[perihelions]

Easily *six* orders of magnitude. STS saw two crashes in O(10^2) flights (and SpaceX has much smaller numbers still). The US handles O(10^7) commercial flights per year, none of which crashed in 10+ years (I think).

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers

[edgyquant]

Ridiculous. This is comparing the modern commercial private space flight industry with the still maturing mostly public industry. Compare how dangerous the first twenty years of air flight was. We haven’t achieved the same level of commercial space flight due to just how cautious we’ve been.

[jrockway]

Aviation statistics get pretty scary as you go down the regulatory hierarchy. Charter operations (part 135) have a worse safety record than big airlines (part 121). General Aviation pales in comparison to both. (And yup, some careless private pilots turn their C172 into an unlicensed charter airline.)

Good overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpGl2_fVr2Y

Right now, private spaceflight is basically regulated in a manner similar to Part 91 (GA) operations. The customer signs a waiver saying that the vehicle is not certified and that they've checked it out to ensure it's safe. Early days, of course.