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How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

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Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#181

Post by salemh »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #122
rhino42 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. IMHO, humanity's goal for the next hundred years is to enhance our energy and medical technologies as quickly as possible. (space takes a distant third). We are essentially in a race against time: if we are too slow, we will deplete our resources and wipe ourselves out. There are lots and lots of things that are worth a single human's life (or tens, hundreds of lives). Research is one of them. For instance, if…

You know where there are lots of resources? Space. Recently ran an economic projection for a venture that was being proposed out of Russia - tugging an asteroid of copper into orbit around Earth and mining it would alleviate the environmental impact of surface mining while cutting the price of these materials to a fraction of what they are today. Speaking about energy, check out space-based solar power. I will be the…

To make an endeavor feasible, it would really have to be a GX large-scale multi-nation effort, and, the agreed (tacit or otherwise) collapse of certain industries (like, collapsing copper pricing, etc.)

I don't believe the current socio-political-industrial-financial mechanisms in place have any desire (though don't actively "conspire" against this sort of thing), as its too "long term" thinking, and, is really more a "species survival" deal vs short-term profit gaining.

/This is rambling, apologies.

thoughts?

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#182

Post by JumpCrisscross »

salemh wrote: post #181
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where there are lots of resources? Space. Recently ran an economic projection for a venture that was being proposed out of Russia - tugging an asteroid of copper into orbit around Earth and mining it would alleviate the environmental impact of surface mining while cutting the price of these materials to a fraction of what they are today. Speaking about energy, check out space-based solar power. I will be the…

To make an endeavor feasible, it would really have to be a GX large-scale multi-nation effort, and, the agreed (tacit or otherwise) collapse of certain industries (like, collapsing copper pricing, etc.) I don't believe the current socio-political-industrial-financial mechanisms in place have any desire (though don't actively "conspire" against this sort of thing), as its too "long term" thinking, and, is really more…

Wouldn't be more expensive than anything the oil or heavy infrastructure majors undertake on their own today. Yes, a multi-billion dollar project all in, but that occurs in stages.

The time horizon is a problem. But everything I said fits the 4-10 year infrastructure ROI test. Not that I don't expect the first projects to have anything short of heavy government involvement.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#183

Post by jleader »

verroq wrote: post #155
jaredhansen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>brave men risked their lives >men like them It wasn't just men: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Resnik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpana_Chawla http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Clark Language has power, and using "men" in this context makes invisible the contributions and bravery of these women and others like them. Sorry to seem PC, but it's important to get…

That's ridiculous. When people use men in this context, they refer to humanity as a whole. Don't confuse your lack of English understanding as being PC.

So "women" is a collective noun for a group of humans all of whom are female, and "men" is a collective noun for a group of humans who are some mixture of males and females. There's no collective noun for a group of humans all of whom are male? Doesn't that strike you as a bit asymmetric?

I understand that "men" is sometimes used in the way you describe, but I believe that people who do so consider male the default gender of humans.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#184

Post by emmelaich »

Oddly enough I think one of hackernews's heros (and mine) Richard Feynman is one of the causes (but not blame). His appearance at and commentary of the Challenger disaster made people extremely allergic to risk. You can argue his message was taken to the extreme but perhaps his scientists attitude was not so attuned to the engineering mindset of compromise and risk assessment.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#185

Post by maratd »

jleader wrote: post #183
verroq wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ridiculous. When people use men in this context, they refer to humanity as a whole. Don't confuse your lack of English understanding as being PC.

So "women" is a collective noun for a group of humans all of whom are female, and "men" is a collective noun for a group of humans who are some mixture of males and females. There's no collective noun for a group of humans all of whom are male? Doesn't that strike you as a bit asymmetric? I understand that "men" is sometimes used in the way you describe, but I believe that people who do so consider male the default g…

Brevity is the soul of wit. You certainly lose accuracy, but honestly, nobody wants to read a wall of text.

If you want to presume some sort of conspiracy sexist default supremacist undertone in what I wrote, fine, but I think that says more about you than about me.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#186

Post by jpadkins »

waffle_ss wrote: post #93

I've also heard this argument used by libertarians such as Milton Friedman to denounce the FDA, saying that it has costed lives through being overly cautious by delaying the approval of life-saving drugs. The proposed alternative is to not have an FDA, but rather sue the drug companies directly in civil court if their drug ends up being harmful and they haven't performed adequate testing/trials.

Actually, most of the FDA costs are created during the effectiveness phases. If FDA went back to it's original mission of safety, the estimates are drug approval costs would be 25% of current costs.

Of course the market (doctors and healthcare customers) would have to determine the effectiveness of the new drugs. So the cost is not eliminated, just shifted to the more efficient and moral option.

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