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If we go by number of people-hours in space, then spaceflight is pretty safe... 150 years of human life in space, and 17 deaths in orbital spaceflight... mean t
by Robotbeat 7y ago
If we go by number of people-hours in space, then spaceflight is pretty safe... 150 years of human life in space, and 17 deaths in orbital spaceflight... mean time of 8 years between deaths, safer than general aviation (7 years)...
Russian/Soviet spaceflight is particularly safe (about 20 years mean time between deaths), especially if you exclude the first dozen or so years (no orbital spaceflight deaths have occurred for the Soviets or Russians past 1971), making it about as safe as biking or driving (so long as you use a Soyuz for launch and reentry).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Total_human_spaceflight_time_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#To...
- ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y agoI would guess that if you broke it down, being in space is quite safe, but getting to space is extremely dangerous. This matches intuition, since in the former case you are just floating in freefall, but in the latter case you are seated atop a metal tube filled with explosive chemicals travelling at absurd speeds through an atmosphere.
- Robotbeat 7y agoVery true. Of course, passenger aviation is really pretty similar... you're inside a pressurized metal tube (with relatively small factors of safety) surrounded by explosive chemicals traveling nearly the speed of sound (absurd by ordinary standards), yet it's far safer than any mode of transport, even per hour. Engineering is pretty crazy. If there's strong enough incentive to make an activity absurdly safe, we can do so, even if the performance requirements are also very stringent.