[madamelic]

We have had commercial flights for 80 years. We have had commercial rockets for 0 years.

The same arguments could've been made for train travel against planes at first. In my opinion, rockets are likely safer than planes in a non-fuel incident since they are built to have parachutes and other safety devices built in from the beginning beyond just gliding with the hopes rudders and flaps aren't affected.

Below a few thousand feet (if I recall), both rockets and planes have similar risks in my opinion. The most deadly planes crashes are in the first or last few minutes of the flight when they have the least altitude and speed to figure out a plan; similarly, if an incident occurs with a rocket in the first 90 seconds, there is a good chance of high fatalities.

Maybe I would argue that rockets _could_ be safer since they will spend less time in this dangerous altitude but I am neither an aerospace engineer nor a rocket scientist.