Airplanes are the safest way to travel by far. That doesn't prevent people from stubbornly refusing to fly (taking very unsafe road trips instead), it doesn't prevent panic attacks in the air, and it doesn't stop governments wasting billions on security checkpoint theater.
God speed, my friend, I sincerely hope the facts will make a difference.
Yes and no. That depends on how you measure. The typical statistic used (deaths per man-kilometer) favors flying a bit.
For example, the space shuttle is safe, according to that metric (guesstimate: 60 shuttle flights for every crash => over a year in space for every crash, 16 times round earth a day => 60000 revolutions * 40k km => 2*10^9 man km per death)
Moreover, taking of and landing are the high-risk parts of flying. So, I would expect that flying would score worse than that when people starte making shorter flights.
Total Orbits: ~20K
Orbits Length: ~40K Km
Crashes: 2
(Assuming same number of crew in each flight.)
Risk: 20K * 40K Km / 2 = 4*10^8 man Km per death
Or: 2.5 deaths / billon Km
So using the Risk/Km criteria the space shuttle is as safe as (water)ships, safer than cars and riskier than trains.
Airplanes are the safest way to travel by far. That doesn't prevent people from stubbornly refusing to fly (taking very unsafe road trips instead), it doesn't prevent panic attacks in the air, and it doesn't stop governments wasting billions on security checkpoint theater.
God speed, my friend, I sincerely hope the facts will make a difference.