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NASA Campaigns For Safer Launch Requirements

Posted by Soulskill on from the risk-is-not-our-business dept.

NASA officials will speak before members of Congress this week in an effort to gain support for more stringent launch safety considerations for the space shuttle's successor. Crew safety remains a major concern for lawmakers while they debate NASA's future and the potential integration of private companies into US space flight plans. "The demonstrated probability of a shuttle launch disaster is 1 in 129. NASA's 83 astronauts think those odds can be improved to 1 in 1,000. Independent safety experts agree. 'None of us want to repeat the accident history of the shuttle,' said retired Navy Vice Adm. Joseph Dyer, chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, a group organized to oversee NASA programs after three astronauts died in the 1967 Apollo 1 launch pad fire. ... NASA's Astronaut Office began a re-evaluation of next-generation launch vehicle safety after the loss of Columbia's crew. The guiding principles laid out in a May 2004 report remain current, astronauts said. Launching astronauts into low Earth orbit is dangerous. But an order-of-magnitude reduction of risk is achievable 'and should therefore represent a minimum safety benchmark for future systems,' the report says."

8 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Wow... by nametaken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can certainly appreciate that they want to do better, but it still amazes me that we send people into F'ING SPACE with less than 1% failure rate.

    1. Re:Wow... by tftp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      agree that at some point it is no longer worth it, and that implicitly we do place value on a humans lives. But how much is it worth?

      It is worth much more than it would cost to make the launch vehicle safe. The STS problem - and its death toll - is in deliberate design that made emergency escape impossible pretty much in any part of the launch or descent. Capsule based designs could survive both incidents if the capsule is strong enough to perform a ballistic reentry on its own. The problem is that you can't make such a capsule large enough to hold 7 people. STS design went for capacity and payload, at great risk to safety.

  2. NASA Needs Permission? by jlgreer1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does NASA have to campaign for greater safety standards? Why can't they implement them without the "politicians" approval?

    1. Re:NASA Needs Permission? by wizardforce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      more money

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      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  3. We really need to get Commercial space going by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, Rutan had it right when he said that we are not killing enough. The simple fact is, that to be cutting edge WILL involve loss of life. Yet, NASA is talking all about safety rather than designing/building new rockets.

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:We really need to get Commercial space going by Kaboom13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      NASA can not afford accidents, not because of the sanctity of human life or any nonsense like that, but because it will kill NASA and probably manned spaceflight in this country in general. Colombia very nearly killed the shuttle program entirely, before a successor was even on the drawing board. People are willing to accept that being an astronaut is dangerous, but a lot of people look up to them, and when a bunch of them explode in a ball of fire over Texas in an entirely preventable accident, the PR impact is catastrophic. Even privately funded spaceflight will get shut down (in this country at least) if it has too many high profile accidents. Even if in reality the cost in lives is minuscule compared to what we lose daily in car accidents or lung cancer from smoking, a few big accidents in a row and the politicians will see "stopping the reckles endangerment of human lives" as a way to score some cheap votes. If human beings were rational and logical, you'd have a point, but we aren't, and too many astronaut funerals on TV will inevitably cause a kneejerk reaction.

    2. Re:We really need to get Commercial space going by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Me. In a heartbeat. I'd go to Mars if the odds were at least 4:1 in my favor...

      Hell, I'd go even if I knew I'd probably die en-route. It would sure be more interesting than being a sysadmin/programmer for the next N years. Plus, you'd be in the history books as "the guy who died trying to get to Mars". OK, less of a "plus", but still...

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      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  4. Re:Unpopular by Marcika · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I realize this view is mighty unpopular, yet I am going to express it. While science is very important, so are social issues. I would like to see the NASA budget considerably shrunk but for only a short period of time, say 12 - 18 months. We have to get our country healthy again and space flight really only effects a small sector of the economy. It will create jobs but only at the most educated levels. A healthy country is a more efficient and productive one. Now, you may feel free to mod me but are you willing to join the censors?

    I don't have an opinion one way or another, but I am quite sure that it is infeasible to cut NASA's budget in half for 18 months and then expect them to continue as if nothing happened...

    What does a "shrunk budget" mean? Firing reseachers, firing engineers, cancelling projects with industry... And if you as an engineer got fired, you would presumably look for another job with more security and better pay in the private sector and not come back after 18 months into a shitty job where they will eliminate your position at a whim... In short, they can't just mothball manpower, because it won't come back.