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> Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently. That's almost asking for it never to h
by rflrob 16y ago
> Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently.
That's almost asking for it never to happen at all. Air travel has a safety rate of 1 fatality per 2 billion passenger miles, making it one of the safest modes of transport out there. When Europeans first started exploring the Americas, the fatality rates were much higher, and people simply went in knowing that what they were doing was risky, but also fundamentally really cool.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- melling 16y agoOur appetite for failure was much higher then. It was acceptable to lose ships. We lost more test pilots trying to break the sound barrier than shuttle astronauts, for example. Any accident will set back the program by years. Also, we didn't have an option to send machines. A space shuttle explodes and it's forced into early retirement out of safety concerns. If a rocket carrying a satellite explodes, it's hardly newsworthy. The shuttle was suppose to fly every few weeks. It didn't come close. With the cost of rockets dropping, I would think that we can reach daily launches within 10-15 years. With the same amount of money, we'll develop commercial rockets and the necessary robotics.
- biot 16y agoFatalities per distance isn't a very good metric for safety. Otherwise, you could send 3000 humans 1 light year away and as long as 1 passenger survives, it's safer than air travel per billion passenger miles. Fatalities per trip makes for a better comparison as the vast majority of the risk for space travel, like with air travel, is on takeoff and landing.