JF Mezei wrote on Mon, 15 Oct 2018
17:00:13 -0400:

I recently listened to an NTSB hearing on 2 Amtrak crashes. They invited
the regulatory head from England and safety director from French SNCF.

They had long ago implemented safety management systems as integral part
of organsiations (as opposed to separate departments) and that in the
end, this reduced the accidents's costs by more than it cost to implement.

In other words, a sound business decision instead of costly regulatory
burden.

NASA is imposed costly regulatory burdens. And when it loses a ship, it
is a PR disaster for itself and government and not really a financial
issue.

But to a railway, there are real costs associated with a derailment, not
only the cost of damaged/destroyed equipment, but loss of business on
that line for howevere many days it takes to fix the site.


You think railways don't have regulatory burdens? How cute!


When you have former government organisations that turn private, the
former corportare culture takes a long while to convert to private
enterprise. We had that with Air Canada and CN Rail in Canada.

If Roscosmos is more and more supposed to be a self standing business,
then while the hole in a Soyuz wouldn't cost them anything, the loss of
a rocket does. And once they can no longer count on the Ruissian
covernment to fill their coffers whenener they need cash, then they will
start to want to reduce rocket failures. And will implement better
quality assurance natively and in a cost efficient way.


Except that hasn't happened. Care to speculate on just why that is?


The initial reaction is to cut quality assurance, but once you see that
it does increase ship losses, it becomes better business to bring back
quality assurance and even increase it.

If Roscosmos is to survive after the Americans stop paying $85m per seat
likely next year, they will need to be seen as a reliable way up to
orbit for commnercial uses. If they charge much less, but insurance
companies charge much more because they aren't relaiable, then it is no
longer good business proposition.

So better quality assurance may come to Roscosmos because of business
necessity.


Do us all a favor and hold your breath waiting for that.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn