7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:42:49 -0600, in a place far, far away, OM
made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

The total number of successful - read: the guy survived at least in
one sort-of-piece - bailouts, again under those conditions, was IIRC
less than 5% of the total bailouts in WWII.

I hadn't realized it was that low. My father survived bailing out of
a B-25 in Italy (he was a waist gunner--probably about the best
position to be in). Only one other crewmember got out, and he was
captured.

Will wrote:

Lately, Congress and the Administration has been acting as though the
life of an astronaut on a space mission is worth about $8 billion.

ISTR reading (here on ssh) that the Apollo astronauts themselves reckoned
their chances of returning to Earth alive as about 2/3. Anyone got a cite?