death rates and world explorers

[Keeve]

The number of all manned orbital flights since Gagarin is now somewhere around 240 or so, I think.

Does anyone know how many of the first 240 airplane flights killed everyone aboard? Does anyone know how many of the first 240 transatlantic boat trips ended in disaster? Or the first 240 climbs up Everest?

I don’t want to minimize the Columbia tradegy, only to put it in a relevant perspective.

[Zagadka]

Once, we had seven deaths in seven days,'' recalls George Dade, 85, of Glen Head, who grew up in an apartment at Curtiss Field in Mineola, where his father worked. And it wasn’t unusual to have three crackups at the same time.’’

Long Island: Our Story / Chapters 1-5

1993, 129 summitted and eight died (a ratio of 16:1); in 1996, 98 summitted and 15 died (a ratio of 6½:1)
Country with most deaths on mountain:
Nepal-46
Corpses remaining on Everest:
about 120

http://www.mnteverest.net/history.html

8% and 15% rates in the poorer years…

In addition to carrying too many passengers, the crossing took longer time. The average crossing time this year was 63 days, ten days longer than the all over average between 1840 and 1874. This resulted in a great deal of sickness on board. A total of 184 Norwegian emigrants died on the way to Quebec and 42 died in quarantine following their arrival. These 226 deaths represent about four percent of all the Norwegian emigrants who traveled via Quebec that year.
Typhoid fever broke out on the Amelia in 1862, and 49 of the 280 passengers died during the crossing. … Yet another 31 passengers died at the hospital.
On the Laurvig in 1853, the hatches were closed for several weeks due to bad weather. Dysentery spread from bunk to bunk and 19 passengers perished. On the Maple Leaf in 1861, a fever broke out that resulted in the death of 21 passengers, 19 of them were children.
On the bark Nordlyset, which was under the command of Captain Hansen from Christiania, 29 of the passengers perished in 1861, most of them children. The Nordlyset had a tonnage of 330 register tons, and was carrying 303 passengers.
On the inland voyage 67 of them perished in the disaster on Lake Erie, when the steamer Atlantic collided with the Ogdensburg and sank.

http://www.norwayheritage.com/ships/fastship.htm

(The last one is a much later date, but you’re looking at a death rate of 4:100… four hundred years AFTER the first trips)

Now that I think about it, a shuttle ride is sounding pretty damn safe.

[AZCowboy]

Keeve, great question, and Zagadka, thanks for the informative post.

I heard an interesting statistic on Nightline last evening, to this point. To recap it:

On August 10, 1519, Magellan left Seville, Spain with five ships and 240 men. The first successful mission to circumnavigate the globe ended on September 8, 1522. Only one ship returned, with only 18 aboard (a few others survived, however). Magellan himself was not among them.

[Keeve]

*Originally posted by Zagadka *
**Now that I think about it, a shuttle ride is sounding pretty damn safe. **

I’d rather call it comparatively safe.

It could well be that we put too much value in exploration, and/or not enough value in the lives of the explorers.

But as compared to other explorers, the whole space business (or at least the American program; see Soviet problems for more details) does seem comparatively safe. Thanks for the statistics.