considering there is almost nothing in space between here and the moon then ok but also consider the burnup at launch and reentry with no escape possible and the expert training they all had and that the deaths were caused NOT by cockpit error then it was the spaceship - apparently the tiles on the bottom of the shuttle are so soft that they can't be touched without being damaged - impressive design but not all that safe

Generally, the fatality rate per mile traveled has gone down, but there have been instances where it went up briefly. I wonder if they coincide with an increase in the percentage of older cars on the road. What would be really nice is a graph of the types of vehicles on the road, categorized by age and type.

Hi JanGeo -?with no escape possible?(spacecrafts)
I dont see any escape possible when a moped rider is getting run down by an SUV , do you ?

?the burnup at launch?
Yup ,. the first 2 minutes are the most dangerous in space flight.
Not much leeway when you have a giant firecracker strapped to your back. :D

?the tiles on the bottom of the shuttle are so soft that they can't be touched without being damaged?
The tiles are a very strong silica + glass fibers and are not soft to the touch , rather they are brittle.

https://helios.augustana.edu/astronomy/img/tile-600.jpg

The shuttle also uses heat shield blankets , cermic tiles and carbon composite materials.

?that the deaths were caused NOT by cockpit error then it was the spaceship?
Only 18 astronauts and 4 cosmonauts have died during actual space flight.
Still not many compared to the distances traveled., and how that many of these deaths were in the 60's and 70's when it was very unsafe.

Space flight of course IS very dangerous (i wouldnt recomend it) but in the deaths per mile comparison its not all that bad.

How come when a shuttle crashes and everyone dies everyone is up in arms trying to stop space exploration , when on earth we are banging into each other every day and killing ourselves. ?

?(cars) kill an estimated 1.2 million people worldwide each year, and injure about forty times this number? WIKI

Just look at those numbers .. how can 40 million people getting hurt EVERY year be justified !

If I was to choke to death on a Snickers bar there would be a huge corronors inquest into it , if I get squished in a car wreck everyone just says ?*^it happens?

Thats nuts.

Same with aircraft
 

It's the same thing with aircraft..."I'm too scared to fly". Well...

Statistically you're more likely to have a fatal accident in the car on the way to the airport by a huge margin than an aircraft fatality.

500K air miles and I'm still going!

RH77

Hi rh77 - ?Statistically you're more likely to have a fatal accident in the car on the way to the airport by a huge margin than an aircraft fatality.?

Sad , but true.

I have flown around the world 4 times so far and am averaging a trip every 2 years. I'me more at ease up there , than in the cab ride to my accomodation from the airports.

PS , fly QANTAS ,,they never crash , even Rainman knows that.
https://www.mutantes.com.ar/images/rainman.jpg

Miles and Miles
 

LOL -- that's a good one.

Yeah, on top of flying I do a lot of rental car driving in multiple cities, so you have to adjust to each area. With the rental cars + personal, I probably drive about 35K miles/yr (a lot of land to cover in the Midwest). Dangerous drivers are everywhere (some areas more than others -- and I'll leave it at that :rolleyes: )

RH77

We can make perfectly safe cars, we just can't make safe drivers.
I'm not saying I'm a good or safe driver, but I wont' risk others lives in my pursuit of happiness.

Motorcycles are a good example of this, manufacturers make a HUGE variety of helmets to suit any need and any head, but many still dont' wear them.

And something that applies to both situations, no matter how safe, or how slow your vehicel is, it's still fast enough to kill you, and if you dont' agree, you stick a monster turbo, inter-cooler, custom one off racing suspension under it, and fill it up with 110 octane E-85 :p

My point is that a lot of the accidents in cars, if not nearly all, are caused by people not the cars, whereas the spaceship deaths are caused by the ship itself failing. Capsule burns up on the pad because of faulty wiring and pure oxygen, shuttle burns up during launch because the solid rocket seals were damaged by ice, tiles damaged by falling insulation at launch later burning up on reentry. It is a shame when astronauts die because they are our brightest people not some kid on high on drugs in a stolen car running into a brick wall or an suv flipping over from over reaction with the steering wheel by a driver that shouldn't be driving something that big that fast in the first place.