Bruno Leal
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2011–2018
1:11 · 235K views · Mar 25, 2008
Short footage of the 1983 Soyuz T-10-1 pad fire, in which the launch escape tower pulled the crew away seconds before the rocket exploded.
HN cites it as the one dramatic real-world proof that a launch escape system works.
4 comments from Hacker News
The video of T-10-1 is stunning: this video That the people on that rocket escaped with "bruises" is amazing.
For those interested, here is a neat video of a launch escape system working as intended during Soyuz T-10-1: this video It is the only time a launch escape system has actually been used.
A few random comments: There's a video of the Soyuz explosion mentioned above at this video that shows the escape system saving the crew. The use of solid rocket boosters for human space flight (as was planned for Ares I) is hugely controversial because they can't just be shut down in the event of a problem, as regular engines can, making survivability more difficult. Personally, I think NASA is overly risk-adverse, to the point that nothing gets accomplished (see Constellation / Ares I). An interesting article on this is [LINK] On the topic of aircraft turbine failures, there's the interesting case of a DC-10 engine that disintegrated in flight due to a pilot experiment, killing a passenger. For details see: [LINK] Finally, if you're interested in SpaceX, NASA budgeting, and so forth, I recommend [LINK]
Related video: Video of Soyuz launch escape system used in a real emergency: this video This is probably how SpaceX imagines astronauts would be saved in case of a fueling problem.