Rand Simberg wrote:

In terms of killing people, it should be better, since it will have
an
abort system.

That will be a much needed, and I think
necessary and long overdue, improvement, but
not a panacea. Three of the four in-flight
fatal human spaceflight accidents that have
occurred happened in space or during the
reentry/recovery phase. Only the Challenger
crew might have been saved by an escape
system.

There is no question that one Soyuz crew
(Soyuz T-10-1) *was* saved by its launch abort
system (an accident that a shuttle crew would
not survive). A second crew (Soyuz 18a)
survived an abort during the third stage burn
after the escape system had been jettisoned
(A space shuttle could perform this type of
abort).

There have been more close calls in space
or during the return-to-earth phase. Soyuz 23
ended up at the bottom of a lake, for example.
It took a long time to recover the capsule,
and divers were surprised to find the crew
still alive. The U.S. ASTP crew were exposed
to near-fatal doses of nitrogen tetroxide
during reentry. Vostok 1, Gemini 8, Soyuz 5,
Apollo 13, Soyuz TM5, etc., all provided wild
rides that were close calls for their crew.

- Ed Kyle