Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 186 posts

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

#21

Post by losvedir »

kscaldef wrote: post #11
noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

It also misses things like: What's the cost of a million schoolchildren watching a space shuttle explode?

I've thought about this for a few minutes and I really don't know. What are you getting at? I'm not even sure if the dollar value of the cost is negative or positive. It was a tragedy, sure, but what's the lesson the kids take? Not to go into the sciences? Or to think about heroes who take on great risks to earn the knowledge that they're now learning in school?

I honestly don't know how to incorporate that aspect into the dollar cost/benefit the article proposes.

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

#22

Post by jessriedel »

sehugg wrote: post #17
joshuahedlund wrote: post #13

the multi-decade preparatory exercise adopted as an alternative to real space exploration has already cost the lives of 14 astronauts, and will almost certainly cost more as it drags on... Seriously? Does anyone have more information on this? I like Reason but sometimes they can be a little biased. If there's no missing context and we're literally killing astronauts in safety training then there is no excuse not to j…

Zubrin is talking about the deaths in Apollo I, Space Shuttle, etc ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_acc... ). His point is exactly that, get them into space already. Or rather, give them a mission that is worth risking their life.

(We posted at the same time.) No, he's just talking about Shuttle programs. He considers the Apollo programs to be real exploration.

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

#23

Post by [deleted] »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #13

the multi-decade preparatory exercise adopted as an alternative to real space exploration has already cost the lives of 14 astronauts, and will almost certainly cost more as it drags on... Seriously? Does anyone have more information on this? I like Reason but sometimes they can be a little biased. If there's no missing context and we're literally killing astronauts in safety training then there is no excuse not to j…

[deleted]

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

#24

Post by uberalex »

I like the article but I wonder a little about the figures. He seems to assume that the extra research measures push the likelihood of a successful mars mission from 90% to 95%.

I think this underestimates the complexity of the problem. Two thirds of automated mars missions have failed, with an especially dark period around the time of the 1980s, when we were to have sent out the first Astronauts.

I think that there is also an issue with the military/contest aspect. The moon mission had a cold war battle feeling which would be hard to ignite now -- deaths in space just seem tragic and expensive in a way that they did not before (his description of the finger paints being a good example). Would people have the stomach to spend billions to kill 5 people on their way to Mars? How many times before they lose interest?

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

#25

Post by jessriedel »

vannevar wrote: post #12

The article is thought-provoking, but marred by an enormous and unsupported leap of logic at the outset: Yet despite vastly superior technology and hundreds of billions of dollars in subsequent spending, the agency has been unable to send anyone else farther than low Earth orbit ever since. Why? Because we insist that our astronauts be as safe as possible. Safety concerns undoubtedly carry a cost at NASA, but they ar…

> as a percentage of the Federal budget it was over 5x today's level.

This is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the absolute budget, adjusted for inflation. In addition, given the greatly improved technology, we should be able to get to the moon for far cheaper. In fact, all the R&D has already been done. It should be a cake walk on half the budget.

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

#26

Post by maratd »

kscaldef wrote: post #11
noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

It also misses things like: What's the cost of a million schoolchildren watching a space shuttle explode?

I reject the notion that we should coddle our children. The teacher is there for a reason. To provide context to what the child is being exposed to. And that can make all the difference.

Yes, you can die. Yes, it is dangerous. Yes, these brave men risked their lives and they lost. And if they had to do it all over again, they would risk their lives again.

Because if it wasn't for men like them, we would still be sitting in a cave poking a fire with a stick.

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

#27

Post by jessriedel »

mlwarren wrote: post #9

"We are going to have failures. There are going to be sacrifices made in the program; we've been lucky so far. If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." — Virgil 'Gus' Grissom. It seems like most of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era astronauts felt like their lives came sec…

Either you decide you want to do something worthwhile, or you eliminate manned spaceflight. But right now we're spending billions and getting nothing worthwhile accomplished. It's not tight-rope walking, it's the worst of both worlds.

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

#28

Post by lutorm »

noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

I think this is a reasonable outlook. Unlike those that die of cancer or asthma or car accidents or whatever, astronauts get a choice. First, estimating the astronaut risk is done a priori and is much more uncertain than the observed risks. Second, it seems the same value should not be applied to those that choose to accept the risk compared to those that are at mercy of things beyond their control.

Does anyone know if the military applies the same kind of calculations? Seems hard to believe.

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

#29

Post by pnathan »

kscaldef wrote: post #11
noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

It also misses things like: What's the cost of a million schoolchildren watching a space shuttle explode?

Invaluable. That's a wonderful opportunity for the million schoolchildren to develop a more nuanced and deeper understanding of the real world and the existence of failure.

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

#30

Post by Duff »

jessriedel wrote: post #25
vannevar wrote: post #12

The article is thought-provoking, but marred by an enormous and unsupported leap of logic at the outset: Yet despite vastly superior technology and hundreds of billions of dollars in subsequent spending, the agency has been unable to send anyone else farther than low Earth orbit ever since. Why? Because we insist that our astronauts be as safe as possible. Safety concerns undoubtedly carry a cost at NASA, but they ar…

> as a percentage of the Federal budget it was over 5x today's level. This is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the absolute budget, adjusted for inflation. In addition, given the greatly improved technology, we should be able to get to the moon for far cheaper. In fact, all the R&D has already been done . It should be a cake walk on half the budget.

The question is... Why?

If going to the moon is 75% less than it was in the Apollo days, that is cool, but what do we accomplish by going there?

Post reply on HN