Talk:2107: Launch Risk

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 19:07, 4 February 2019 by RIIW - Ponder it (talk | contribs) (Actual odds)
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Gave a brief explanation, but I think it would be good to mention probability based logical fallacies and https://what-if.xkcd.com/55/. Don’t know how to link without it looking bad. This is my first page! Netherin5 (talk) 17:28, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Revised to a more extensive explanation including the fallacy that the second astronaut apparently realizes in mid-reply. SteveMB (talk)

What are the odds that one or both astronauts are female? I see "he" being used to refer to the second astronaut, but we don't actually know the sex of either one. 162.158.74.135 17:56, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Fixed 108.162.246.95 18:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

This seems wrong, at least with the lightning explanation. I believe the joke is that since he already is an astronaut, being hit by lightning doesn’t seem unlikely. Netherin5 (talk) 18:03, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Would be nice to add something about risk perception of common vs. uncommon and dramatic vs. more mundane seeming events. e.g. in US, lifetime chance of death from flu, 1 in 63; from automobile accident 1 in 84; from lightning 1 in 79,746; from shark attack, 1 in 3,748,067 https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/odds/compare-risk/death/ 108.162.245.166 18:52, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

The risk to be killed as an astronaut should be add somewhere (it is easy to find number of death/total number of astronaut) if someone want to make the morbid calculation. Xavier Combelle (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

From some impatient Googling and Wikipedia scanning there have been just over 360 people in space and 18 deaths (excepting training including Apollo 1). That puts the death rate at just over 3%. These were mostly Shuttle as the crews were larger. However,the title is Launch Risk, so the figure would be less than half that, but still about 1.5%. Furthermore, if you ignore the Space Planes the Launch Risk is probably very low. RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)