Dangers of manned spaceflight

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/thespace.htm

One third of manned spaceflights suffer major problems that threaten completion of the mission and the life of the astronauts. Five crews - 2% of missions - have perished in their spacecraft.

mike65

Prolly the most dangerous job ever.

Mike.

Son Goku

I understand the concerns over manned space flight, but I still think it is a worthwhile endeavour.
Every pioneering technology and expedition has casualties because of the novelty of the technology, however that doesn't mean it should be abandoned.
The sophistication of the technology will increase with time and using the technology is an important part of this development.

quarryman

Son Goku wrote:

I understand the concerns over manned space flight, but I still think it is a worthwhile endeavour.

why?

I'm not arguing, just curious as to your reasoning. I can't see how it would improve my quality of life.

albertw

Thats one of the main points that Burt Rutan’s been saying needs to be addressed for commercial flight. "You cant kill 4% of your passengers". Then again the track record of early aviation wasn't much better.

Son Goku

quarryman wrote:

why?

I'm not arguing, just curious as to your reasoning. I can't see how it would improve my quality of life.

A lot of technologies didn't improve people's lives when they were in their early/developmental stages.
It's very hard to see the future benefits of a given technology when you live in the time they're being developed.

I believe it is worthwhile because of the potential benefits it has for our descendants.

Flukey

Without exploration and science, we'd all still be sitting in the trees. A lot of what we take for granted now has resulted out of science. We've had to do an awful lot of work, to get the things we have, certainly disproportional to what we get back in terms of the amount of things, but well worth it in terms of the value of these things to our lives. All scientific endeavours get some reward, whether it be some major practical things that we can all use, or just some basic knowledge. Over the past decades we have learnt a lot about our world as a result of space exploration. So yes, it is worth it.

ISAW

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/thespace.htm

One third of manned spaceflights suffer major problems that threaten completion of the mission and the life of the astronauts. Five crews - 2% of missions - have perished in their spacecraft.

One good article I read on it was in the New York Review of Books by Stephen Weinberg called "The Wrong Stuff"
Link to it here:

http://www.nybooks.com/authors/201