Not counting any training accidents, there have been 18 space related deaths.
Two shuttles each with 7 people, Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11, with 1 person and 3 people on board respectively.
Considering that less than 600 people have been in space, the percentage of space related deaths seems a bit high. It really makes me think that we still have a lot to learn and that space travel is one hack of a lot more risky than driving a car. Percentage wise, the death toll is high for space accidents.
There have also been 32 incidents in space that didn't result in fatalities, but here again, 32 is a high number considering the amount of people who have been into space.
It takes a special person to become a part of the space program. I feel that those people risk their lives to help shape our future and help us learn more about space, an area we know very little about to this day. Moreover, going into space is physically demanding. It might be fun to feel totally weightless, but it's probably not so fun when they return to earth, and their legs swell up badly. We probably don't know too much yet about what exactly space travel does to the body.
Working