>>1302555>It was a robust design40% vehicle failure rate from 1981 to 2011 is not a robust design.
A spacecraft which kills 14 people is not a robust design.
For perspective, there have only been 3 manned Soyuz launch failures, Soyuz 18a, Soyuz T-10-1 and Soyuz MS-10, none of which were fatal. Only 2 Soyuz spacecraft failed on return to earth, Soyuz 1, where the parachute failed, and the Cosmonaut was killed on impact (leading to the change in design to the use of a 2nd backup parachute in case, still used today) and Soyuz 11, where the capsule depressurised on reentry, leading to the deaths of 3 cosmonauts from hypoxia (leading to the change in protocol, that everyone on board must wear their Sokol IVA suits on reentry with the visor shut in case of depressurisation, still done today).
For further perspective, there has been only 2 major failures of the Apollo programme, Apollo 1, where 3 astronauts were killed in a pure oxygen fire during a dress rehersal (leading to the scrapping of Block I command modules) and Apollo 13, where the service module encountered a fuel cell tank explosion, resulting in the mission being aborted.
>People only say this to make themselves appear insightful.The Space Shuttle was built because Nixon wanted his own spaceflight legacy, and he cancelled the idea of using the Space Shuttle for building a space station, because Nixon was also an idiot.
The Space Shuttle could only carry 28 tonnes to LEO, while the Soviet Buran could carry 30 tonnes (however, the Energia could lift 100 tonnes to LEO without the orbiter). The Space Shuttle also had the issue of having a mission time limited by its fuel cells, to only about 17 days in orbit. Missions were almost always scheduled for shorter periods because of the risks of stranding crew in orbit with no power and no air in case no landing sites were available for weather reasons.
If the US had proceeded with the Saturn Nova design, Nasa could have gotten manned missions to Mars in the 1980s
