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> I seriously doubt the victims knew how risky this trip was I'm quite curious about this, too. I'm not so sure. I think even if you are not an engineer, it sh

by sho_hn 3y ago

> I seriously doubt the victims knew how risky this trip was I'm quite curious about this, too. I'm not so sure. I think even if you are not an engineer, it should be quite easy to understand how under-tested this vehicle is compared to, say, a commercial jet airliner, and how much more difficult the application is at the same time. These were business men running companies of some size. It should come with basic work experience to reason about how proven processes or articles are. I think it's more likely that the threshold for "you know what? let's take our chances" works differently for different people. For example: I would never get LASIK eye surgery, safety statistic be damned, because the consequences in the unlikely event of failure are too large for me. And yet many other people know the data just as well and make a different call.

pfdietz 3y ago
As Dave Barry assured us, LASIK eye surgery is perfectly safe, as long as the doctor remembers to change the laser setting to "delicate" from "vaporize bulldozer".
civilitty 3y ago
The average human is more likely to die driving to the supermarket than in a commercial jet airliner crash, so I don't know how useful any of these comparisons are, especially for laymen. We're comparing technology where safety is measured in incidents per hundred million miles traveled to one where the total number of annual travelers can fit into a single jumbo jet.
- danso 3y ago
  Right. I wonder if the layperson passenger's assessment was that the Titanic sub was as extremely catastrophic as flying in a helicopter, in the sense that if something goes wrong, you're obviously going to die. But most helicopter passengers probably assume that the trip will be safe and uneventful, 999 out of 1000 times.
  - civilitty 3y ago
    > But most helicopter passengers probably assume that the trip will be safe and uneventful, 999 out of 1000 times. Even helicopters have a fatal accident rate that's at most 1 per 100,000 flight hours (in the US at least). This sub seems to have a fatal accident rate of 1 per 1,000 hours at best

by sho_hn 3y ago

pfdietz 3y ago

As Dave Barry assured us, LASIK eye surgery is perfectly safe, as long as the doctor remembers to change the laser setting to "delicate" from "vaporize bulldozer".

civilitty 3y ago

The average human is more likely to die driving to the supermarket than in a commercial jet airliner crash, so I don't know how useful any of these comparisons are, especially for laymen. We're comparing technology where safety is measured in incidents per hundred million miles traveled to one where the total number of annual travelers can fit into a single jumbo jet.

danso 3y ago
Right. I wonder if the layperson passenger's assessment was that the Titanic sub was as extremely catastrophic as flying in a helicopter, in the sense that if something goes wrong, you're obviously going to die. But most helicopter passengers probably assume that the trip will be safe and uneventful, 999 out of 1000 times.
- civilitty 3y ago
  > But most helicopter passengers probably assume that the trip will be safe and uneventful, 999 out of 1000 times. Even helicopters have a fatal accident rate that's at most 1 per 100,000 flight hours (in the US at least). This sub seems to have a fatal accident rate of 1 per 1,000 hours at best