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Artemis II is not safe to fly

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Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#611

Post by willy_k »

GTP wrote: post #290
adrianN wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that it always was about „rockets are good for dropping bombs on people“.

Well, I highly doubt that the kind of rockets they are developing for Lunar and Mars missions will be mich better, if any better at all, than current ballistic missiles armies around the world already have. Those space rockets are huge and meant to more or less safely carry people over a long distance in space. Warheads are meant to carry explosives while also being hard to detect or stop. I'm no rocket scientist, bu…

The point now isn’t having better rockets for (ballistic) missiles, since satellites became a thing the game has been infrastructure. Future (hypothetical) missions to the moon and mars might not be for military research purposes directly, but the infrastructure that both needs to be and now can be set up to support those missions will absolutely be co-opted for military purposes.

The race is now to bootstrap your nation’s permanent presence in space, because at the moment there is a first mover opportunity for what is slowly but surely becoming just another frontier for economics, geopolitics, etc. to play out over (granted this is already happening, I suppose I’m talking about a step change in scale).

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#612

Post by pavlov »

themusicgod1 wrote: post #610
pavlov wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Artemis program has cost over $100 billion so far. It doesn’t make any sense to spend that much money on something that’s still Russian roulette for the astronauts. If the purpose of the human risk is to let the agency accomplish more, then it needs to be reflected in the cost as a drastic reduction (so you can actually spend the money on doing more). Now Artemis is the worst of both worlds.

>It doesn’t make any sense to spend that much money on something that’s still Russian roulette for the astronauts. Sure it does. We've got billions of humans to spend on getting humanity out of its gravity well. We can and will spare a few more. Getting humanity out of our gravity well is the most important task this species faces, along with stabilizing our use of the resources in this one. https://nickbostrom.com/p…

If you’re willing to spend a few lives, you can do that much cheaper than Artemis which aims to be perfectly safe but doesn’t actually succeed.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#613

Post by ekianjo »

allenrb wrote: post #298
ekianjo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a pretty great return in research, engineering and education to boot. If a company could spend 24B in research they would probably produce a lot more things than NASA

Absolutely! Think of the many new ways to display advertising that are being neglected while we foolishly launch people and things into space.

The track record of NASA sending stuff to space is pretty bleak

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#614

Post by InitialLastName »

array_key_first wrote: post #428
adamsb6 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are going to be legally mandated to be in car seats until they’re about 12 years old.

Considering cars are one of the top causes of death for kids (the top?), this just feels obvious.

Thanks to risk compensation, making things "safer" doesn't necessarily improve safety. What are the odds that people drive their kids around more (increasing their risk) because having kids in car-seats reduces the perceived risk? How many of those people do you think can point at what the reduction in risk due to car seat use is [0], such that they compensate that risk "rationally"?

[0] Hint: As our sibling conversation shows, that's a non-trivial question.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#615

Post by InitialLastName »

doubled112 wrote: post #528
anon291 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence on car seats is extremely weak and they prevent only a handful of injuries. You'd be better off redesigning roads or having more collision protection systems in cars. As self-driving cars get better to the point where they can communicate and eliminate many human errors, there's probably no need for car seats at all. In many situations they make things more dangerous, not less.

If I'm simplifying, your argument is that car seats are useless if we'd just stop crashing? Isn't this true for every safety measure? I don't need a guard on my table saw if I don't stick my thumb in it. Don't need a helmet if I don't fall off of my bike.

> Isn't this true for every safety measure?

Every safety measure faces a question of whether the resources allocated to it are an efficient means of achieving that reduction in risk.

To GP's point, we probably can't prevent people from crashing altogether, but we currently have a road system designed to sacrifice safety on the altar of throughput [0]. How many more or fewer kids (or just people) would die if governments allocated the resources to making roads safer that they currently mandate their citizens use on car seats?

> I don't need a guard on my table saw if I don't stick my thumb in it. Don't need a helmet if I don't fall off of my bike.

Do you think the guard on your table saw makes you safer than training and experience using the saw safely? There are always limited resources and multiple routes to safety, so we shouldn't assume any given safety measure is the best use of those resources (especially in consideration of second-order effects).

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018-3-1-whats-a-stroad-...

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#616

Post by themusicgod1 »

pavlov wrote: post #612
themusicgod1 wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn’t make any sense to spend that much money on something that’s still Russian roulette for the astronauts. Sure it does. We've got billions of humans to spend on getting humanity out of its gravity well. We can and will spare a few more. Getting humanity out of our gravity well is the most important task this species faces, along with stabilizing our use of the resources in this one. https://nickbostrom.com/p…

If you’re willing to spend a few lives, you can do that much cheaper than Artemis which aims to be perfectly safe but doesn’t actually succeed.

> aims to be perfectly safe

obviously that isn't true -- it aims to be relatively safe

...but in any case - it aims to bring humanity to the moon. That's the aim. Keep your eye on the prize.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#617

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

mmooss wrote: post #436
MisterTea wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program. It's broken everywhere. I have worked in some dysfunctional shops and the problem I see time and time again is the people who make it into management are often egoists who don't care about anything other than the financial compensation and clout the job titles bestows upon them. That or they think management is the same as being…

> people who make it into management are often egoists > they were incapable of accepting humiliation I agree mostly but here is a different take on it: I think these are normal human feelings and behaviors - not the best of us, but not unusual either. If we want to get good things done, we need to work with and through human nature. Power corrupts everyone and shame is generally the most painful thing for humans. Pu…

>If you see a system in which so many fail, then the problem is the system.

Nope, it's start off with individuals, often way up above. Calling a system problematic is, essentially saying no one is responsible.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#618

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

palata wrote: post #546
mmooss wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who make it into management are often egoists > they were incapable of accepting humiliation I agree mostly but here is a different take on it: I think these are normal human feelings and behaviors - not the best of us, but not unusual either. If we want to get good things done, we need to work with and through human nature. Power corrupts everyone and shame is generally the most painful thing for humans. Pu…

> Putting people in a position where they need to treat their power with absolute humility or accept humiliation (and a major blow to their careers) in order to do the right thing is going to fail 99% of the time. I don't know... we select those people. Usually not for their ability to treat their power with humility, though. That's my argument in favour of quotas (e.g. for women): the way we select people in power n…

>That's my argument in favor of quotas (e.g. for women):

Just saying - my observation: statistically the most competent will be white old males. Same goes for humility.

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#619

Post by cindyllm »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #618
palata wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putting people in a position where they need to treat their power with absolute humility or accept humiliation (and a major blow to their careers) in order to do the right thing is going to fail 99% of the time. I don't know... we select those people. Usually not for their ability to treat their power with humility, though. That's my argument in favour of quotas (e.g. for women): the way we select people in power n…

>That's my argument in favor of quotas (e.g. for women): Just saying - my observation: statistically the most competent will be white old males. Same goes for humility.

[dead]

Re: Artemis II is not safe to fly

#620

Post by themusicgod1 »

themusicgod1 wrote: post #616
pavlov wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re willing to spend a few lives, you can do that much cheaper than Artemis which aims to be perfectly safe but doesn’t actually succeed.

> aims to be perfectly safe obviously that isn't true -- it aims to be relatively safe ...but in any case - it aims to bring humanity to the moon . That's the aim. Keep your eye on the prize.

from one of the artemis astronauts on livestream:

"It is very risky, and we are intimately [aware] of that risk"

ie It's not perfectly safe, and the astronauts are well aware of this fact.

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