It can't be made safe enough? I call bullshit, the basic design is sound even if it was designed by committee and with a huge investment and time I'm sure it could be made as safe as you can get in space travel. The safety of the craft it self doesn't even come into play on the reason its being scrapped. Not really, after all the main reason STS is going away is because it will no longer serve a purpose after the ISS is complete. Certainly not if we want to go back to the moon, and certainly not if we want to go to Mars. Then there is the cost which also plays into why its being scrapped. If it couldn't be made safe on the other hand I doubt we'd still be flying it if safety was THAT much of a concern.
Yes but that wasn't the point I was trying to make, the dude was trying to claim that the Soyuz was safer simply on the basis that fewer people have died on the spacecraft. I wasn't contesting that the Shuttle was or was not safer than the Soyuz, just the faulty logic in claiming the Soyuz is safer simply on a number that has no basis for comparison.
So lets get to my original point. Just because more people have died on the shuttle than in the Soyuz doesn't automatically mean the Soyuz safer. Why? The Soyuz and shuttle have had the same failure rate of spacecraft with humans aboard. Except instead of 14 people dying, four people died because at the time only one cosmonaut was aboard Soyuz 1 and three aboard Soyuz 11. Okay, is that perfectly clear? Comparing the safety of a spacecraft only on the number of fatalities is stupid, especially when those two spacecraft are completely different in the number of people they can carry.
The point I was trying to make is that the Shuttle has had just as many failures when it comes to spacecraft having humans on board. Just because the US space program has more fatalities with the Shuttle compared to the Soyuz doesn't automatically mean the Soyuz is safer. Nor does it mean that when the Soyuz takes over the role of transporting Astronauts to the ISS in 2010 that there isn't a possibility of some kind of failure. They've had several close calls in recent years.
I agree with this statement.
"SpaceX are infinitely more likely to reach orbit than Scaled Composites."
Why do I think so? Simple, rocketplanes are cheaper and safer but thus far they can't reach orbit. To reach orbit your best bet is still a rocket. While Rutan knows how to build aircraft and rockplanes he has absolutely no experience in building rockets.
but they've only ever lost four cosmonauts - IIRC, all to re-entry problems
Only four? Well gee that must mean the Soyuz is safer. 4 against 14 obviously wins. -_- That being said there is a major difference between the Shuttle & the Soyuz. Mainly size, so the shuttle carries more people.
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It can't be made safe enough? I call bullshit, the basic design is sound even if it was designed by committee and with a huge investment and time I'm sure it could be made as safe as you can get in space travel. The safety of the craft it self doesn't even come into play on the reason its being scrapped. Not really, after all the main reason STS is going away is because it will no longer serve a purpose after the ISS is complete. Certainly not if we want to go back to the moon, and certainly not if we want to go to Mars. Then there is the cost which also plays into why its being scrapped. If it couldn't be made safe on the other hand I doubt we'd still be flying it if safety was THAT much of a concern.
Yes but that wasn't the point I was trying to make, the dude was trying to claim that the Soyuz was safer simply on the basis that fewer people have died on the spacecraft. I wasn't contesting that the Shuttle was or was not safer than the Soyuz, just the faulty logic in claiming the Soyuz is safer simply on a number that has no basis for comparison.
So lets get to my original point. Just because more people have died on the shuttle than in the Soyuz doesn't automatically mean the Soyuz safer. Why? The Soyuz and shuttle have had the same failure rate of spacecraft with humans aboard. Except instead of 14 people dying, four people died because at the time only one cosmonaut was aboard Soyuz 1 and three aboard Soyuz 11. Okay, is that perfectly clear? Comparing the safety of a spacecraft only on the number of fatalities is stupid, especially when those two spacecraft are completely different in the number of people they can carry.
The point I was trying to make is that the Shuttle has had just as many failures when it comes to spacecraft having humans on board. Just because the US space program has more fatalities with the Shuttle compared to the Soyuz doesn't automatically mean the Soyuz is safer. Nor does it mean that when the Soyuz takes over the role of transporting Astronauts to the ISS in 2010 that there isn't a possibility of some kind of failure. They've had several close calls in recent years.
I agree with this statement. "SpaceX are infinitely more likely to reach orbit than Scaled Composites." Why do I think so? Simple, rocketplanes are cheaper and safer but thus far they can't reach orbit. To reach orbit your best bet is still a rocket. While Rutan knows how to build aircraft and rockplanes he has absolutely no experience in building rockets.
but they've only ever lost four cosmonauts - IIRC, all to re-entry problems Only four? Well gee that must mean the Soyuz is safer. 4 against 14 obviously wins. -_- That being said there is a major difference between the Shuttle & the Soyuz. Mainly size, so the shuttle carries more people.