Safe Is Not An Option

In article , says...

Le 14/06/13 15:39, Jeff Findley a écrit :
While our sci.space Chicken Little keeps spouting the same garbage he
has for years, Rand Simberg left this group and actually wrote a book
which counters the Chicken Little viewpoint that we can tolerate nothing
but a perfect safety record in a manned space program.

Cynicism is the new fad.

Somebody argues that we should try to get everybody back?

"Chicken little" and other macho "insults" are thrown by people that
will never risk THEIR lives anyway.

Neither you nor Mr Simberg will risk anything.


B.S. I'd go, and I know the risk as good as anyone who knows space
history.

The manned space program has a death rate of 4%, i.e. from 25 people
that went to space, one died.

This is still too low for armchair astronauts like you. Let's increase
that, it will be cheaper then.

Who are you to tell me what risks I can take? People risk their lives,
and many die, each year in pursuits like climbing Mt. Everest, and there
are plenty of people who attempt it who have not prepared enough, yet
have the money to make the attempt.

snip

Behind the reasoning of Mr Findley and Mr Simberg stands the idea that
spending in space travel is too expensive.

It is not.

It is necessary, and compared to other budget lines it is
absolutely NOTHING.

Actually, pursuing an unreasonably high "safety" goal does more than
increase costs. It can also lengthen schedules, cause operational
delays, and decrease capabilities in other areas (e.g. payload, mission
duration, and etc.). This is due to the fact that many "safety" systems
add mass and introduce failure modes of their own (e.g. maintenance
workers killed by e-seats on jet fighters).

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

On Jun 15, 7:46 pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:

space travel will die if the percentage of shuttle deaths continues to
the millionaires doing joy rides.

Yes, just like it's killed the people climbing Everest ... WAIT A
MINUTE!



making it safer will help sales even if it costs more......

Well, no, it won't. Not everyone is the coward you are, Chicken
Little, and practically no one who can afford such a ride is.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

I really believe that dying in space will be avoided by the
millionaires


Again, I think a) you're underestimating the risks folks like Richard
Branson and Steve Fossett are (were) willing to take.
b) Stop assuming space tourism is the whole of "expansion into space".
Yeah, soccer mom may not fly into space for a vacation with a 1% chance of
dying (or even a .1% chance). But Joe or Jane oil-rig worker very well may
take the risk to fly to a NEA.

because of the shuttles design it killed to many people......


Because people ignored the engineers. That said, you'll know no one is
planning on anything like the shuttle right now.

Engineers learn.




--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

Who are you to tell me what risks I can take? *People risk their lives,
and many die, each year in pursuits like climbing Mt. Everest, and there
are plenty of people who attempt it who have not prepared enough, yet
have the money to make the attempt.

private companies can go explore mars if they want and can afford it.
there should be some minimal oversite so its reasonably safe and
wouldnt drop stages on anyone.

but they only ones who can afford top send astronauts to mars is
government......

and government shouldnt pay to send half baked unsafe missions to
mars........

Mortality Rates of Sports and Recreation:

According to the CDC the major causes of death in the USA are; heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, accidents, Alzheimers, Diabetes.

Number of participants who die in each of these activities:

Himilayan 1:8 - above 20,000 ft.
Base Jumping: 1:60
Grand Prix: 1:100
Hang Gliding: 1:150
Motorbike: 1:1,000
Boxing: 1:2,200
Cars: 1:6,700
Canoeing: 1:10,000
Scuba Diving: 1:34,400
Football: 1:50,000
Skydiving: 1:101,083
Bicycling: 1:140,845
Bungee Jump: 1:500,000
Run/Jog: 1:1,000,000
Swimming: 1:1,000,000

For air travel, there is one death per 74.16 million km travelled or one death per 78,740 hours of exposure.

For motorcycles, there is one death per 77,700 km travelled or one death per 4.66 million hours of exposure.

These are interesting figures because it is likely we can do better than air travel but not better than motorcycles with current technology.

Using hours of exposure demanding that a three year trip to Mars for six crew members were as safe as air travel we would see the probability of all coming through the ordeal safely as 51.27% - and the personal risk of each astronaut is a 10.54% chance of death over the three years.

Demanding that a three year trip to Mars for six crew members were as safe as motorcycles on a per hour of exposure basis the odds of all six coming through safely is 96.67%. The personal risk faced by each astronaut is a 0.56% chance of death over the three years.

150,000 people die every day. 100,000 die of age related diseases. 50,000 die of other causes, primarily malnutrition in the poorest of nations, primarily of auto accidents in wealthy nations.

The ten nations with the highest mortality rates are;

Rank Country Death rate
(annual deaths/1000 persons)

1 South Africa 17.23
2 Ukraine 15.76
3 Lesotho 15.18
4 Chad.. 15.16
5 Guinea-Bissau 15.01
6 Central African Republic 14.71
7 Afghanistan 14.59
8 Somalia 14.55
9 Bulgaria 14.32
10 Swaziland 14.21

According to the World Health Organization, the 10 leading causes of death in 2002 we

12.6% Ischaemic heart disease
9.7% Cerebrovascular disease
6.8% Lower respiratory infections
4.9% HIV/AIDS
4.8% Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
3.2% Diarrhoeal diseases
2.7% Tuberculosis
2.2% Trachea/bronchus/lung cancers
2.2% Malaria
2.1% Road traffic accidents

These averages sum a mixture of similar outcomes due to different causes.

