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At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

reuters.com

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Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#81

Post by infecto »

izacus wrote: post #61
infecto wrote: post #26

Not here defending SpaceX, cannot speak for some of the specific cases like the individual who was sitting on top of a truck to hold a load down. What I don't like though is the lack of real comparison. It reads more like a hit piece against spacex with all the specific examples of cases that tug at the heart. Would like to see some better comparison, I don't know how realistic the space industry average is. How many…

Here's an article showing how Musks other company, Tesla, has a 3x larger injury occurence in Berlin as e.g. Audi: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37689959 You all really need to stop shilling for that dude.

I am sorry you are upset/hurt but I am not defending any person or company. Simply pointing out that the article quotes 2.2/100 workers but that is lower than the US avg of 2.7/100 workers.

I don't think its very constructive to compare two different companies or from a geographical region. Similarly, I don't think its good journalism to point out specific cases without diving deeper into the data. I want to compare it to other industries, the US as a whole, how is it being measured etc. For all we know the other companies in the "missile/space" category include a large engineering staff. I really don't know and whats what I want to dive in. Thats why we have OSHA in the US. If OSHA is not doing its job lets dive into whats happening there first. Why is OSHA not putting appropriate pressure on SpaceX if they are violating guidelines? Workers in SpaceX can also easily report anon to OSHA, or at least that used to be the case a few years ago. We don't know but it would be interesting investigative journalism.

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#82

Post by hackernews1134 »

izacus wrote: post #76
_Algernon_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical reading of potentially bad journalism isn't shilling.

Defending a known bad actor which has shown a pattern of same behaviour is.

They’re not defending the “known bad actor”. They’re criticizing the journalist for shoddy journalism.

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#83

Post by gooseus »

avgcorrection wrote: post #67
gooseus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Elon was actually advancing actual humanity, and not just his own narrow idea of what humanity should be. Also, trying to establish a self-sustaining base on Mars right now is short-sighted and a tremendous waste of energy and material. Also also, how you do a thing is (often) as important as doing the thing itself, we're still suffering the consequences of last centuries megalomaniacal claims to be advancing…

> And just in case someone mentions something like D-Day, Did you mean the Eastern Front?

Yeah, that too, probably what I'd have said if I was typing in Cyrillic.

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#84

Post by infecto »

justapassenger wrote: post #74
infecto wrote: post #26

Not here defending SpaceX, cannot speak for some of the specific cases like the individual who was sitting on top of a truck to hold a load down. What I don't like though is the lack of real comparison. It reads more like a hit piece against spacex with all the specific examples of cases that tug at the heart. Would like to see some better comparison, I don't know how realistic the space industry average is. How many…

> What I don't like though is the lack of real comparison Did you read the article? > The 2022 injury rate at the company’s manufacturing-and-launch facility near Brownsville, Texas, was 4.8 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers – six times higher than the space-industry average of 0.8. Its rocket-testing facility in McGregor, Texas, where LeBlanc died, had a rate of 2.7, more than three times the average. The rate a…

Did you not read my comment? The US avg is 2.7/100, they spent 95% of the article talking about specific case and a quick comparison to the industry avg. That industry is so small I am not sure that it is a good comparison.

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#85

Post by oblio »

Eumenes wrote: post #64
oblio wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have these respective workers been informed of this agenda?

They can work wherever they want

Is Tesla putting up big banners on their website saying "we may kill some of you for Musk's greater good"?

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#86

Post by pauldenton »

hef19898 wrote: post #70
scarab92 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalists do seem to be given an extraordinarily wide allowance for selection bias. Most negative stories about SpaceX / Tesla / Twitter could have been written about any of their competitors in the just by changing a few details.

Not when it comes to workplace saftey or going to war over some collective bargaining in Sweden, then not. And Twitter, well, there are hardly any comparisons, are there?

Is SpaceX charging the DoD 435$ for a Hammer, or 600$ for a toilet seat? General Dynamics did

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#87

Post by pauldenton »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #54
mirekrusin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, ie. Qatar had something like 40 deaths during World Cup construction.

So just the cost of doing business. You're ok with yourself or a loved one dying on that basis?

96 workers died building the Hoover Dam. In 8 years it will be 100 years since Construction started on the Hoover Dam. It seems like the US just isn't able to make projects like that anymore. Look at the progress of California's HSR,started by Governor Pete Wilson, who established the California High-Speed Rail Authority in 1996. 27 years ago. We have a century's advancement in technology, but the costs of construction, and inability to deal with risk has become a gigantic problem

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#88

Post by pauldenton »

liotier wrote: post #49

Musk would have felt right at home driving the Soviet space program !

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/space-race-timeline Given the Space Race timeline, it seems like that would mean beating NASA to MANY major milestones. 4 October 1957: The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history.

3 November 1957: The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika into space. They become the first nation to successfully send a living organism into orbit.

12 September 1959: The USSR launches Luna 2 and accomplishes its mission of creating the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon.

4 October 1959: The USSR launches Luna 3 and succeeds in their mission of sending an object into orbit around the Moon and photographing the far side of the Moon.

12 April 1961: The Soviet Union achieve a clear triumph in the space race. Aboard the Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin makes a single orbit around the Earth and becomes the first man to reach space. He remained in space for one hour and forty-eight minutes before landing in Saratov Oblast, west Russia.

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#89

Post by robertlagrant »

usrusr wrote: post #55
robertlagrant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But regulations don't say "fire this person". They're normally far more high level than that, like, "when something bad happens, trigger a corrective and preventative actions process and write down what you found and what you're going to change, if anything".

Effective regulations very much do put the employer on the hook, no way to accept something like "voluntary employee risk-taking" outside of in some cases not looking for it as hard as they could. Employers are at risk of getting fined for tolerating (or worse) employee risk-taking and if those fines are sufficiently high they will certainly tell the employee "stop doing that that or else". And the last stage of "or…

You seem to be agreeing with me. Companies don't have to fire people due to regulations. They may do so, or they may do all sorts of other things.

They're far more likely to fire people based on board pressure or PR. Regulations are the least impactful things here.

Re: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

#90

Post by inemesitaffia »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #25

This is a problem with workplace culture and corresponds to equally poor culture in the other companies Musk controls. He's moving fast and breaking things, namely people, be it his customers or employees. But no problem: pay a fine, roll out another phalanx of lawyers and there is little real cost. If CEOs were prosecuted for negligent homicide the number of preventable workplace and product deaths would surely drop…

The article is disingenuous
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