improve the probability of LOC over the level afforded by focusing the same effort on systems redundancy.

[Cheapchips]

the fly in all this is if the Skylon engine works...if that works the world changes

Assume your talking about a Sabre powered hypersonic aircraft rather than the Skylon SSTO vehicle?

P2p should still be significantly faster overall.  I don't see that hypersonic flight wipes out the business case for a business class-ish p2p ticket.

I'm not really up on what's likely to leave the drawing board for hypersonic planes.  Wouldn't they likely to be limited to 100 or so passengers?  That'd make a cheap ticket price challenging.  Ignoring the risks of exploding them, BRS should be able to take more passengers than that.

[MikeAtkinson]

the fly in all this is if the Skylon engine works...if that works the world changes

Assume your talking about a Sabre powered hypersonic aircraft rather than the Skylon SSTO vehicle?

P2p should still be significantly faster overall.  I don't see that hypersonic flight wipes out the business case for a business class-ish p2p ticket.

I'm not really up on what's likely to leave the drawing board for hypersonic planes.  Wouldn't they likely to be limited to 100 or so passengers?  That'd make a cheap ticket price challenging.  Ignoring the risks of exploding them, BRS should be able to take more passengers than that.

It will probably be difficult to fit a SABRE powered hypersonic aircraft into existing airports; because of noise, runway length, conflicts with other aircraft on approach, etc.

My guess is that vertical take-off electric powered aircraft will dominate in about 20 years time. They can fly higher than air-breathing engines allow, and noise mostly kept within airport bounds. All (!) that is needed is better batteries.

[envy887]

the fly in all this is if the Skylon engine works...if that works the world changes

Assume your talking about a Sabre powered hypersonic aircraft rather than the Skylon SSTO vehicle?

P2p should still be significantly faster overall.  I don't see that hypersonic flight wipes out the business case for a business class-ish p2p ticket.

I'm not really up on what's likely to leave the drawing board for hypersonic planes.  Wouldn't they likely to be limited to 100 or so passengers?  That'd make a cheap ticket price challenging.  Ignoring the risks of exploding them, BRS should be able to take more passengers than that.

Aircraft can't do supersonic or hypersonic overflights of populated areas, which severely limits their utility compared to exoatmospheric overflight.

And supporting a LH2/LOX aircraft adds significant infrastructure costs. Not as much as a full spaceport, but still significant. It can't just operate out of any existing airport as it is.

[john smith 19]

Assume your talking about a Sabre powered hypersonic aircraft rather than the Skylon SSTO vehicle?

P2p should still be significantly faster overall.  I don't see that hypersonic flight wipes out the business case for a business class-ish p2p ticket.

On paper "maybe". IRL, when you factor in the radical shift from HTO to VTO issues civil aviation authorities will have to accommodate, the massive additional construction costs and times for the offshore platofrms (that can't be shared with any other vehicle, unlike an airport) and the non trivial ITAR aspects of what is essentially an ICBM architecture and the answer could just as easily be "maybe not."

I'm not really up on what's likely to leave the drawing board for hypersonic planes.  Wouldn't they likely to be limited to 100 or so passengers?  That'd make a cheap ticket price challenging.  Ignoring the risks of exploding them, BRS should be able to take more passengers than that.

LAPCAT (the EU project looking at future commercial hypersonic aircraft) was targeting M8. the REL A2 design could do M5. Nothing else came close in range and passenger size.
The whole programme was designed on the lessons learned from Concorde IE that it was too small to carry enough payload to justify the development costs.

For an airliner REL developed the Scimatar deeply pre-cooled turbo ramjet concept,which essentially took the engine nacelle of the SR71, turned it inside out, and added deep pre cooling to allow better compression. BTW they also seemed to have solved the issue of NoX generation in the high atmosphere, which was another of the key requirements of a successful design.

