Elon Musk: “We’ve Done Everything Possible to Make the Dragon Spacecraft Safe for Astronauts”

SpaceX's Crew Dragon has been safely transporting astronauts to the space station and beyond since 2020. Here's Elon Musk in 2014 explaining the capsule's safety architecture, just days after it was first unveiled.

“With our Dragon spacecraft we really try to do everything possible to make the astronauts safe. If somebody can think of something better to do, I'd love to hear it. So I'll tell you about some important differences of Dragon compared to prior spacecraft or even compared to the Soyuz, which is quite a reliable vehicle.

First of all, the SuperDraco engines. You can see these thrusters that are side-mounted into the spacecraft. There are eight of them. They provide a redundant escape system. So if something goes wrong with the rocket, these thrusters fire and pull the astronauts away from the rocket. And in fact, since there are eight of these engines, there can actually be multiple engine failures and still the escape system will work.

And then, if you go even beyond that and say, let's say there is a total propulsion system failure, we actually have a redundant parachute system on board with dual drogues and three main chutes. From a design standpoint, I'm not sure what more one could do. You've got multiple engines, multiple parachutes.

Space is a dangerous thing. Humans didn't evolve to be space-faring creatures. But in as much as one can make certain design decisions to make a spacecraft safe, we have endeavored to make those decisions. I'm at a loss to think of anything more that we could do. And if we can think of something more, we'll do it.”

Bloomberg report on SpaceX Dragon capsule, June 11, 2014