The rocket equation is highly unforgiving. Even minor structural reinforcements, with a minor increase in vehicle mass, have disastrous consequences on the amount of payload you can carry into orbit.
At full thrust, a Boeing 747 produces ~90 MW of power. At full thrust, the Saturn V produces 166 GW of power. It's a staggering amount of energy - there is no way to make it 99.9999% safe (Which is where air travel is currently at.)
There's also payload fraction - the useful weight that your vehicle can carry. In the case of a Boeing 747, 50% of its weight is useful cargo. In the case of a Saturn V, 4% of its weight is useful cargo. [1] Rockets are incredibly wasteful.
There are two changes that make the situation less dire for SpaceX.
1) It's Dragon capsule has an amazing emergency escape system that can operate safely during most (if not all) of the launch and ascent. It can escape and land with the Draco boosters on the capsule, but also has parachutes to provide safety redundancy.
2) The fuel to launch the first stage of a Falcon 9 only costs a few hundred thousand dollars. So while mass fraction is still low, the cost is potentially as low as a few million for each first stage launch/refurb cycle.
Given second stages cost a fraction of what the first stage does, it's not necessary to re-use second stages to have massive potential savings.
Having an emergency escape system is table stakes. The fact that the Shuttle didn't have one was a serious design problem.
The Souyz also had an escape system. That didn't stop one crew from decompressing, and another from pancaking into the ground (Because of a parachute failure.)
Depending on when the accident takes place, the Dragon will require both parachutes, and retro-rockets to land.
> The fuel to launch the first stage of a Falcon 9 only costs a few hundred thousand dollars. So while mass fraction is still low, the cost is potentially as low as a few million for each first stage launch/refurb cycle.
Only a few hundred thousand dollars (Discounting all labour costs... Which will not go away) to send three people to space and back.
For that much money and fuel, American Airlines can send a thousand people around the world, and throw in a soda for free.
Around the world isn't space. Space costs of anywhere near $1M a person would open a huge market.
Edit: An example is that a price of $30M per seat created a market of 1 commercial space traveler a year in the decade of the 2000s ( and with a risk of life expectation of nearly 1% ).
The Dragon 2 has 7 seats, if re-usable Falcon 9 flights drop below $30M range, you potentially have $5M a seat flights (depending on Dragon costs and number of crew members). And they likely could fill every one of those seats.
At full thrust, a Boeing 747 produces ~90 MW of power. At full thrust, the Saturn V produces 166 GW of power. It's a staggering amount of energy - there is no way to make it 99.9999% safe (Which is where air travel is currently at.)
There's also payload fraction - the useful weight that your vehicle can carry. In the case of a Boeing 747, 50% of its weight is useful cargo. In the case of a Saturn V, 4% of its weight is useful cargo. [1] Rockets are incredibly wasteful.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction