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A Cold War mystery: Why did Jimmy Carter save the space shuttle? (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by threelonmusketeers to c/spaceflight

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

More deaths but more missions. Overall shuttle was safer.

Apollo 0.21 deaths per mission. Shuttle 0.10 deaths per mission.

[–] threelonmusketeers 1 points 1 month ago

Is that a fair comparison? The Apollo deaths happened very early in the program, while we were still figuring out how to spaceflight. In contrast, the Columbia disaster occurred when the Shuttle was a well-established vehicle.

Hypothetically, if Apollo kept flying as many missions as Shuttle, I wonder if it might have been safer.