This engine was explicitly designed as a hypersonic cruise engine.  It must have an atmosphere. OTOH if you're building a HTO TSTO SABRE would give you flexibility, as you could gradually have it operate over more and more of the trajectory to space.

What people are hoping is that SX can leverage BFR development and (essentially) get a sub orbital P2P transportation system for free 

Unfortunately there is a lot more to building a global P2P suborbital transportation network than the vehicles "free" or not.

While I've suggested a few possible workarounds  the fact is BFR is probably too damm big (and carries too much ITAR baggage) to support the market on a commercial basis.

Could it help offset the R&D and build costs with paying load over a months, rather than the 26month windows between Earth/Mars trips? Certainly (if the same design can be used without any major changes)
Will it?
That's much more doubtful.

[john smith 19]

It will probably be difficult to fit a SABRE powered hypersonic aircraft into existing airports; because of noise, runway length, conflicts with other aircraft on approach, etc.

Hence why Scimatar was designed for LAPCAT. SABRE is really for space launch (SSTO or TSTO) and likely to operate out of specialized runways. This has been known since REL's founding.

My guess is that vertical take-off electric powered aircraft will dominate in about 20 years time.

Based on what? RockeLab realized the best thing you can do with a SoA battery pack is use it to pump rocket fuel, which is much more energy dense

They can fly higher than air-breathing engines allow, and noise mostly kept within airport bounds. All (!) that is needed is better batteries.

How? What your describing is essentially a battery driven fan.
No air --> no lift.

Run the numbers. I'd guess you're looking at batteries not a little better, more like 100x better.

When it comes to compact high density power a system with a liquid fuel mixed with air pretty much beats everything outside a Gerry Anderson film. 

Prototype designs with separate lift/cruise engines flew in the 1960's. Only the Harrier became operational.
It took real smarts to make 1 engine do both jobs well enough. 

[TripleSeven]

I have asked the question here before and either did not see an answer or it never came...but I really doubt Musk has a clue why the B747 does nto have an LAS...why it nor the generations of air transport that have preceeded it DONT is simple.  the complexity of such a system would ADD not subtract from the overall risk of flight. ... that is not true of rockets, and will likely not be for sometime.  my guess is by the time my four year old is my age...they will probably be there...if of course a market develops which funds all this

This has been pointed out many times on this forum, and Musk is certainly well aware of it.

Since an escape system for a orbital transport is necessarily much more complex and dangerous and heavy than one for a 747 (you would never see hypergolic propellants or large solid rockets on a 747 for that purpose!), I doubt that the time to such a tipping point in risk is nearly as far away as you think. It should follow shortly after a gas-and-go fully reusable orbital architecture is operational, and will within a couple of generations at most.

This does not mean that orbital flight will be as safe as commercial aviation in that time period. It just means that the weight, complexity, and risk added by a LES will no longer work to improve the probability of LOC over the level afforded by focusing the same effort on systems redundancy.

I dont know that I agree with your conclusion in the second paragraph.  the escape system for a 747 would be well another 747...a very complex task

the third I am probably more in agreement with

LAS are judgment calls.  the shuttle did not have one, all the efforts made toward one, the space suits, the escape slide etc were in name only just useless.

the commercial airlines lost many 377's and Constellations going to Hawaii and Europe...some just vanished...

I think what once?  twice? have the Russians used one

to me it says more about the rewards of human spaceflight than anything else...ie unlike commercial aviation, it is one accident away from stopping.  no one ever said that about commercial read airline flying never.  not even after Grand Canyon

[TripleSeven]

the fly in all this is if the Skylon engine works...if that works the world changes

Assume your talking about a Sabre powered hypersonic aircraft rather than the Skylon SSTO vehicle?

P2p should still be significantly faster overall.  I don't see that hypersonic flight wipes out the business case for a business class-ish p2p ticket.

