With a 1-in-57 disaster rate, is space exploration worth the risk?
February 10, 2003 Peter Whoriskey The Washington Post Successful space shuttle missions over the past decade may have lulled the public into believing that each launch was as predictable as a commercial airline flight, but NASA engineers knew that the risk of disaster on any shuttle flight was far, far higher. As recently as last October, according to NASA documents, the space agency calculated that the chance of a shuttle disaster was 1 in 265. By contrast, they pegged the risk of an accident when traveling by commercial airliner at about 1 in 2 million and the risk of crashing an F-22 fighter plane at 1 in 10,000. As congressional and NASA leaders in the coming months decide whether to launch another shuttle, an essential question will be raised: Is the risk of another catastrophe worth taking? “Is it worth the risk? Yes, absolutely,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who flew on the shuttle mission immediately before the fatal Challenger disaster in 1986. He said that NASA told him th
