NASA/TP-1998-207194, NASA TECHNICAL PUBLICATION: PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING (MAR 1998)

NASA/TP-1998-207194, NASA TECHNICAL PUBLICATION: PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING (MAR 1998)., Statistics is the science of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of numerical data, especially the analysis of population characteristics by inference from sampling. In engineering work this includes such different tasks as predicting the reliability of space launch vehicles and subsystems, lifetime analysis of spacecraft system components, failure analysis, and tolerance limits. A common engineering definition of statistics states that statistics is the science of guiding decisions in the face of uncertainties. An earlier definition was statistics is the science of making decisions in the face of uncertainties, but the verb making has been moderated to guiding.