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Risk Aversion At Odds With Manned Space Exploration
Several readers including tyghe!! sent in a Popular Mechanics piece analyzing the Augustine Commission's recommendations and NASA itself in terms of a persistent bias towards risk aversion, and arguing that such a bias is fundamentally incompatible with the mission of opening a new frontier. "Rand Simberg, a former aerospace engineer finds the report a little too innocuous. In this analysis, Simberg asks, what happens when we take the risk out of space travel? ... Aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan said a few years ago that if we're not killing people, we're not pushing hard enough. That might sound harsh to people outside the aerospace community but, as Rutan knows, test pilots and astronauts are a breed of people that willingly accepts certain risk in order to be part of great endeavors. They're volunteers and they know what they're getting into."
According to this article your lifetime chance of dying in a car crash is 1 in 83.
Per-person odds, I'd take a one-time shuttle ride over a lifetime of driving.
People need to stop and think a little. Back in the 1400's and 1500's when people were exploring the world, who went out? Was it the candy asses? Did the mama's boys go forth? The fruit cakes who dressed up as dandies to hang around a court yard in some dank castle? Of course not.
I can write paragraphs badmouthing old Chris Columbus, and the conquistadors who put much of Latin America to the torch, raping, murdering, and plundering. Paragraphs? Hell, I could write books! But, despite that, they were badass mofos. Yeah, they had a lot of luck on their side, not to mention some slightly advanced technology, germ warfare was on their side, and they had better warfare strategies and tactics. But, they were badasses, willing to put their lives on the line.
The same goes for all the other settlers who came to the new world. Candy asses and sissies who counted the risk assessment beans stayed at home, or at least waited many years for the real bad asses to create a safe place for them.
Today? Phhht.
I put my faith in SpaceX and places like China to put man into space. The US government has to many bean counters who won't risk losing a few beans.
I've said it before, I'll repeat it here. I'll haul my ass up onto that rocket making a one-way trip to Mars. Light that big bastard off, and send me on my way. You would do better to send a younger man - but if you can't find one with the balls to go, I'm ready. Just send the equipment and supplies necessary for the job, and I'll put in a few years work, trying to find a reason that convinces the candy asses that it is worth sending a colony to Mars.
Don't worry about any silly assed funeral when I finally croak - when the time comes, I'll drop my drawers and lie face down in plain site of the earth. Those who count will remember me - and the rest can kiss my ass.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
>>>The US government has to many bean counters who won't risk losing a few beans.
And yet they spend ~2000 billion on bank bailouts, corporate bailouts, and "stimulus" bills without even reading the fucking laws. I thought it was funny when Conyers said, "People keep saying read the bill. Have you seen the bill? It's over 1000 pages long and requires two lawyers sitting by my side to explain what it means! We don't have time to read the bill. We need to get it passed."
So they just vote "aye" and hope for the best. I'm sure if they can spend all that, without even knowing what they are spending it on, they can spare 0.1 billion for NASA each year.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall