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Comment by razemio | Hacker News Reader

Can you name a space company with less failures? Also I think it is unfair to even compare SpaceX to anything else, because of the insane amount of starts / tests combined unparalleled creativity.

According to this website their current success rate is 99,18%. That's a good number I guess? Considering other companies did not even land their stages for years.

https://spaceinsider.tech/2024/07/31/ula-vs-spacex/#:~:text=....

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Success rate isn’t a great metric for efficient initial work: it will keep improving as more launches are done, regardless of the initial work.

There's more to "overall success" then launch failure rate. Cost and time are very important, which are the other dimensions they are optimizing for here.

It says right there in your source that that figure refers to Falcon in particular. For comparison, Starship's current track record is 3/7 launch failures (+1 landing failure).

There's an order of magnitude difference between them. If they were cars, it'd be like comparing the smallest car you can think of vs one of the biggest tanks ever made.

It’s like comparing the reliability of the Model 3 and the Cybertruck.

I ignored those, since the starship at this stage can be considered a prototype. I am just trying to argue, that calling SpaceX unreliable, especially compared to its competitors and time to market, is bold.

The usual definition of success for a rocket is getting the payload to the intended orbit. Since Starship doesn't have a payload yet, at least not a real one, its "success rate" is not measuring the same thing.

I'd say that only the 7th mission was legitimately a failure, because there was some rerouting of flights outside the exclusion zone. The other six missions were successful tests since nothing other than the rocket itself was affected.

You cannot compare a mature product to something that is still under initial development.

That would be like comparing a 1-y.o.'s ability to run to a 10-y.o.'s. Of course the younger kid doesn't yet control their legs, but that doesn't mean it's going to stumble and fall forever.

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