Sure but it doesn't launch or land humans on Earth, which is the hardest part. And that's fine for now. Once it's launched and landed a few hundred times we can think about launching people on it.
I like the rocket less, imho solids have no place in human spaceflight, but the Orion has a LES, which elevates it to being more safe than any spacecraft without one.
Liquid fueled rockets are intrinsically safer than solid fuel rockets. There is a floor on just how low you can get the risk level with solid fuel, you can't test the rockets you fly, and the failure mode is catastrophic blow-up à la Challenger.
It's like saying flying is safer than driving per passenger-mile. It is. By orders of magnitude. I don't care how safe your new Volvo or electric vehicle is, flying in a helicopter is still safer, and a passenger jet vastly more so.
"But Starship blew up 5 times!" Yes, and flying a test plane is dangerous too. Apples to oranges. Starship and SLS have vastly different design certification strategies. SLS spends 100x as much to deliver something that works as reliably as it ever will by the second or third launch. SpaceX gets Starship flying quickly and discovers bugs in prod. So you see more failures. But even now, Starship is probably safer than SLS ever will be. If not now, then very, very soon.
You're telling me starship is safe for humans when they failed to land the booster?
How about we let them succeed first before pressuring them to perform and inevitably embarrass themselves because the silly SpaceX fans were too smug on the internet.
SLS has an abort mechanism. That alone mitigates most risks of the first stage in a way starship never can, meaning the latter has to fight an uphill battle to deliver the same safety through flight numbers and experience.
> But even now, Starship is probably safer than SLS ever will be. If not now, then very, very soon.
Any failure to orbit is essentially a guaranteed loss for Starship. Any booster explosion or total engine failure on starship would also be essentially a guaranteed loss. Even the space shuttle had better backup options than the current version of starship.
Idk about you, but if I'm the astronaut I'd take 1-(P(SLS failure)*P(LES/parachute failure)) over P(superheavy success)*P(Starship to orbit)*P(Raptor relight) every time.
SLS might be less safe than some hypothetical future version of starship, but in reality the current starship's most recent flight had a 15 minute window where a no-go for orbit was called and the mission plan would have resulted in a loss of crew. Safe crewed launches and earth landings are not a priority for them and likely won't be for a long time. Even then, SLS+Orion have the advantage of an LES and the option for unpowered landings essentially anywhere, both of which are fundamentally unworkable with starship's design.
I like the rocket less, imho solids have no place in human spaceflight, but the Orion has a LES, which elevates it to being more safe than any spacecraft without one.
It's like saying flying is safer than driving per passenger-mile. It is. By orders of magnitude. I don't care how safe your new Volvo or electric vehicle is, flying in a helicopter is still safer, and a passenger jet vastly more so.
"But Starship blew up 5 times!" Yes, and flying a test plane is dangerous too. Apples to oranges. Starship and SLS have vastly different design certification strategies. SLS spends 100x as much to deliver something that works as reliably as it ever will by the second or third launch. SpaceX gets Starship flying quickly and discovers bugs in prod. So you see more failures. But even now, Starship is probably safer than SLS ever will be. If not now, then very, very soon.
How about we let them succeed first before pressuring them to perform and inevitably embarrass themselves because the silly SpaceX fans were too smug on the internet.
Any failure to orbit is essentially a guaranteed loss for Starship. Any booster explosion or total engine failure on starship would also be essentially a guaranteed loss. Even the space shuttle had better backup options than the current version of starship.
Idk about you, but if I'm the astronaut I'd take 1-(P(SLS failure)*P(LES/parachute failure)) over P(superheavy success)*P(Starship to orbit)*P(Raptor relight) every time.