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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?

#41

Post by wbienek »

Here is where you supposedly "smart" people are morons.

We didn't go to the moon in the first place.

They jumped the shark when they showed people on dune buggies on the moon.

They won't go back because when people see how hard it is to land and relaunch with human life in tow, the world will know we didn't go in the first place.

Nobody will be going to the moon until it doesn't matter that the world finds out we didn't go in the first place.

Ask yourself. What is easier: scamming a trusting, patriotic 60's public on TV or landing a human being on a foreign planet.., whats harder? Having people drive a dune buggie, then relaunching and landing safely back on earth or setting up a desert set piece to look like the moon. Or maybe a Hollywood studio to look like the moon. I've seen the video. It's a joke.

And you're shocked we never went back to the moon? Please! How gullible can you be?

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

#42

Post by jrockway »

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?

Less than the cost of them watching their parents die of obesity and heart disease. But we don't get all panicy about that...

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

#43

Post by jaredhansen »

maratd wrote: post #26
kscaldef wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sitt…

>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 this stuff right if we want our kids to grow up in a better world.

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

#44

Post by CWuestefeld »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #38

This is about 25 years too late, but good. The problem here is that NASA is a political agency, not a scientific one. Each year, elected politicians sit down and decide how much they're going to get. This means the number one rule is don't make us look bad. You can't waste too much money, you can't go making a bunch of controversial statements, and good grief, whatever you do don't have astronauts getting exploded on…

as we involve the U.S. military in more and more missions that look highly political, we're going to end up with a badly broken military, for exactly the same reasons.

Libya drones

Yep, the writing is already on the wall.

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

#45

Post by wiredfool »

When discussing the 2 rovers with a 90% success rate, the author comes to the conclusion:
The right answer is to go for two rovers, because if you do it that way, you will have a 99 percent probability of succeeding with at least one of the vehicles

Which is not exactly right. It's correct if you're looking at random, uncorrelated factors. However, two rovers from the same program are not going to be uncorrelated. If one rover is hit by a software blunder, it's likely the other one will have the same problem. (e.g. using mks instead of english units in the flight computer, using a 16 bit counter that overflows to name two)

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

#46

Post by chernevik »

Apollo was a national security project -- demonstration of our system, exploration of technology of potential military importance.

Fixing Hubble was really important. I'm not sure how much the shuttle's work was of the same magnitude, or couldn't have been done with automated gear.

BUT bureaucratic and political imperatives called for continuation of the space program, at scale, and that called for justification of the costs. The money is no big deal, but if those justifications aren't that good, the collision of those weaknesses with the human risks will cause cognitive dissonance. If the people concerned haven't the will to rethink the whole thing -- and there are many examples of much, much larger failures -- you're going to see some strange behavior along the way. Shuttles failed twice in 100 missions, is the milestone of first senator in orbit really worth a 2% fatality risk? No, but rather than admit that and cancel the mission the response is to imagine that risk can be driven down to negligible. And if that isn't possible, the standard is going to shift from "known but justifiable risk" to "we're doing the best we can / no expense has been spared".

Of course it doesn't make sense. But if they recognized that, they wouldn't have flown such missions in the first place.

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

#47

Post by Splines »

maratd wrote: post #26
kscaldef wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sitt…

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

That's a false dichotomy. Children don't need to watch a shuttle burst into flames in order for science to progress.

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

#48

Post by shareme »

Author premise only half right. The cost over-runs of the shuttle program were composed of two deep expensive factors.

Infinite human safety and the costs of having a horizontal system of sub contractors building the shuttle system instead of a vertical approach.

But, conversely while close to infinite safety costs can reach military objectives, for example using tracked-light heavy armor in places of urban combat(less civilian casualties thus locals want to work with our forces), the same cannot be made for civilian space agency in terms a full benefits.

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

#49

Post by brudgers »

natep wrote: post #14

As he barely acknowledges, the problem isn't necessarily that NASA is too risk-averse when it comes to human lives, it's society at large. After every failure, there is a massive outcry along the lines of "how much money did we give you again? And you still couldn't get it right?" The argument that the money could be spent elsewhere has been around since the beginning of the space program, I think. Do the people maki…

>"the problem isn't necessarily that NASA is too risk-averse when it comes to human lives, it's society at large."

The change in attitude is almost certainly generational. The Apollo era presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford) were all World War II veterans. So were most decision makers within the space program.

By the time of the Challenger explosion, American attitudes had changed to the point where 241 combat deaths in Beirut saw America remove its boots on the ground - a reaction to troop casualties unlikely during the island hopping campaigns forty years earlier.

This is not to say that Americans are necessarily placing too much value on life. Space Shuttle flights - like Beirut - lacked a compelling vision to underscore the mission; servicing the Hubble is not a giant leap for mankind.

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

#50

Post by figglesonrails »

wbienek wrote: post #41

Here is where you supposedly "smart" people are morons. We didn't go to the moon in the first place. They jumped the shark when they showed people on dune buggies on the moon. They won't go back because when people see how hard it is to land and relaunch with human life in tow, the world will know we didn't go in the first place. Nobody will be going to the moon until it doesn't matter that the world finds out we did…

Not sure if troll.
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