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http://www.latimes.com/features/health/ … nes-health
Summary: Scaled Composites, a private space tourism company, had poor safety protocols and a bunch of people were killed in an explosion.
What pisses me off is the government daring to mandate higher safety regulations from here on ("We cooperated fully with Cal/OSHA during the investigation, and we continue to work with the agency so that the enhanced procedures already implemented promote the safest workplace conditions possible."). That's bullshit. "Safest possible"? What kind of absolute moron demands safety out of the *leading edge* of orbital transportation?
Did governments demand the "safest workplace conditions possible" of Columbus when he discovered America? Of Magellan when he circumnavigated the globe? Of the Wright Brothers or Gottlieb Daimler? Were Livingstone's expeditions "the safest possible"? How about Sir Edmund Hillary's? Thor Heyerdahl's? Being on the leading edge of science and exploration is *by nature* unsafe business! If you try to mandate safety out of the leading edge, you *gut* it like NASA has been gutted!
40 years ago we were sending people regularly 384,000 km away to the Moon -- now we're barely managing to send them 350 km away to low Earth orbit, and not even that if Obama has his way! Governmental manned space exploration has been *gutted* to a thousandth of the distance it was reaching during Apollo, and when private companies try to make up for the government's pussyness, they get slapped down! How DARE they! Some motherfucking pencil-necked bureaucrat geeks who sit in their office, having NO CONCEPTION of the risks men need to take to advance the race! If you can't stand the motherfucking heat, then get out of the goddamn kitchen! PEOPLE WILL DIE when we're on the leading edge. Nobody LIKES that, but you either ACCEPT it, or let safety paranoia CRIPPLE and GUT you when you end up spending more time on safety than on actual engineering. Fuck that shit!
Companies on the leading edge should be exempt from any and all safety regulations. You wanna work there, you accept the goddamn risks. If you can't handle the risk, then go work for some unremarkable automobile manufacturer who's kept making the same model for 50 years and where every single procedure is tested and true. The leading edge DOES NOT NEED people who are afraid.
Motherfucking safety bureaucrats should all be lined up and executed.
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Sorry I can't agree with this. Space exploration is often times a dangerous business. Explosions at the test stand are going to happen, and every now and then a spacecraft is going to blow up and some people are going to get killed.
But there is absolutely no reason anyone should be killed during a test-firing of an engine. When launching a rocket obviously the crew has to be on top of it, and thus in harms way. But there is no reason on Gods green earth than anyone should be within danger radius of a test fire. There is simply no need for it! Proper safety measures can and should have prevented accidents like this from incurring any fatalities. Test stand explosions are quite frequent (thats why you test them!), and they should have been prepared for such a disaster. Manifestly they were not.
Now, when these things do happen, and lives are lost, then it is only logical for the government to take some sort of action. When a private person engages in some sort of act that causes people to be put in danger or killed he is punished and/or fined. The same should hold true for 'corporate persons.' When a corporation negligently places a person in harms way they should also be held accountable. Simple as that.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
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Well written Austin.
What exactly was this "leading edge of orbital transportation" work? Curiously there are no details about the accident or even a press release on the Scaled Composites web site .. there are tributes to the three men, but that's all. Perhaps it's hidden somewhere deep in the site.
Other sources say it was connected with testing a nitrous oxide tank - is this the leading edge work that was so important that it cost the lives of three people?
$8,623.33 per life.
sammy, are you saying that there should not be any external safety standards for "leading edge" employers?
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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Your argument is invalid because it's based on applying 2008 safety standards to a situation in 1492. Let's assume his vessel was unseaworthy by 2008 standards, no problem Columbus could have gone by plane.
So it would be ok for "some unremarkable automobile manufacturer" to be exempt as long as they claimed they did "leading edge" work?
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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Our messages crossed!
Audi and Scaled are both employers, they both do leading edge technology. So why should Scaled be allowed to put their worker's lives at risk and not Audi? Just because they make different types of vehicle? How about Airbus?
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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The point is that any company can claim to be doing leading edge work, why is building a suborbital vehicle (something that was first done 46 years ago) be considered so important that it's worth ignoring basic safety standards? One answer is that commercial pressures to do it cheap and fast led to short cuts.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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Any company can claim it, but any fool can see what is and what isn't leading edge work.
As I said, if you truly cannot see the difference between building a bog standard car and putting people in orbit, then there is no point whatsoever served by this discussion.
why is building a suborbital vehicle (something that was first done 46 years ago) be considered so important that it's worth ignoring basic safety standards?
Because it's mankind's road to space and our future.
A car is mankind's road to nowhere.
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Here's the thing though. These men didn't die on an Apollo type mission to the moon, or a Columbuian expedition, or a Magellan trip around the world. The died during a test fire. This is unacceptable. People shouldn't being dieing during tests fires!
