Apparently SpaceX is an OSHA-free chaos zone with a silly goal

RevRico said:

What's your space company trying to do?

I hate this.

Musk's culture of safety has killed someone. 

How is it that any valid criticism of this man is instantly met with derision?

Also, criticism doesn't mean everything else done is negated.

No, someone died in a company with over 13,000 employees, which is a thing that happens in a company that big. That's not necessarily Musk killing someone. It may have nothing to do with the founder of the company. Or it might, we don't really have a way of knowing because every single article about any of his businesses makes it sound like he's the only person who works there.

Mistakes are made, investigations happen, changes are made, it doesn't happen again. Which is the cycle anywhere. If it were happening on a regular basis, that's an area of concern.

Keith Tanner said:

It's interesting that this hit piece came out right about the same time SpaceX was winding up for a high profile test flight.

Aren't they going to launch the big one this weekend. I'm surprised there isn't a thread here about that. 

Safety comes from the top.

In this case, the top did such asinine things that he banned bright colors (aka safety gear) because he didn't like how they look. 

There may be layers between him and the death, but if the successes of the company are his so are the failures.  You can't have both.

Mr_Asa said:

RevRico said:

What's your space company trying to do?

I hate this.

Musk's culture of safety has killed someone. 

How is it that any valid criticism of this man is instantly met with derision?

Also, criticism doesn't mean everything else done is negated.

People die every day. It's a thing that happens. Even in shops that follow everything from the gospel of Osha, including the parts that contradict each other. I honestly don't see why it's a big deal. 

My instant derision was at gameboy and his bizarro rant, because his being angry at rich people for not doing what he thinks they should do with their money is getting old.

I honestly don't give two E36 M3s what Elon does positive or negative. He's an entertaining Rogan guest, he throws lots of money at things I'm a fan of, and things I'm not, but he's just another car in the traffic jam of life as far as I'm concerned. 

I will support almost anyone and any group actively trying and funding space exploration and the technological barriers that will need to be broken trying to get there. Unlike money, technology trickles down, and there's going to be a lot of cool E36 M3 needed for such a grand scale project. I'm sick of this rock, there's a whole inconceivably huge universe out there to explore, full of sights and experiences beyond our wildest imaginations, let's berkeleying get to it. 

Dear Hive,

To me, this is definitive proof that Elon is ushering in the future (not some government or agency)...a few lost lives along the way, though tragic, is a minuscule price to pay to make humanity qualitatively more capable, qualitatively better prepared to handle the tough things that constantly come our way.

Elon Musk has accomplished a lot with Space-X. He is also a bit of a nut.

But so was Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and Nichola Tesla.

Henry Ford and Thomas Edison founded companies and got rich. Nicola Tesla made a bunch of money for General Electric and was taken care of the rest of his life.

... and I get to own cheap, mass produced cars and use electricity in my house.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Keith Tanner said:

It's interesting that this hit piece came out right about the same time SpaceX was winding up for a high profile test flight.

Aren't they going to launch the big one this weekend. I'm surprised there isn't a thread here about that. 

It was mentioned in the "SpaceX launches" thread, but IIRC the license has not yet been officially confirmed. They're ready to go as soon as it's issued.

Mr_Asa said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Elon Musk has accomplished a lot with Space-X. He is also a bit of a nut.

But so was Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and Nichola Tesla.

Henry Ford and Thomas Edison founded companies and got rich. Nicola Tesla made a bunch of money for General Electric and was taken care of the rest of his life.

... and I get to own cheap, mass produced cars and use electricity in my house.

Your comparisons are interesting. 

A nazi sympathizer/anti-semite, a rampant thief of IP, and Tesla who was crazy enough that its possible he loved a pigeon. 

Compared to Musk

Exactly.

And he may still get to Mars.

Mr_Asa said:

A nazi sympathizer/anti-semite, a rampant thief of IP, and Tesla who was crazy enough that its possible he loved a pigeon.

Tesla once wrote of his favorite white pigeon that he loved the pigeon "as a man loves a woman," there's not a whole lot of room for interpretation there...

Mr_Asa said:

Safety comes from the top.

In this case, the top did such asinine things that he banned bright colors (aka safety gear) because he didn't like how they look. 

There may be layers between him and the death, but if the successes of the company are his so are the failures.  You can't have both.

Is that accurate?  Do you have articles about this, or was this in the original post?

I get people like to think that people dying is normal and all, it just happens.  But to ban the use of actual safety equipment is ok?  

What would you think if Musk banned eye protection?  Is that sacrifice ok because of the look?  Or if he thought steel toed shoes were terrible, so people started losing their feet because of some vain thing?

Sure, there are accidents in life and work.  But to undermine safety protocol for the sake of a look?  If that's true, some of you are overlooking some serious vanity that does actually sacrifice worker safety.

RX Reven' said:

Dear Hive,

To me, this is definitive proof that Elon is ushering in the future (not some government or agency)...a few lost lives along the way, though tragic, is a minuscule price to pay to make humanity qualitatively more capable, qualitatively better prepared to handle the tough things that constantly come our way.

