"As of 1 April 2026, there have been five incidents in which a spacecraft in flight suffered crew fatalities, killing a total of 15 astronauts and 4 cosmonauts.[2][how?] Of these, two had reached the internationally recognized edge of space (100 km or 62mi above sea level) when or before the incident occurred, one had reached the U.S. definition of space at 266,000 ft, and one was planned to do so. In each of these accidents, the entire crew was killed. As of April 2026, a total of 791 people have flown into space and 19 of them have died in related incidents. This sets the current statistical fatality rate at 2.4 percent."

[wiki link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...).-,During%20spaceflight,fatality%20rate%20at%202.4%20percent.)

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api 14 hours ago | parent [-]

2.4% is not bad given how new this still is and how extreme the speeds and energies are.

Note that all the fatalities have been launch or landing related, not in space itself. Clawing out of this gravity well is tough. Make Earth a bit larger and you’d never get off it without something like NERVA or nuclear pulse Orion.

I wonder sometimes if that’s another thing to toss in the Fermi paradox bucket. Many rocky planets might be much more massive than Earth. On one with 3X our gravity a space program might never get going.

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m4rtink 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

NERVA as envisioned had terrible thrust to weight ratio, not really usable to launch from a Super Earth. Nuclear lightbulb, orion or heck NSWR would likely work though. And bonus points for not having to think about landing systems for the return trip. ;-)

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api 3 hours ago | parent [-]

In that case aliens from a super Earth would be unable to get off it unless they decided to salt their biosphere with fissile waste. NERVA is at least contained if it works properly.

So no space program from a super Earth until they figure out not just fusion but compact high density fusion that could fly. You’d need stuff like in The Expanse, or at least in that rough ballpark.

Using fission is something they probably wouldn’t do unless they faced an existential reason forcing them to go to space, like deflecting an asteroid.

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m4rtink 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I think a launch loop would still work, even on a Super Earth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop

Or potentially beamed power for launch, so you don't kug a power source. But in any case, indeed much harder. :)

	▲	api 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah. I’m a little obsessed with Orion though. The fact that the math works on that lunacy. The good old devil’s pogo stick. If you could make pure fusion bombs it would be maybe politically viable, especially if you also use superconducting magnets to make it less just brute force. You’d still induce a little radioactivity from neutrons but it would be short lived and not even close to fissile fallout bad. To see that thing launch. From somewhere very remote though, probably Antarctica. And from many miles away, and probably with welders glass. But damn. That would be epic.

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Shitty-kitty 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The lack of plate tectonics is a much bigger obstacle on Super-Earths, then g.

	▲	api 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah the more I learn the more I buy the rare Earth explanation. Life may not be that unusual but it might be mostly just goo: little extremophile type bacteria and maybe very tiny creepy crawlies living in deep seas, underground, in liquid mantles in ice moons, etc. But to get stuff even as sophisticated as frogs and bunnies, let alone something that can try space flight, requires a place that is all of: big, stable, with abundant energy, with high enough metallicity, and in an environment well shielded from flares and impacts. There may not be a lot of places like this.