17000000 Deaths per billion flights for the space shuttle is not safe. This is more than 2,000 times more dangerous than skydiving, which is also not very safe.
There were 2 failures over a total of 135 flights, with 14 fatalities. So that's about 103 fatalities per 1000 flights.
So a 1 in ~60 chance of dying on any given flight...have to agree that that is far from safe.