      

So sacrificing lives for someone else is part of tech life going forward?  I'm not sure what you are getting at.  Would you be happy if your kid was sacrificed to get to Mars?

In reply to alfadriver :

In the linked article it's mentioned (and I've heard this from other sources) that high-vis vests and safety markings are not used at SpaceX (edit: and from other sources I've heard that the same is true at Tesla), because Elon hates bright colors, especially yellow. The article says that they've even had yellow vehicles repainted because of this.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/

I love the whole idea of Mr. Musk.  Like when he walked into Twitter with a sink.

Do you think he personally went to Home Depot and got a sink? 

Does he have assistants who buy weird props to help him troll?  Is it one guy's job or does he have multiple goons helping him?

GameboyRMH said:

- 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.

The Chicxulub impact caused the extinction of 3/4 of the animal and plant species on the Earth.  Humanity is not going to survive that.

The problem with being on the far side of the planet during a GRB is that it takes out a whole bunch of the ozone layer.  So yeah, you might survive the sterilization of the other side of the planet long enough to die of massive skin cancer the next year.  Or starvation after all of the crops die from UV exposure.

I agree that a Mars colony is only self-sufficient when it can replace everything it needs using only local resources, but that's always going to be true and the only way we get there is if someone starts the process.

Participated in three startups in my career. What I can tell you is important is a strong vision shared by all participants. This vision had to come from the founder and be adopted by staff and clients/investors. Made it fun and made people give it their all to make the vision happen. It did not have to be a valid vision or even attainable, just had to be swallowed by all involved.  First time I was an acolyte, second time I was an observer and the third time I was an enabler. 

Musk is one hell of a vision seller.  There is another example of such but we cant speak of it here.

As to living on Mars? I think we need to send an army of robotics running on fusion to first replicate themselves using whatever resources exist on the planet, then the resulting army of robotics would build an infrastructure to support a terra-forming operation that need not heed the needs of flesh-bound creatures. Give this group a couple of thousand years and maybe some habitat could be carved out. This would all be much easier if nuclear fusion could play a role in providing the insane amounts of energy required.

Personally, I am more of a Larry Niven fan and figure that given unlimited energy,( fission or fusion) and manpower ( robots)  it would be easier to build a planet from scratch to suit your needs, rather than buy a fixer-upper.  If you think big enough, its just dirt.

alfadriver said:

Mr_Asa said:

Safety comes from the top.

In this case, the top did such asinine things that he banned bright colors (aka safety gear) because he didn't like how they look. 

There may be layers between him and the death, but if the successes of the company are his so are the failures.  You can't have both.

Is that accurate?  Do you have articles about this, or was this in the original post?

I get people like to think that people dying is normal and all, it just happens.  But to ban the use of actual safety equipment is ok?  

What would you think if Musk banned eye protection?  Is that sacrifice ok because of the look?  Or if he thought steel toed shoes were terrible, so people started losing their feet because of some vain thing?

Sure, there are accidents in life and work.  But to undermine safety protocol for the sake of a look?  If that's true, some of you are overlooking some serious vanity that does actually sacrifice worker safety.

OSHA doesn't require high-visibility apparel unless you are a flagger or a worker exposed to vehicle traffic near excavations, or a worker in highway/construction zones which are exposed to traffic.

I agree with you completely that it's absurd, but I am not sure that Musk broke any rules or banned the use of required safety equipment.

In reply to RX Reven' :

Well, if you are ok with your kids dying in a preventable industrial accident while stuff is being made for the sake of going to space, well, can't really argue with that.

To me, I'm not really seeing the allure to rushing space travel at all.  Having done a senior project for NASA to live on Mars, I see no real appeal to actually try.  At best, going to Mars would be for bragging.  The lack of a strong magnetic pole system like here on earth means that there's no way to live without some major protection from all of the radiation that comes from the sun.  Let alone the lack of atmosphere.  And even with that lack of air, there's enough that the entire planet can be covered in a sand storm- some of our probes have had to go silent for many months because there was not enough sun to run them.  So for humans to survive there for any significant time, they have to find real fuel there to consume, as not having enough solar for multiple months would wipe out the whole thing.

And then the idea of going interstellar.  Yea.  The closest star to us is 4.21 light years away.  Voyager 1 has been traveling for almost 50 years now, and it's 22 light hours away from us.  To find the energy propel things through space at a speed that would, well... 

Physics can be a real bitch.

Remember Elon isn't Space-X he is Twitter / X. Look at X and imagine if Elon actually ran Space-X.  

The recordable incidence rate for injury and illness in the construction industry is 3.0. SpaceEx is 2.7.   I guess I should be complaining that my company is not OSHA compliant.

Except we are. (As much as most companies)

And we are also not. There are NO US companies that technically are OSHA compliant.   That's why my company recently had to pay $10,000 in fines for a violation found at an inspection on my job. Since the inspector couldn't find anything legit, he cited us for an extension cord laying on the floor (claiming it could be run over, and was therefore an electrical hazard).
 

