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SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

scientificamerican.com

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Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#11

Post by bryanlarsen »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #8
codingdave wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're joking, right? Starbase is notorious for high accident rates.

Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... )

Fatality rate is hard to compare because of the low divisor problem.

Injury rate is 4.27 per 100. Which is under half the average value for active construction sites and 3x the average value for aerospace manufacturing facilities. Choose your comparator based on whether you want to praise or bash SpaceX.

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#12

Post by Veserv »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #3

Headline is misleading. The launch is happening tomorrow weather permitting, and the delays that already happened are most likely unrelated to the accident that killed the worker. There's also no evidence that accident rates at Starbase are higher than at any other US construction site.

What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022 [1].

Furthermore, you have gotten the burden of proof backwards. The default presumption is non-safety. The burden of proof is on insiders (who have all the access) to robustly demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are safe, not on outsiders (who only have limited access) to demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are dangerous.

So, please present your evidence that their injury or fatality rate is normal. Absence of evidence defaults to your claim it is safe being unsupported.

edit: codingdave comment has a more recent link that also determines 2023 and 2024 also had injury rates multiple times higher than industry average.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214074

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#13

Post by ajross »

codingdave wrote: post #9
drob518 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data?

Start here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates... Drill down into the links from there. Or do a search. Or ask an LLM. I have a hard time finding any data that doesn't think they have high rates.

That article's lede says that Starbase is more dangerous than other SpaceX facilities, not that SpaceX is dangerous per se? Also there's a sample size problem with numbers like that. Is SpaceX more dangerous than heavy industry in general, or some more related subset like aviation manufacturing?

As to your second line, I submit that commenting on HN that "Starbase is notorious for high accident rates" carries with it an implicit offer to provide said notes and not just punt to Google when challenged.

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#14

Post by [deleted] »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #8
codingdave wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're joking, right? Starbase is notorious for high accident rates.

Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... )

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#15

Post by dolphinscorpion »

Veserv wrote: post #12
Ajedi32 wrote: post #3

Headline is misleading. The launch is happening tomorrow weather permitting, and the delays that already happened are most likely unrelated to the accident that killed the worker. There's also no evidence that accident rates at Starbase are higher than at any other US construction site.

What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022 [1]. Furthermore, you have gotten the burden of proof backwards. The default presumption is non-safety. The burden of proof is on insiders (who have all the access) to robustly demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are safe, not on outsiders (who only have limited access) to demonstrate in…

>> What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022

That's a sacrifice Elon is willing to make

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#16

Post by Ajedi32 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11
Ajedi32 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... )

Fatality rate is hard to compare because of the low divisor problem. Injury rate is 4.27 per 100. Which is under half the average value for active construction sites and 3x the average value for aerospace manufacturing facilities. Choose your comparator based on whether you want to praise or bash SpaceX.

Yes. Starbase is an active construction site right now, so that's why I chose that as a point of comparison. But obviously there's also a lot of aerospace manufacturing happening at the same time, so it makes sense the number would be somewhere between those two industries.

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#17

Post by russdill »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11
Ajedi32 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... )

Fatality rate is hard to compare because of the low divisor problem. Injury rate is 4.27 per 100. Which is under half the average value for active construction sites and 3x the average value for aerospace manufacturing facilities. Choose your comparator based on whether you want to praise or bash SpaceX.

The fatality occurred at a construction site, not an aerospace manufacturing facility.

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#18

Post by Veserv »

ajross wrote: post #13
codingdave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates... Drill down into the links from there. Or do a search. Or ask an LLM. I have a hard time finding any data that doesn't think they have high rates.

That article's lede says that Starbase is more dangerous than other SpaceX facilities, not that SpaceX is dangerous per se? Also there's a sample size problem with numbers like that. Is SpaceX more dangerous than heavy industry in general, or some more related subset like aviation manufacturing? As to your second line, I submit that commenting on HN that "Starbase is notorious for high accident rates" carries with it…

What a inane comment. They gave you a link that literally spoonfeeds the data and you complain because you can not be bothered to read until what is literally the second sentence in the article before accusing them of making statements in bad faith without supporting data.

> Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing site that recently incorporated as its own Texas city, logged injury rates that were almost 6x higher than the average for comparable space vehicle-manufacturing outfits and nearly 3x higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole in 2024, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data released in May.

Literally the second sentence which answers all of the questions you just posed and invalidates your accusations in the second paragraph. Geez.

Re: SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

#19

Post by orwin »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #8
codingdave wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're joking, right? Starbase is notorious for high accident rates.

Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... )

Those are very, very high numbers, no? I think France is one of the worst offender in the western world (or at least worst in Europe by far) and we have slightly inferior rates (3 times the eurozone average), and it's a big issue. Not politically, almost no one cares about blue collar workers, especially not the current government, but in companies (at least in mine), reducing death became a focus point for three years.
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