Greg Bernhardt said:
I think I found it on his wiki page
Ah, another illustration of how Wikipedia can't always be trusted.
I see the "1 in 200" figure there, but the only source given is Appendix F to the commission report, which I linked to, and which does not contain that figure anywhere. The only figure I think is justified by that document (which is the correct primary source) is "1 in 100". The two key quotes from that document are, first, from the opening paragraph:
"The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management."
Second, from the conclusion:
"They [the Shuttles] therefore fly in a relatively unsafe condition, with a chance of failure of the order of a percent (it is difficult to be more accurate)."
(The Wiki page does mention Feynman's book,
What Do You Care What Other People Think, the second half of which is his telling the story of the Challenger investigation. It's possible that the "1 in 200" figure is given somewhere in there; I don't have my copy handy to check. Even if it is, though, I would say the "official" primary source is still the Appendix F document, so I should still get 1 more point of credit for this quiz, which is of course my real agenda here.
)