I'm not really up on what's likely to leave the drawing board for hypersonic planes.  Wouldn't they likely to be limited to 100 or so passengers?  That'd make a cheap ticket price challenging.  Ignoring the risks of exploding them, BRS should be able to take more passengers than that.

yeah that one....the SABRE engine...sorry was tired had been getting ready for my presentation on tail strikes

point to point would likely be faster but...the economics would favor hypersonic as would the environment on the vehicle

and no plane/pp or anything is fast enough to outrun jet lag

[guckyfan]

and no plane/pp or anything is fast enough to outrun jet lag

Sure it is. As Gwynne Shotwell said, you can go to your destination, have a meeting and be back home for dinner. No jetlag problem.

[Cheapchips]

and no plane/pp or anything is fast enough to outrun jet lag

Sure it is. As Gwynne Shotwell said, you can go to your destination, have a meeting and be back home for dinner. No jetlag problem.

That's one expensive meeting. Or alternatively a massive saving on hotels. 

I'd have thought it would help longer duration stays as well.  I don't sleep well on flights.  Getting 6 hours plus of that back in my own bed should help somewhat.

[envy887]

I have asked the question here before and either did not see an answer or it never came...but I really doubt Musk has a clue why the B747 does nto have an LAS...why it nor the generations of air transport that have preceeded it DONT is simple.  the complexity of such a system would ADD not subtract from the overall risk of flight. ... that is not true of rockets, and will likely not be for sometime.  my guess is by the time my four year old is my age...they will probably be there...if of course a market develops which funds all this

This has been pointed out many times on this forum, and Musk is certainly well aware of it.

Since an escape system for a orbital transport is necessarily much more complex and dangerous and heavy than one for a 747 (you would never see hypergolic propellants or large solid rockets on a 747 for that purpose!), I doubt that the time to such a tipping point in risk is nearly as far away as you think. It should follow shortly after a gas-and-go fully reusable orbital architecture is operational, and will within a couple of generations at most.

This does not mean that orbital flight will be as safe as commercial aviation in that time period. It just means that the weight, complexity, and risk added by a LES will no longer work to improve the probability of LOC over the level afforded by focusing the same effort on systems redundancy.

I dont know that I agree with your conclusion in the second paragraph.  the escape system for a 747 would be well another 747...a very complex task

the third I am probably more in agreement with

LAS are judgment calls.  the shuttle did not have one, all the efforts made toward one, the space suits, the escape slide etc were in name only just useless.

the commercial airlines lost many 377's and Constellations going to Hawaii and Europe...some just vanished...

I think what once?  twice? have the Russians used one

to me it says more about the rewards of human spaceflight than anything else...ie unlike commercial aviation, it is one accident away from stopping.  no one ever said that about commercial read airline flying never.  not even after Grand Canyon

I don't think HSF is one accident away from stopping. It didn't stop for any of the many previous accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

[TripleSeven]

and no plane/pp or anything is fast enough to outrun jet lag

Sure it is. As Gwynne Shotwell said, you can go to your destination, have a meeting and be back home for dinner. No jetlag problem.

That's one expensive meeting. Or alternatively a massive saving on hotels. 

I'd have thought it would help longer duration stays as well.  I don't sleep well on flights.  Getting 6 hours plus of that back in my own bed should help somewhat.

exactly...our sales department would tell you that people "telecon for meetings" and fly for "negotiations"

[TripleSeven]

I have asked the question here before and either did not see an answer or it never came...but I really doubt Musk has a clue why the B747 does nto have an LAS...why it nor the generations of air transport that have preceeded it DONT is simple.  the complexity of such a system would ADD not subtract from the overall risk of flight. ... that is not true of rockets, and will likely not be for sometime.  my guess is by the time my four year old is my age...they will probably be there...if of course a market develops which funds all this

This has been pointed out many times on this forum, and Musk is certainly well aware of it.

