"Why is there a sudden epidemic of spacecraft rolling on the moon like Olympic gymnasts performing floor routines?" That's not how statistics work. We don't ha

"Why is there a sudden epidemic of spacecraft rolling on the moon like Olympic gymnasts performing floor routines?" That's not how statistics work. We don't have a "sudden epidemic", we just happened to get unlucky a few times in a short period. The exact same underlying risks and chances of success could have led to a long period of everything working fine, or (the least likely outcome) a perfectly spaced series of accidents occurring at whatever the mean rate is. Not understanding this is part of how we let people get away with lax safety standards. Nothing gets mass attention until enough people get unlucky in a short period, despite the safety standards being lax the whole time. (I think many people reading this could name a company this has happened to recently -- but will attention stay on them for long when random chance gives us a period of no problems?)