I can accept that space travel is a dangerous business and that every now and then an astronaut or cosmonaut is going to get killed in the process. Just like I can accept the occasional test pilot dieing on a test flight, or a test driver dieing in test drive. But this is none of those things. This is the equivelent of an engineer dieing during a plane runway test, or a engineer dieing during a car crash test. Completely unacceptable.
Engines blow up on the test stand, this is a fact of rocketry. But these sorts of occurances should be safely planned around so that such incidents don't cost human lives. Failure to do so is completely unacceptable, and Scaled Composites is lucky to get off with a moderately small fine.
I'm all for OSHA and other safety agencies, they are one of the big forces preventing our employers from putting us in harms way for marginaly more economic gain.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
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I do see your point, Austin, but in my view, they are all part of the same process and same budget. As I see it, every $1000 more they have to spend on test firing safety precautions is a $1000 off the R&D. And to me, the R&D is so important nothing should take precedence.
But I guess that's just me.
If the safety regulating bureaucrats will pay for the increased safety out of their own pockets instead of mandating the company spend their own money on it, then I'm all for safety regulations, though. Safety is great, but the company shouldn't have to spend its own money on it -- money that should go on the important R&D.
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I do see your point, Austin, but in my view, they are all part of the same process and same budget. As I see it, every $1000 more they have to spend on test firing safety precautions is a $1000 off the R&D. And to me, the R&D is so important nothing should take precedence.
But I guess that's just me.
If the safety regulating bureaucrats will pay for the increased safety out of their own pockets instead of mandating the company spend their own money on it, then I'm all for safety regulations, though. Safety is great, but the company shouldn't have to spend its own money on it -- money that should go on the important R&D.
Testing components is part of R&D, a big part. There will also be separate safety tests for equipment and tools, this is standard workshop practice for all parts of industry. Not training people to operate equipment safely was part of Scaled's problem. Short cutting safety is not optional in lethal environments, it's also a bad way to do R&D. Accidents slow down the work not only because people are killed and injured but also because equipment and facilities are destroyed and damaged. Save $1000 on safety and lose $1 million of facilities, a year of schedule and the irreplaceable lives of people.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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I agree with austin. We have to relax the saftey and such from airplane to suborbit, especiallywhen scaled composites is the first company to send some one to suborbit. However, this only applies when they are going there, and in my opinion, only after they deattach from the white knight. There is no excuse for killing people in the firing of an N2O rocket ON THE GROUND.
-Josh
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I agree with austin. We have to relax the saftey and such from airplane to suborbit, especiallywhen scaled composites is the first company to send some one to suborbit. However, this only applies when they are going there, and in my opinion, only after they deattach from the white knight. There is no excuse for killing people in the firing of an N2O rocket ON THE GROUND.
Austin said nothing about having to "relax" safety. The idea that there should be less safety in a more dangerous environment is counter to what everyone does. Racing car drivers, mountineers, test pilots etc etc all take safety very seriously, they understand the need to reduce risks when the smallest mistake will cost them their lives and the lives of other people.
In extreme circumstances where there is no choice, safety is ignored, for example to save someone's life. There's nothing extremely urgent about building a fun vehicle for the super rich.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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The idea that there should be less safety in a more dangerous environment is counter to what everyone does. Racing car drivers, mountineers (...) etc etc all take safety very seriously
Yes but they just do unimportant stuff that doesn't matter. They can afford to sacrifice progress for safety because it doesn't matter how much progress they make, none of it matters to our race.
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by relax safety, I meant that some deaths would have to be accepted, and are part of the process, and that the first commercial suborbital spacecraft can't be held to the safety levels of airplanes. Deaths on the ground, however, are unacceptable.
sacrifice progress for safety
The two are by no means mutually exclusive. Besides, scaled composites isn't going to the moon or mars first, nasa is. They will come many years later, if at all.
-Josh
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sacrifice progress for safety
The two are by no means mutually exclusive.
Every $1000 spent on safety is $1000 off research.
A given quantity of money can only be spent on one thing. As such, each $1000 *is* mutually exclusive. It's given to one aspect, or to another.
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And what if it doesn't?
If it were a guaranteed, automatic return on investment, you wouldn't need to be pressuring people to do it, now would you?
Ergo, it is not a guaranteed, automatic return on investment.
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It comes down to this: If you don't spend money on safety, someone will die eventually.
It comes down to the value of a human life. I put every life at halfway between a normal number and infinity.
-Josh
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Firstly, it's not a risk, it's an assurity.
Secondly, that devalues human life.
Firstly, yes, if we take a 120 year time span, then everybody involved with the project will die. If we take a shorter time span, then it is *not* certain.
Secondly, it does value the human race's achievements higher than any individual human life, yes.
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