17000000 Deaths per billion flights for the space shuttle is not safe. This is more than 2,000 times more dangerous than skydiving, which is also not very safe.
Right you are, which brings us back to the ~1.7% number (actually 1.6% if you include the STS-135 mission, which Wikipedia doesn't for unknown reasons).
So a 1 in ~60 chance of dying on any given flight...have to agree that that is far from safe.
