Path: ...!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Torbjorn Lindgren Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: =?UTF-8?Q?Re=3A_=E2=80=9CDid_nobody_stop_to_think_what_might_happen?= =?UTF-8?Q?_in_an_emergency_in_space=3F=E2=80=9D?= Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2024 12:29:36 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 48 Message-ID: References: <4ovrcjtbirqdtfdim85fbrpvfj2du3p0ro@4ax.com> Injection-Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:29:36 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="73ccfa414949a1645356698529bb439f"; logging-data="3658743"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/21ys/rt1rqY839GAovHFYiehn1HKEbi4=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:214ovZoG4olYABEkxcl75rhvw8k= X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Bytes: 3208 Cryptoengineer wrote: >On 8/27/2024 1:40 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote: >> Paul S Person writes: >>> On Mon, 26 Aug 2024 16:34:21 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) >>> wrote: >>>> The still use Soviet Soyuz boosters. >>>> >>>> One might note that Putin desires the return of the Sovyetky Soyuz. >>> >>> They may use them (and lose them) but do they understand them well >>> enough to pair their spacecraft with ours? >> >> They routinely dock with the international space station, so the >> answer is yes. > >The US and the USSR jointly agreed to use a compatible docking >port over 50 years ago - remember Apollo-Soyuz in 1975? Its still >in use. > >The Soyuz launcher, btw, is one of the most reliable rockets ever >built. There have been over 1700 launches. It kind of varies depending on variant. Soyuz-FG was pretty good, 70 launches with just one failure but Soyuz-U was less so, a whopping 786 launches but also 22 failures (that they acknowledge!). And the record for the current version, Soyuz 2, is worse than U... One source gives: 160 orbital plus 1 suborbital, with 4 full failures and 2 partial. Another say: 178 total launches, with 7 full or partial failures, sources differ. The corresponding statistics for the current version of Falcon 9, Block 5 is: 311 orbital launches, 1 failure (Starlink 9-3), no partial failures. That's a failure rate more than an order of magnitude lower than Soyuz 2's record! and until very recently it 300+ launches with NO failures. And if we take the entire programs (all Soyuz vs all Falcon 9 & Falcon Heavy) it's a convincing "win" for SpaceX (by a factor of roughly 2 to 3). But yes, the Soyuz as a whole it probably deserves the "one of" even if the Soyuz 2 doesn't, though mostly through sheer numbers launched during the Soviet era. Which is why even before Russias invasion of Ukraine the insurance premium for Falcon 9 was noticeably lower than that for Soyuz, whether launched from Russia (lots of recent failures) or by ESA (no faiures but only got up to 9 launches AFAIK).