Quote from: AbuSimbel on 10/07/2017 09:50 amI' with Robotbeat here: it's possible that rockets fundamentally cannot reach modern aircrafts levels of safety, but I fail to see how they couldn't reach acceptable reliability for routine commercial operations. And, not being an engineer thus not understanding the technicalities as robotbeat does, the thing I can comment on is how irrational it seems to draw similar pessimistic conclusions when talking about rockets, machines that fly less then 100 times per year and are still in their infancy vs airliners. That will change with BFR and full reusability. Instead of making assumptions we should wait and see (or try and see, if you are an aerospace company: the sad thing is that after the Shuttle we had to wait for SX and BO for someone to do this).Expendable rockets fly once; all the world's rockets are expendable less one. Rocketry as an industry is in its infancy.
I' with Robotbeat here: it's possible that rockets fundamentally cannot reach modern aircrafts levels of safety, but I fail to see how they couldn't reach acceptable reliability for routine commercial operations. And, not being an engineer thus not understanding the technicalities as robotbeat does, the thing I can comment on is how irrational it seems to draw similar pessimistic conclusions when talking about rockets, machines that fly less then 100 times per year and are still in their infancy vs airliners. That will change with BFR and full reusability. Instead of making assumptions we should wait and see (or try and see, if you are an aerospace company: the sad thing is that after the Shuttle we had to wait for SX and BO for someone to do this).
Meh, I disagree with your whole shpiel. A lot of people died in the 1950s in aircraft. But people still flew, and if SpaceX gets to that reliability level, they'll be fine even for point to point due to lifetime saved in getting to destination faster.People are treating LAS as if it's magic and saves you in all instances. It ain't magic. It'll fail to save you 1 time out of 10, and that's just on the way up. And such systems can kill you all by themselves even if the rocket is fine: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2548135/Coroner-slams-ejector-seat-manufacturer-failing-warn-RAF-defects-led-death-Red-Arrows-pilot.htmlA LASless BFR that has flown and been recovered 2000 times safely is a lot safer than Orion or Soyuz will ever be.
I' with Robotbeat here: it's possible that rockets fundamentally cannot reach modern aircrafts levels of safety, but I fail to see how they couldn't reach acceptable reliability for routine commercial operations.
Quote from: AbuSimbel on 10/07/2017 09:50 amI' with Robotbeat here: it's possible that rockets fundamentally cannot reach modern aircrafts levels of safety, but I fail to see how they couldn't reach acceptable reliability for routine commercial operations. Those two things are in direct conflict.Aircraft are required to be as safe as they are by entities like the FAA. Why would they allow a far less safe vehicle to be in "routine commercial operations" when they don't for airliners?
Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/07/2017 03:08 amMeh, I disagree with your whole shpiel. A lot of people died in the 1950s in aircraft. But people still flew, and if SpaceX gets to that reliability level, they'll be fine even for point to point due to lifetime saved in getting to destination faster.People are treating LAS as if it's magic and saves you in all instances. It ain't magic. It'll fail to save you 1 time out of 10, and that's just on the way up. And such systems can kill you all by themselves even if the rocket is fine: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2548135/Coroner-slams-ejector-seat-manufacturer-failing-warn-RAF-defects-led-death-Red-Arrows-pilot.htmlA LASless BFR that has flown and been recovered 2000 times safely is a lot safer than Orion or Soyuz will ever be.What you just said is that this rocket is going to be at least 100 times safer than any rocket before it, but that any LAS the same company builds won't be any safer than historical LAS's.Makes zero sense.
There are a list of reasons to conclude this design can at least be safer than the shuttle by a significant margin.Also, unlike the shuttle, it looks to me like we will have a good long time (or many launches) to establish the safety of the BFS architecture before committing to manned launches.As to it's ultimate safety, I know nobody knows.. but we can know we will know before we need to know :-)
Quote from: Lee Jay on 10/07/2017 05:31 pmQuote from: AbuSimbel on 10/07/2017 09:50 amI' with Robotbeat here: it's possible that rockets fundamentally cannot reach modern aircrafts levels of safety, but I fail to see how they couldn't reach acceptable reliability for routine commercial operations. Those two things are in direct conflict.Aircraft are required to be as safe as they are by entities like the FAA. Why would they allow a far less safe vehicle to be in "routine commercial operations" when they don't for airliners?Because this isn't an airliner. Regulations can change. FAA already was planning to allow routine commercial operations for space tourism.
And yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable for BFR to achieve 99.99% reliability long-term, provided it can get anywhere near the cost figure it's shooting for.
Aircraft are required to be as safe as they are by entities like the FAA. Why would they allow a far less safe vehicle to be in "routine commercial operations" when they don't for airliners?
Perhaps we should examine a different metric. Maybe we should examine the total human miles flown on all US space craft flights and divide that by 14 to determine the average number of miles traveled per fatality. Then compare that to the number of miles traveled per fatality in cars.
Or do you expect average folks to accept an accident rate that's thousands of times worse than an airliner?