Good luck using an extension cord without it ever laying on the floor. (There is no such rule. It falls under the "General Duty Clause", and is purely an interpretation by the individual local inspector).   My company paid the bill (under threat of much higher fines). 
 

OSHA does not exist to keep people safe. It exists to generate revenue. Keeping people safe is MY JOB.  In over 40 years in construction, I've never had a missed day incident. 
 

Safe practices are absolutely important, but an OSHA inspector can always find something wrong. To that extent, there is no such thing as being an OSHA compliant company. 
 

The article says the employee was unable to find straps to secure the load.  Apparently he KNEW it should be secured. Sounds like SpaceEx did their job training him, and he made a dumb decision contrary to his training (although SpaceEx WAS in the wrong for not reporting a death). 

alfadriver said:

And then the idea of going interstellar.  Yea.  The closest star to us is 4.21 light years away.  Voyager 1 has been traveling for almost 50 years now, and it's 22 light hours away from us. 

Voyager 1 was never meant to go to another star.  It was launched with 1970s technology, on a chemical rocket, and only ever intended to go as far as Saturn.

If you want to go interstellar you need a nuclear drive.  There have been several proposals, the first of which (Project Orion) could be built with today's technology, given the money and willpower.  Project Daedalus is a bit more speculative (assumes that we can make laser-confinement fusion work).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

As note the primary issue with interstellar travel, for the passengers, is not speed or power, it's fuel. 

You really don't want to accelerate much over 1G, but even at 1 G acceleration it would take approximately 1 year to accelerate to light speed... of course, relativity jumps in as you get near light speed, which actually works to the advantage of the passengers, so their perceived speed becomes many times the speed of light (as time slows for them) but of course the increase in mass hurts acceleration, I think, relatively, not sure (?).

Then of course, you have to spend exactly half of the trip decelerating, so you have to consider that.  

As noted, fuel is the primary issue. You would need constant acceleration and deceleration for the entire trip. As noted above, something like nuclear is the only current option.  Even still, I am pretty sure you only need the fuel based on the crews time perspective (?).

Here is my query to Googles AI, for half the trip, so double these numbers, so about 6 years for those on earth and 1.5 years for those in the ship, not really that long!  It should be noted that longer distances will not take relatively (!) longer times, they will get progressively more efficient as trips get longer because of relativity (more % of time spent near light speed), earth perspective wise though... say goodby.  I broke the AI asking about 12.5 light years (half the distance to Vega) because it assumes passing light speed, which of course is not possible.

Traveling 2.1 light-years at a constant acceleration of 1 g is a challenging task due to the limitations of relativity. As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases and its acceleration decreases. This makes it impossible to reach the speed of light with a finite acceleration.

However, we can approximate the time it would take to travel 2.1 light-years at 1 g acceleration using a simplified model that assumes the spacecraft can accelerate at a constant rate for the entire journey. In this model, the spacecraft would reach a speed of approximately 0.999c (99.9% of the speed of light) after about 1.14 years. At this speed, it would take an additional 2.07 years to travel 2.1 light-years, for a total travel time of approximately 3.21 years from the perspective of an observer on Earth.

From the perspective of the astronauts on the spacecraft, however, the journey would seem much shorter due to the effects of time dilation. Time dilation is a consequence of special relativity, which states that the passage of time is relative to the observer's motion. As an object approaches the speed of light, time appears to pass more slowly from the perspective of an observer at rest.

In this case, the astronauts would experience about 4.4 times less time dilation than an observer on Earth. This means that their journey would seem to last only about 0.73 years.

So, while it would take an observer on Earth about 3.21 years to travel 2.1 light-years at 1 g acceleration, the astronauts on the spacecraft would only experience about 0.73 years of time passing. This is a remarkable consequence of relativity, and it highlights the challenges of interstellar travel.

aircooled said:

As note the primary issue with interstellar travel, for the passengers, is not speed or power, it's fuel. 

...

As noted, fuel is the primary issue. You would need constant acceleration and deceleration for the entire trip. As noted above, something like nuclear is the only current option.  Even still, I am pretty sure you only need the fuel based on the crews time perspective (?).

More precisely, the issue is "reaction mass".  In a chemical rocket the fuel (and oxidizer) provide both the energy source as well as the reaction mass, but that isn't always the case in other types of rocket engine.

Most interstellar drive proposals do not envision accelerating the entire trip, there is basically no way to carry enough reaction mass to do this ("the tyranny of the rocket equation").  You could maybe do it with a launching laser (put a solar sail on the ship then shine a huge laser at it that's powered from the home star system), but slowing down at the other end becomes a problem.  Most proposals envision accelerating for a period of months up to some cruising speed, then coasting until it's time to turn over and slow down at the destination.

(one proposal that got around this was the "Bussard ramscoop", which has the idea of using a huge (hundreds of miles wide) magnetic funnel to trap the minute quantities of interstellar hydrogen as fusion fuel, but current thinking suggests that the density isn't high enough in our part of the galaxy to make that feasible)