  We determine the Galactic production rate of strangelets as a canonical input
to calculations of the measurable cosmic ray flux of strangelets by performing
simulations of strange star mergers and combining the results with recent
estimates of stellar binary populations. We find that the flux depends
sensitively on the bag constant of the MIT bag model of QCD and disappears for
high values of the bag constant and thus more compact strange stars. In the
latter case strange stars could coexist with ordinary neutron stars as they are
not converted by the capture of cosmic ray strangelets. An unambiguous
detection of an ordinary neutron star would then not rule out the strange
matter hypothesis.
