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Comment by voidspark | Hacker News Reader

Two space shuttles exploded, killing everyone on board.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaste...

They did, yes. And there are fascinating failure stories for each one. But my point is that there were more miraculous successes than miraculous failures. Heck, in my opinion, given that the Space Shuttle flew in atmosphere like a brick, and given that there was no possible way to get a second shot at the landing strip, the fact that they landed successfully every time (except for Columbia, of course) is amazing.

The Apollo flights in particular were interesting. For example, in the case of Apollo 14, when Houston was literally reading new machine code to the astronauts over radio who were punching in POKE instructions by hand to change the code.

> except for Columbia, of course

And Challenger.

Given that exploded on the way up because of the SRBs, this doesn't say anything about the orbiter (the bit that flies like a brick) landing.

Columbia was doomed before it reached orbit. It wasn’t lost to a flaw in the landing process.

Good point, let's just shut it down, nobody should do anything

That's not my point. The learned painful lessons and their success rate is high.

Wasn’t that more the point of the person you replied with counterexamples to?

Let’s assume good faith all round. One poster rightly highlights the overwhelmingly positive track record. Another points out the negatives went a little beyond an “oopsie”.

Yeah just being respectful to those 14 astronauts who died. They are worth mentioning. Nasa had major setbacks - not an "oopsie". Didn't mean to hijack the thread. Well done Voyager team.

I think this is an unfair characterization of the comment. Nobody is dismissing the shuttle crews. The “oopsie” was in reference to the Mars Climate Orbiter mishap that did not involve loss of human life.

Didn’t they just stop crewed space flights for (almost)decades instead?

The cost of doing things (I remember watching the Challenger live on TV at the time).

Every now and then we watch/read in the news that # of workers died while building that bridge/road/building/etc. We don't stop making bridges/roads/buildings. We just make it safer. Will people continue dying unnecessary/unnatural deaths? Unfortunately, yes. Let's minimise this.

And a bunch of other missions worked great. Learn from failures, progress.

Yeah it's not "bonkers" or "insane". They learned the hard way. Painful lessons.

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