https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/
It's impressive that they were able to keep an employee death secret for nearly a decade, the public finds out when a pilot dies in a testing accident at Area 51 or if an engineer gets killed in an explosion working on the Burevestnik missile quite quickly, but not when someone gets blown off a moving truck at SpaceX.
It's also surprising that Elon is deadly serious about colonizing Mars and that it's the motivation behind the whole company. Maybe if a clever astrophysicist could sit down with him for an hour they could explain to him that we're not close to being able to build a fully self-sustaining off-world colony and the idea of one being necessary for humanity's survival any time soon (in the geological sense) is silly. If I had to send him a few notes on a napkin to try to disprove the idea to him, I'd point out that:
- The least habitable places on Earth are vastly more habitable than the most habitable places elsewhere in our solar system (and from what we've found so far, likely beyond it as well). The first inevitable threat to Earth's habitability will be when Earth's continents combine in about a quarter-billion years to form Pangaea Ultima, a giant island like a worse Death Valley or a boring Arrakis where only the northern and southern coasts will be habitable by humans without special gear and artificial environments. Even the worst parts of it will be a luxurious paradise compared to anything we've seen in space so far.
- While there are a lot of issues that could cause civilizational collapse on Earth, there are approximately none that could credibly cause planet-wide habitability issues. Humans and possibly even civilizations would survive Chicxulub-style impacts. The far side of the planet would be safe from a gamma ray burst at a range of 100ly or more.
- Anything less than a fully self-sustaining off-world colony would be thrown into an immediate life-or-death struggle by a couple of missed resupply missions, which could result from relatively minor issues on Earth. Watch/read The Martian and then realize that it's highly optimistic and fudges the science slightly to help the protagonist survive. The colony is only truly self-sustaining in the long term when they can fabricate a replacement for anything they have including microchips - otherwise they're only capable of extended hunkering-down until something vital and irreplaceable breaks.
RevRico
MegaDork
11/14/23 2:40 p.m.
What's your space company trying to do?
I can't wait to see what direction this thread heads in...
Mndsm
MegaDork
11/14/23 2:59 p.m.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Elon is a supervillain. Attempting to build a lai... I mean colony on mars just reinforces that.
Toyman!
MegaDork
11/14/23 2:59 p.m.
Meh. Space flight has always been dangerous. Building high energy systems has risks. List of spaceflight-related accidents and incidents
I must admit, being blown out of the back of a truck by wind isn't one I would have thought of including in my morning safety brief. My employees are smarter than that and we aren't rocket scientists.
His idea may sound silly to you but it provides motivation to succeed. Does the company you work for have any goal that you hear about??
In reply to Toyman! :
Most of the aerospace companies are OSHA-compliant though, which both makes them more expensive and keeps their employees from getting casually maimed like Dethklok roadies in accidents nobody finds out about for a decade. So I don't think it's fair to chalk it up to "space companies will be space companies."
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I've made a fuss, and minimized my use of them for that reason among others. Later I'm going to post about a customer safety issue with Amazon I recently experienced up close in fact.
Elon Musk is a man who looked at Cyberpunk fiction and thought it was aspirational instead of a dystopian warning.
MyMiatas said:
His idea may sound silly to you but it provides motivation to succeed. Does the company you work for have any goal that you hear about??
Yeah. We make people happy and give them a place to have positive social interactions.
Wait till his other company starts putting computer chips in people's brains. They already killed a lot of monkeys doing that.
Some people just feel the need to be unhappy and complain about everything in their lives. Some do not. If one looks hard enough, you can always find something to be unhappy about on literally any topic, company or person on the planet. How you focus your energy is important.
Toyman!
MegaDork
11/14/23 3:58 p.m.
GameboyRMH said:
In reply to Toyman! :
Most of the aerospace companies are OSHA-compliant though, which both makes them more expensive and keeps their employees from getting casually maimed like Dethklok roadies in accidents nobody finds out about for a decade. So I don't think it's fair to chalk it up to "space companies will be space companies."
Most space companies haven't accomplished anything since the 1980s.
SpaceX has done more for space flight in the last 10 years than any other company in the world. He's the only one pushing to the edge and beyond of what is possible. His company isn't afraid of blowing E36 M3 up just to find out if it works.
Go Musk. Go SpaceX.
Safety 3rd.
I don't like Elon either, that's why I never buy his spaceships.
maschinenbau said:
I don't like Elon either, that's why I never buy his spaceships.
You sure? Some of your tax dollars probably do.
GameboyRMH said:
maschinenbau said:
I don't like Elon either, that's why I never buy his spaceships.
You sure? Some of your tax dollars probably do.
Isn't that getting a bit political?
It's interesting that this hit piece came out right about the same time SpaceX was winding up for a high profile test flight.
SpaceX isn't comparable to other space companies in terms of what they do. Most space companies are paperwork companies, with some very slow assembly of one-off products. Injuries there are probably mostly papercuts.
SpaceX is more of a construction company because they're building hundreds of rockets and are building two major spaceports at the same time. If you compare their injury rate to the national average - it's not out of line.
The national average in 2022 (according to bls.gov) is 2.3 injury cases per 100 FTE workers. Add in illness (45.2 per 10,000 FTE) and you get 2.75.
According to the Reuters article, the SpaceX rocket engine testing facility in Texas has a rate of 2.7 for injuries and illnesses. Bang on the national average. The California manufacturing facility (where they make Falcon first and second stages and possibly Merlin engines) is 1.7. The HQ (paperwork central) is 0.8.
The Texas experimental launch site is at 4.8, and it's basically a construction site. I suspect that 4.8 lines up pretty well with construction.
As for the individual examples, accident reports always come across as "someone was stupid" because it's impossible to prevent all kinds of stupid. Riding on top of a truck to hold down a load? That's dumb. Nobody who saw that should have allowed it. But if you get enough people doing stuff, the laws of averages say that someone's going to do something stupid eventually.
SpaceX has brought the cost of access to space way, way down. The shuttle cost about $55k to put a kg into orbit. On Falcon 9, it's under $3k. The government and private industry is saving a whole lot of money using what has turned out to be the most reliable rocket in the world, and it's changing the way things like satellites are designed.
People like to mock or complain about OSHA. Nearly all rules at OSHA are reactive to very bad incidents were people lost their lives. Just remember those rules are covered in blood.
Be very good at what you do. People will line up to take cheap shots at you.
Fueled by Caffeine said:
People like to mock or complain about OSHA. Nearly all rules at OSHA are reactive to very bad incidents were people lost their lives. Just remember those rules are covered in blood.
No question. And people are remarkably creative in coming up with new ways to have bad incidents.
bobzilla said:
GameboyRMH said:
maschinenbau said:
I don't like Elon either, that's why I never buy his spaceships.
You sure? Some of your tax dollars probably do.
Isn't that getting a bit political?
I realize it was a joke but it's also a fact that the US government pays SpaceX for some launches, I don't think that's political...
Duke
MegaDork
11/14/23 4:58 p.m.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Don't bring facts to an emotions fight.
