It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.
I dunno, I'd say it's rational for someone to be weary of joyriding in the first flight of a space capsule only designed to fly for three orbits.
It's pretty common to define risk as probability multiplied by severity.
The wright flyer flew about 30mph 8ft off the ground. Death would certainly have been possible, but unlikely. I could imagine someone walking away from a crash. Moderate probability of crash, moderate severity injury. Moderate risk.
C1 was the first flight of an early prototype (over a year before it was ready to fly a mission longer than 3 orbits). It was launched on a rocket with maybe half a dozen flights? Rocket fails: death. Payload separation fails: death. Pressure vessel fails: death. Propulsion system fails: death. Heat shield fails: death. Parachute fails: death. Moderate probability of failure, very high severity of injury. High risk.
The pilots laid prone and head first. An auger in meant they'd go head first into the ground. I don't think there was a harness or anything to prevent that.
The Wrights were actually terrified of a nosedive into the ground, which is why they put the stabilizer out front. This made it much more responsive to pitch commands. Ironically, this was also the source of the pitch instability, making an abrupt nosedive more likely.
Curtis started out making airplanes by copying the Wright designs, including putting a stabilizer in a fixed position in front. Amateurs would buy his airplanes and race them. One racer crashed into a fence and damaged the forward stabilizer. In a hurry to rejoin the race, he simply sawed it off and took off. He found the airplane flew faster and better without it.
He transmitted this to Curtis after the race, who promptly pulled the stabilizer off all his airplanes that were in production.
The difference would be public fallout in case of a death. That would be really crazy, not the risk for the person involved.
In 1903, there was no radio, no TV, people would not learn about someone killed in his own contraption or boarding a risky prototype. Maximally as a short notice on sixth page of a newspaper. There was also no competing industry.
In 2021, the outrage of seeing somebody killed on video because a new ship failed would be enough to stop the program for years. Musk detractors who hate his entire style and persona would feel instantly vindicated - "see, this abominable billionare finally killed somebody, as we prophecied since 2002!". THe competition (ULA) would do its utmost to bury SpaceX under tons of papers and years of investigation, because their cheap flights are eating into Boeing et al. sacred territory.
And I think that would happen even if that person on board was not just volunteer, but an illegal stowaway.
This is true, but we are much more desensitized against carnage on the roads.
There is a fantastic line in Neil Gaiman's American Gods:
“There were car gods there: a powerful, serious-faced contingent, with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth: recipients of human sacrifice on a scale undreamed-of since the Aztecs.”
Honestly some straps inside the already pressurized capsule + some CO2 filtering and Crew Dragon 1 is probably much less risky than most of the early human space flights.
We forget how many astronauts and cosmonauts died in the early days (especially if you include pilots of high altitude test flights which tested many concepts later used in the space programs).
There were many additional close calls on either side, averted only by skilled test pilots, ground controllers, and luck.
Cargo Dragon 1 didn't have a Launch Escape System but was otherwise pretty safe.
CRS-7 is an exception, and even then if the flight software had been written to deploy parachutes, probably survivable.
CRS-2 had issues with thrusters but not life-threatening ones.
Gemini and the Shuttle programs also didn't have LES - Gemini had simple ejector seats and the Shuttle had...nothing after the first test missions removed the ejector seats.
I'd argue Crew Dragon was safer than the first few Shuttle launches as well - the first flights had a 1 in 9 chance of failure. Landing the Shuttle wasn't difficult but had to be successful - other options were trying to ditch in the ocean or using ejection seats on the earliest flights. Some abort options were almost certainly hopeless. STS-1 had massive issues which could have lead to a safety problem. Losing only 2 flights in the STS program is somewhat of a miracle. Falcon 9 now has a higher reliability estimate than STS - 0.99 vs. 0.97 [0]
Earlier on in the Falcon 9 program the point estimate was lower - but so too would have been STS's, especially right after Challenger.
For sure. Cargo dragon on falcon 9 is a solid combo compared to the space shuttle. I wouldn't say that C1 was low risk (for a human to joyride in), though. Probably less risky than the first shuttle launch, but that's a pretty low bar based on how the shuttle was developed. C1 was designed, validated and launched for the purpose of flying a few orbits with a wheel of cheese in it. It was an early test flight long before cargo dragon was complete.
Likewise, crew dragon's first manned flight was likely way lower risk than probably any shuttle mission. It largely benefited from all the learnings from cargo dragon and a lot of practical testing though.
It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.