> What? The first comment I replied to, I was replying to this

I know, but you’re vasilating between two phraseologies, which are both different from mine. You’ve said “to show the safety is the same as air travel.” And now you’ve said “the risk of space travel and air travel are similar?” I said “nearing.”

“Nearing” ≠ “the same as.”

“The same as” ≠ “similar.”

Your first use was an absolute comparison that I never made. Your recent phrasing of “similar” is a more fair representation of what I said, but still not right:

Spacefaring is in its tween years and is only nearing commercial travel, as it is so vastly more expensive and technologically difficult. The developmental progress of one does however parallel the other, even if spacefaring is behind the curve for the reasons stated. It took ~a decade after the Wright Flyer for the first airlines to come around. But airlines didn’t get big until ~50 years later. The first “spaceline” is yet to be, 60+ years after the first manned space flight. But we can see how the two modes of travel do relate in terms of “ability to cost” ratio.

We are only now beginning to see mass space travel as a theoretical possibility on the horizon. As the systems improve and the volume of space passengers looks to skyrocket in the mid-term, we can see that spacefaring is on a trajectory to have numbers close to where commercial air was in its tween years. That’s the “nearing“ part.

It’s not there now, but 20 years without a fatality is a good place to be to match commercial airs’ safety rating and the space passenger capacity looks like it will dwarf the current number of those that have been to space.