We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – spaceflight, risk and safety edition “We live with the risk of injury or death in every other human endeavor, from mountain climbing to skydiving, from driving to flying. But for some reason, space-related activities are held to a different standard. Why is it that we see the death of test pilots as an unfortunate consequence of their job, but not for astronauts?”
– Rand Simberg, Safe Is Not An Option: Overcoming The Futile Obsession With Getting Everyone Back Alive That Is Killing Our Expansion Into Space. The book was published in 2013, around a time when Elon Musk and his SpaceX business, as well as others, was not quite as in our public consciousness as it is now. Published 12 years ago, the book retains much of its power and persuasiveness, and lessons apply far beyond spaceflight. Simberg is one of the early bloggers out there, like Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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There is indeed risk in everything – and as long as the risk is taken on voluntarily we should not forbid it.
The people who risk their lives to expand the frontiers of human achievement should be praised, not forbidden from taking on the calculated risks that they exercise their Free Will (moral personhood) in taking on.
Risk aversion has killed the research enterprise world wide, or at least in the West. The consequences of failures in an R&D org are not as serious as for SpaceX or NASA (had to say that for Portland readers), but the issue is costly. I work at a US govt lab, one that does a lot of work with radioactive material (nuclear fuels). We’ve been doing this for 50-75 years depending on which lab you talk about. We’ve done it all and mostly done it safely. Yet, I can’t get a sample moved from one rad lab to another without months of approvals and dilly dallying. My project will end before I can even get the samples I need. And this is in a lab that does this exact thing as its main business.
Why? Because no one, NO ONE, at any level of management, is willing to take on risk, any level of risk whatsoever, no matter the payoff. And they are not wrong because the managers above them will crucify them if they screw up. It’s a “work free safety zone”.
My guess is China was at the opposite extreme at one time, maybe still is? We need a model that is intermediate between the US and China. For those in Portland who missed the first two words of this paragraph let me reiterate (means, “repeat”), this is a GUESS.
I’m not sure I am fully on board about this, though I haven’t read his book so I can’t really say. But what I will say is that the main reason space exploration is so slow is because it is run by the government, and everything they do is done in about the worst way possible. It is interesting to discuss why that was not the case in Mercury and Apollo, but that is perhaps for another time. It is why Musk is so successful in this area. He moves fast and breaks things. There are a lot of people crowing about the recent failures of Starship, but TBH it makes me laugh a little. What Musk is doing with Starship is the foundation for a future in space and these people think a few setbacks are the end of the road.
It is also worth pointing out that Musk is deeply hamstrung by a thousand federal agencies. The fact that he can still make the progress he does is a testament both to his engineering team and his legal team.
Trump can be a bit petty sometimes, I hope the recent feud does not bring about blowback against SpaceX. Because, as far as I can see, it is the only game in town right now for space exploration.
BTW, it is worth pointing out that the success of SpaceX is down to Musk’s leadership. Although he has an amazing team, without Musk SpaceX would be nothing. Witness Bezos’ attempt. He has poured money into it and still the best Bezos can do is a massively overpriced carnival ride for his girlfriend and her besties.
Ordinary aviation is also risk-averse too. But probably because no bystander who has not chosen to fly themselves nevertheless doesn’t want an aeroplane falling on their head.
For a similar reason I don’t expect the much anticipated flying cars to become a major transport idea. The idea of some commuter flying to work, using a mobile phone and drinking a latte at the same time…
It is actually quite difficult to get something to fall out of the sky onto somebody’s head. Until the advent of laser guidance it took several hundred bombers to each drop multiple bombs.
Where people and property get damaged by crashing aircraft is in the vicinity of aerodromes and it can be argued that the people there are voluntarily assuming the risk as the aerodromes were usually there decades before they bought their houses.
Reminds me of motorcycling around the city. 😉
I’d suggest that a further illustration of the difference between State and private approaches to space exploration is that, when something goes wrong, the first instinct of the State seems to do everything possible to cover it up (remember Capricorn One?), whereas the private entrepreneur releases a compilation ‘blooper tape’ with a sardonic commentary with the aim of going viral.