Someone who starves to death undergoes massive proteolysis which dissolves their heart and brain causing heart and cerebrovascular disease. Somone who overeats tends to overstress their heart and vascular system causing again a different sort of heart failure and crebrovascular failure. So these two add.

Someone who is malnourished is prey to respiratory infections and pulmonary disease. Smoking too causes respiratory and pulmonary disease.

Someone without access to clean water often dies of diarrhea, TB and Malaria. So these are a problem of the malnourished exclusively.

Lung cancers and road accidents are a problem mostly of wealthy peoples.

Still this gives the 'natural' rate of death.

100,000 age related, 50,000 scarcity and accident related per day for 7,057 millions. That's 7.76 people per thousand per year.

In a scientific world, especially one where the results of scientific advances are applied to ageing, we can expect age related diseases to drop dramatically.

Recall that the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 was awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, Jack W. Szostak for discovery of the mechanism of ageing and how to reverse it. So, its only a matter of time before this comes into wider use.

In a world where scientific advances are applied to industry and agriculture, and the artificial scarcities we labour under today are removed, then we can expect food and scarcity related diseases to drop as well.

Thus for our population we might see daily rates drop to 35,000 per day due to primarily to auto accidents. An annual rate of 1.81 people per thousand.

So, this is the 'natural' rate of death in a scientifically advanced world.

Now, I believe if given the opportunity, nearly all people would engage in interplanetary and interstellar travel if the risks were about the same as air travel accidents or less. Particularly if people are given an incentive. The opportunity to earn great wealth, or the opportunity to live an exceptionally long life otherwise.

This translates to one death per 78,740 hours of exposure. This means that in one year the chance each person faces of dying is 105.35 per thousand. This is vastly higher (13.7x higher) than the mortality rate of Earth today.

Now the average birth rate in the world today is 19.15 per thousand per year. Though, it can be as high as 50 per thousand per year.

At the lower birth rate population drops by half every 7.7 years. At the higher birth rate population drops by half every 11.9 years.

All people living in space facing the same risk they face travelling today by air, results in 2.15 million people per day dying.

Reducing risk to the level of motorcycle travel obtains 1.88 deaths per thousand per year. When added to the 1.81 deaths per thousand per year, we obtain 3.69 deaths per thousand per year - about half today's death rate.

Now, one factor that's not widely appreciated is that birth rates among wealthy well-educated people are lower than among poorer (though not so poor as to be destitute) less well-educated people.

By its very nature, space travel involves wealthy well-educated people. So their fertility is likely to be lower. How much lower? Fertility and income studies done at Yale University in the 1990s indicate that fertility will be 20% of the average, or 3.83 per thousand people per year. Offsetting that against the 3.69 deaths per thousand per year indicates a population growth rate of 1.4 per TEN thousand people. A doubling period of 4,951 years!

For laser light sail interstellar travel, which involves suspended animation of 12 years on average in this sector of the galaxy, and 11% emigration rate per year, growth rates drop to 20% of this figure which increases doubling periods to 24,755 years.

At 2/3 light speed humanity spans 16,500 light years, a space that contains tens of millions of star systems. Thus, only a few thousand people per star system is the population density we can expect once we decide to end our artificial scarcity, apply modern science to the problem of living, and engage our mutual frontier.

but they only ones who can afford to send astronauts to mars is
government......

and government shouldnt pay to send half baked unsafe missions to
mars........

Poor Bobbert has it backwards. *The government is the organization to
undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.


fred we finally agree on something and goverment needs to make
safety its first priority.

The government is the organization to
undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

With a death rate of 3.69 per 1,000 as calculated before and with all preventable diseases and age related disease removed, a person has an opportunity to live a long long time.

Add in the factor of suspended animation for 8 to 12 years for interstellar voyagers and we have the prospect of extremely long-lived people.

Half of all the people live 188 years at this rate of death - removing the age factor.

Ten percent would make it to 623 years.

One percent would make it to 1,246 years!

With 11% of the population leaving where they are to go somewhere else in the galaxy each year, in a steady state situation 78.8% of the people are in stasis.

This means that 887 years of Earth time would pass for the 188 year old folks, 2,939 years would pass for the 623 year old folks and 5,878 years would pass for the 1,246 year old folks.

Thus, if we started today, there are some alive today who will likely make it out to 4,000 light years from here assuming light sail star ships are the best we do over the next 6,000 years.

Of course, with death rates are 52.68 per thousand per year - half on an hour of exposure basis than today's airliners - which approximate the highest birth rates around - then 12.8 years of exposure sees half the people alive at the outset survive this period. Only 1% of all those in space would survive 85 years. One in one million live 255 years.

The population is again stable, and this approximates the social conditions of early tribal humanity.

