

Why Spaceflight Will Never Be as Safe as Modern Aviation - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/why-spaceflight-will-never-be-as-safe-as-modern-aviation

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Gravityloss
The article makes a case that large energies are needed and insinuates that
it's necessarily unsafe.

The power per passenger in a jet is about ten fold compared to a car, where it
is perhaps ten fold compared to riding a horse which might be ten fold
compared to bicycling.

Which do you think is safest, and why?

~~~
Retric

      Per trip walking, bicycling, horse, car, airplane, space shuttle.
      Per mile space shuttle, airplane, car, horse, bicycling, walking.
    

The shuttle is a great example of that relative trend. 2 accidents over
537,114,016 miles vs 2 accidents per 134 flights. Though commercial airplanes
are fairly safe private planes are little better than cars.

~~~
Gravityloss
I think bicycles are less safe than cars even per trip, because in a bicycle-
car collision the bicyclist always fares worse.

The point was to illustrate that it's not some uncontrollable law of nature
that more energy / power yields less safety.

~~~
Retric
Your assigning deaths caused by cars to bickes.

Your also assuming all trips are in mixed traffic.

And then without looking up any statistics you assume your correct.

...

I don't know where to begin.

~~~
Gravityloss
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Comparison_to_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Comparison_to_other_modes_of_travel)

In this table, bicycling has 170 deaths per billion journeys while flying has
117 and cars 40.

Different countries have different safety numbers for various reason. For
example bicycling tends to be safer the more there is of it.

~~~
Retric
That chart is using 15 year old numbers because recent history is less
flattering. Strictly speaking the

International Space Station is the safest way to travel, 17,150 mph, and zero
deaths. Further, Deaths per billion journeys:

Car: 40 Foot: 40

But wait, more people are ~8x as many people are killed in cars vs walking in
the US. So you only walk somewhere every few days?

Let's sanity check that: 1.24 million deaths occurred on the world’s roads. 7
billion people let's say they all average 2 trips a day * 365 days a year.
That's ~485 deaths per billion trips.

Ok, so that chart is pure B.S.

~~~
Gravityloss
I think some countries have orders of magnitude worse road safety, as the USA
too had in the past.

On the other hand, most of the world's population doesn't drive a car so the
number of trips is probably a lot less, making the number higher.

I think you have good points but your somewhat aggressive style is
unnecessary.

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rwmj
Obviously with current rockets, it's necessary for that energy to be expended
nearly all at once (8-12 minutes). But is that a law of nature or just a
drawback of current technology? In other words, could you travel slowly into
space?

~~~
edlinfan
Sure, if you use a space elevator.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator)

This won't get you out of Earth orbit, though. If you want to go to other
planets, you have no choice other than reaching escape velocity.

However, once in orbit, I'm pretty sure you can reach escape velocity as
gradually as you want. You'd just gradually increase your orbit's apogee until
you stop orbiting.

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davelnewton
Because space.

Getting to it, and returning from it, is inherently more dangerous than not
going that far, across those kinds of boundaries, and returning. I don't think
it's an issue of power, but the nature of what that power is being used for.

~~~
bashinator
I tend to agree. An analogous article title might be, "Why deep-ocean
submersibles will never be as safe as cruise lines."

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Detrus
Never say never. Most accidents happen during launch and re-entry. Once you
are in space the potential for accidents is smaller. The accident rate should
drop if we built a space elevator. Energy expenditure too.

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mathgeek
Someone has forgotten a prime lesson from Mary Poppins: never say never.

~~~
reitzensteinm
That was my first reaction: the title could be better rephrased "I can't
figure out how space flight will be safer than modern aviation". I'll eat my
hat if that turns out to be true.

But, we're going to run out of steam with technology at some point. In this
modern world it feels like progress is the only constant, but eventually,
we're actually going to run up against physical limits and figure out optimal
configurations of atoms for particular tasks.

In other words, we're on an S curve, but it looks very exponential from our
perspective.

Of course, I'd be shocked if the optimal configuration of atoms for launching
humans in to space ever has a fatality, without being caused by some kind of
event that also wipes out earth in the process.

~~~
DonHopkins
In other words, in the long run, it's well worth the risk trying to get off of
the planet, because the planet is doomed.

