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I think the engineers (and astronauts) accepted 1 in 100 odds of failure as a price they were willing to accept to be part of the project. That is not a "death
by dzdt 10y ago
I think the engineers (and astronauts) accepted 1 in 100 odds of failure as a price they were willing to accept to be part of the project. That is not a "death machine", just a risky and exciting one. For comparison, that risk is equivalent to working 5 years in a coal mine in the 1960's.
https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-coal-mining-deaths-in-the-us-1900-2013/ https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-coal-mining...
- avar 10y agoYes, which is fair enough, and personally I think that's fine. With odds like that you'll still get people to sign up as astronauts, and it'll be easier to advance the science. In the grand scheme of things it's silly to worry about those deaths and not say death from traffic accidents. The real issue was that that's not how NASA presented it outwardly. I doubt that teacher that blew up with Challenger was told about her odds of surviving in those terms. As human launch vehicles go I think the shuttle's reliability was fine. The reason I called it a death machine is that if you make a vehicle that explodes 1% of the time you better advertise that pretty thoroughly before people step on board. NASA didn't.