Soyuz Launch Escape Tower System

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]