Since an escape system for a orbital transport is necessarily much more complex and dangerous and heavy than one for a 747 (you would never see hypergolic propellants or large solid rockets on a 747 for that purpose!), I doubt that the time to such a tipping point in risk is nearly as far away as you think. It should follow shortly after a gas-and-go fully reusable orbital architecture is operational, and will within a couple of generations at most.

This does not mean that orbital flight will be as safe as commercial aviation in that time period. It just means that the weight, complexity, and risk added by a LES will no longer work to improve the probability of LOC over the level afforded by focusing the same effort on systems redundancy.

I dont know that I agree with your conclusion in the second paragraph.  the escape system for a 747 would be well another 747...a very complex task

the third I am probably more in agreement with

LAS are judgment calls.  the shuttle did not have one, all the efforts made toward one, the space suits, the escape slide etc were in name only just useless.

the commercial airlines lost many 377's and Constellations going to Hawaii and Europe...some just vanished...

I think what once?  twice? have the Russians used one

to me it says more about the rewards of human spaceflight than anything else...ie unlike commercial aviation, it is one accident away from stopping.  no one ever said that about commercial read airline flying never.  not even after Grand Canyon

I don't think HSF is one accident away from stopping. It didn't stop for any of the many previous accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

well the shuttle essentially stopped after two accidents...or really 1 a long time ago and 1 a bunch of years latter

it stopped with no replacement in sight and has kind of stopped in the US...

with nothing that humans do that exceeds the value of them being in space...we are not that many "events" right now away from stopping

I am kind of familiar with the debates that went on after the loss of Columbia in the administration...no one really was enthusiastic about restarting.

[envy887]

I have asked the question here before and either did not see an answer or it never came...but I really doubt Musk has a clue why the B747 does nto have an LAS...why it nor the generations of air transport that have preceeded it DONT is simple.  the complexity of such a system would ADD not subtract from the overall risk of flight. ... that is not true of rockets, and will likely not be for sometime.  my guess is by the time my four year old is my age...they will probably be there...if of course a market develops which funds all this

This has been pointed out many times on this forum, and Musk is certainly well aware of it.

Since an escape system for a orbital transport is necessarily much more complex and dangerous and heavy than one for a 747 (you would never see hypergolic propellants or large solid rockets on a 747 for that purpose!), I doubt that the time to such a tipping point in risk is nearly as far away as you think. It should follow shortly after a gas-and-go fully reusable orbital architecture is operational, and will within a couple of generations at most.

This does not mean that orbital flight will be as safe as commercial aviation in that time period. It just means that the weight, complexity, and risk added by a LES will no longer work to improve the probability of LOC over the level afforded by focusing the same effort on systems redundancy.

I dont know that I agree with your conclusion in the second paragraph.  the escape system for a 747 would be well another 747...a very complex task

the third I am probably more in agreement with

LAS are judgment calls.  the shuttle did not have one, all the efforts made toward one, the space suits, the escape slide etc were in name only just useless.

the commercial airlines lost many 377's and Constellations going to Hawaii and Europe...some just vanished...

I think what once?  twice? have the Russians used one

to me it says more about the rewards of human spaceflight than anything else...ie unlike commercial aviation, it is one accident away from stopping.  no one ever said that about commercial read airline flying never.  not even after Grand Canyon

I don't think HSF is one accident away from stopping. It didn't stop for any of the many previous accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

well the shuttle essentially stopped after two accidents...or really 1 a long time ago and 1 a bunch of years latter

it stopped with no replacement in sight and has kind of stopped in the US...

with nothing that humans do that exceeds the value of them being in space...we are not that many "events" right now away from stopping

I am kind of familiar with the debates that went on after the loss of Columbia in the administration...no one really was enthusiastic about restarting.

Every spacecraft stops flying after an accident. Columbia's loss didn't stop work on the Shuttle. It didn't stop work on SpaceShipOne, or SpaceShipTwo. It didn't stop work on Orion. It accelerated the commercial crew program, if anything. And that's not even considering Shenzhou or Soyuz.