I’d suggest that it’s because the true needs of science at this point leave the presence of people onboard in space flight to be superfluous and performative in some regards, and thus the calculation is, a major possible loss bet against marginal advantage.
@Eyrie
It is actually quite difficult to get something to fall out of the sky onto somebody’s head.
I believe Musk had to calculate the probability of one of his spacecraft hitting a whale on a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”. Personally I think that if you could make that impossible shot you deserve a prize, not a government enquiry.
bobby b,
That is exactly right.
Fraser Orr – Mr Musk has apologized for his comments and withdrawn them.
It is not being “petty” to object to someone calling you a pedophile (which is what Mr Musk implied) especially in a situation of Civil Conflict.
As the United States goes into increasing conflict this summer (as the Marxist forces, and the corporations and rich individuals who, bizarrely, back them, step up their effort to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States) the armed forces must have confidence in their Commander in Chief.
Who is going to fight under the command of someone they believe to be a pedophile? So President Trump had to bring Mr Musk down to Earth (no pun intended) – for national security reasons, as the fate of the Republic is to be decided in the coming conflict.
It must also be understood that New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago (the three largest cities in the United States) have nothing-like the economic production to sustain their populations (the same is true of some other American cities) – and this is also now true of whole States, such as California – which has the largest population of any American State.
The situation is very grave – it is NOT like the 1960s when, although the Marxist forces were strong (as seen in the riots in the cities – and the traitors in senior positions in the bureaucracy, education system and media), the economic foundations of American cities and States were also strong.
Now wide areas of the United States have weak economic foundations (see above) – they are Credit Money bubbles without the economic production to sustain the demands for government benefits and public services (note to those who do not know – the antics of Wall Street and other financial centers are not economic production, and they are propped up by the hidden subsidies of the Federal Reserve Central Banking system).
We are all aware of the “Cloward and Piven” strategy worked out in the 1960s, of increasing the dependent population beyond the capacity of the economy to support it – in wide areas of the United States (NOT all of the United States – but certainly wide areas) this goal has been achieved.
Partly this has been done by massive illegal immigration – with efforts to limit the amount of benefits and public services received by the illegals, for example Proposition 187 which was overwhelmingly passed by the Citizens of California in 1994 – stuck down by ideological fanatic far left judges (Federal as well as State).
With hindsight (yes, I know, 20-20 vision) when the despicable judges struck down Proposition 187 they doomed California – it remains to be seen if the rest of the United States will also become economically and socially nonviable – California (not just Los Angeles) is now nonviable, the dependent population is just too big for what is left of the economic production of the State.
“And what about the United Kingdom?” – I try not to think about the United Kingdom, as the position is worse (yes – worse).
Historical note.
In the Civil War in Paraguay in 1947 (a very serious Civil War – which is little known because of the remoteness of Paraguay and its relatively small population) the banks and certain other corporations backed the far left forces (which included many Marxists) – this seems to have been because the banks (and other such) feared that the government of Paraguay might take direct control of the Credit Money supply – and nothing else seems to matter to banks and corporations allied to them (incredibly short sighted to back Marxists against a government you fear might not be under your control, as the Marxists will rob-and-murder you, but there we are).
So the situation in the United States is not without precedent – by the way, the United States is not the only country in the world where the colour red is used to indicate conservative – the other is indeed Paraguay (National Republican Party or “Colorado” Party).
Certainly just a small scale example – but worth noting.
“But the left in the United States are not Marxists” – sadly many of them (including elected politicians) ARE, indeed they have records of supporting the Castro regime and other such.
To answer Simberg’s specific question, it’s because when the space shuttle blows up it’s the story of the month,
maybe the year, but when a test pilot dies it isn’t.
I had a vague recollection that the Russians initially used dogs to test out their early spacecraft. I was prompted to research this further by, of all things, the Irish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. Leika was a stray dog that they rounded up, trained and then put into orbit. She was the first Earth creature to orbit the Earth in space. They had no plan in place to bring her home, she was to be euthanised once the experiments were completed but died of hyperthermia when the capsule malfunctioned. The song puts a ridiculously positive spin on this rather unpleasant story.