:: That a dumb mistake will kill the person making it, I can easyly see.
:: (Cycling an airlock without checking your air supply will kill you,
:: but only you). What fundemental design problems are there that will
:: let a single person endanger the lives of the mojority of people in a
:: space colony?

: David Dyer-Bennet
: It's not even a fundamental design problem. I think a badly piloted
: ship could endanger the whole space station fairly easily.

Yes, but that's not *any*body being able to endanger the whole
station, such that things are constantly on the knife edge of disaster.
That's more like it is here, where an airline pilot or refinery operator
or bridge designer could cause really nasty disaster.

Xref: Niven belter habits of motionlessness, supposedly because
they could touch something and create a disaster. That always
struck me as a bit over the top. Especially now in retrospect, a couple
decades later, where there are fewer knobs and slides and toggles
and whatnot to bump into in technological doings.

Xref: Birdman timefiller on Cartoon Network, where Birdman's
control console has the "get cup of coffee" button next
to the "launch doomsday weapon" button.

"Belter tans" also... hrm. Feh.

Of course, on a space habitat, a collision could in theory kill
everybody in the hab, rather than just the people the ship bumps into
directly. Though contrariwise in reverse, presumably habs would be
designed modularly enough that that would have to be a *huge* event to
knock holes in *every* sealed environment in the whole thing.

Xref: re surviving an atmosphere loss:
Gully Foyle surviving the wreck of his spacecraft.
Roughly: "I kill you Vorga. I kill you filthy."

Xref: re modular design:
the rather robust starship in van Vogt's "Mission to the Stars".
(and/or, "The Mixed Men").

So. One could design a space habitat so a little error could cause
loss of atmosphere throughout. But then, one could design a town and
a flood control dam so a little error could cause loss of dryness throughout.

Xref: Johnstown.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw