And the space shuttles carried many more people than other space vehicles except for the current generation of Soyuz.
You don't measure failure rate by number built divided by number crashed. You measure by how much it's used. The more often something is used the more likely it it that it will fail one of those times.
> You don't measure failure rate by number built divided by number crashed.
Sure, you measure by number of launches divided by number crashed - or some similar measure that includes how much utility you get out of it. But the Shuttle does very poorly on any such measure.
The problem with nuclear waste is that you need a 0% failure rate or you might detonate a dirty bomb in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter how often it worked if it fails once.
Also it's a great target for sabotage for radicals.
Sure, but the 1.5% flight failure rate is completely unacceptable when you're sending up hundreds of flights with humans on board. Surely, with all the safety precautions that NASA is known for, we'd be targeting a flight failure rate of << 1%.
You don't measure failure rate by number built divided by number crashed. You measure by how much it's used. The more often something is used the more likely it it that it will fail one of those times.