Expanding at 2/3 light speed, and increasing range as suspended animation gets better allowing longer times in stasis - reproductive rates decline as habitable range expands with the cube of time. This means that as safety is improved yielding lower death rates, life spans will increase, even if family size and sexual mores keep a high birth rate for those out of stasis.

On Jun 16, 11:44*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:

but they only ones who can afford to send astronauts to mars is
government......

and government shouldnt pay to send half baked unsafe missions to
mars........

Poor Bobbert has it backwards. *The government is the organization to
undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

fred we finally agree on something and goverment needs to make
safety its first priority.

No, Bobbert, we don't agree at all.



The government is the organization to
undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

Yes, but you have to UNDERTAKE them. *And that's what you don't want
to happen, so we still don't agree.

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

I am excited by going to mars and in my youth, seeing apollo believed
we would of been there by now.

HOWEVER nasa appears centered on pork spending rather than exploration
and nasa did cause the death of 2 shuttle crews by ignoring their
jobs.

the question is nasa capoable of running ANY manned program safely?

On Jun 17, 1:06*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:
On Jun 16, 11:44*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:

but they only ones who can afford to send astronauts to mars is
government......

and government shouldnt pay to send half baked unsafe missions to
mars........

Poor Bobbert has it backwards. *The government is the organization to
undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

fred we finally agree on something and goverment needs to make
safety its first priority.

No, Bobbert, we don't agree at all.

The government is the organization to
undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

Yes, but you have to UNDERTAKE them. *And that's what you don't want
to happen, so we still don't agree.

I am excited by going to mars and in my youth, seeing apollo believed
we would of been there by now.

Yes, you're excited by going to Mars just as long as we don't actually
GO to Mars.



HOWEVER nasa appears centered on pork spending rather than exploration
and nasa did cause the death of 2 shuttle crews by ignoring their
jobs.

the question is nasa capoable of running ANY manned program safely?

Certainly not if they let Chicken Little second guess them.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
*truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *-- Thomas Jefferson

a little second guessing could of saved 2 shuttle crews from death
when management clearly was not doing ts job

On Monday, June 17, 2013 11:08:33 AM UTC-7, bob haller wrote:
On Jun 17, 1:06*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:

bob haller wrote:

On Jun 16, 11:44*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:

bob haller wrote:



but they only ones who can afford to send astronauts to mars is

government......



and government shouldnt pay to send half baked unsafe missions to

mars........



Poor Bobbert has it backwards. *The government is the organization to

undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.



fred we finally agree on something and goverment needs to make

safety its first priority.



No, Bobbert, we don't agree at all.



The government is the organization to

undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.



Yes, but you have to UNDERTAKE them. *And that's what you don't want

to happen, so we still don't agree.



I am excited by going to mars and in my youth, seeing apollo believed

we would of been there by now.



Yes, you're excited by going to Mars just as long as we don't actually

GO to Mars.







HOWEVER nasa appears centered on pork spending rather than exploration

and nasa did cause the death of 2 shuttle crews by ignoring their

jobs.



the question is nasa capoable of running ANY manned program safely?



Certainly not if they let Chicken Little second guess them.



--

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the

*truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *-- Thomas Jefferson



a little second guessing could of saved 2 shuttle crews from death

when management clearly was not doing ts job

Prior to the failure at (or near) launch of the Challenger, there had already be
O ring burn thru events (on previous launches), just look at the clearer
videos of some of the launches (ones not selected by NASA).

"they" claim virtue of course...................Trig

On Jun 17, 3:16*pm, Wrong Stuff wrote:
On Monday, June 17, 2013 11:08:33 AM UTC-7, bob haller wrote:
On Jun 17, 1:06*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:

bob haller wrote:

On Jun 16, 11:44*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:

bob haller wrote:

but they only ones who can afford to send astronauts to mars is

government......

and government shouldnt pay to send half baked unsafe missions to

mars........

Poor Bobbert has it backwards. *The government is the organization to

undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

fred we finally agree on something and goverment needs to make

safety its first priority.

No, Bobbert, we don't agree at all.

The government is the organization to

undertake high-risk enterprises so that the risk becomes lower.

Yes, but you have to UNDERTAKE them. *And that's what you don't want

to happen, so we still don't agree.

I am excited by going to mars and in my youth, seeing apollo believed

we would of been there by now.

Yes, you're excited by going to Mars just as long as we don't actually

GO to Mars.

HOWEVER nasa appears centered on pork spending rather than exploration

and nasa did cause the death of 2 shuttle crews by ignoring their

jobs.

the question is nasa capoable of running ANY manned program safely?

Certainly not if they let Chicken Little second guess them.

--

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the

*truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *-- Thomas Jefferson

a little second guessing could of saved 2 shuttle crews from death

when management clearly was not doing ts job

Prior to the failure at (or near) launch of the Challenger, there had already be
O ring burn thru events (on previous launches), just look at the clearer
videos of some of the launches (ones not selected by NASA).

"they" claim virtue of course...................Trig

just as there had been near wing burn thru before columbia.........

sadly in both cases clear warning signs were ignored, all managers
cared about was schedule