Pay your money, take your chance
Fatalities are an inevitable part of human spaceflight, and space tourism companies will have to face up to it, says Philip Ball.
The tragic deaths of three workers in an explosion at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California should not be seen as the first fatalities of commercial spaceflight. The accident occurred during a test on a rocket-propulsion system for a private spacecraft, but this was an industrial accident, not a failure of aerospace engineering.
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Comments
"You can put safety first, or you can depend on do-or-die pioneers, but you can't have it both ways" is an overly simplistic statement. Of course one always pursues safety within the context of ones' particular activity. Therefore, "safe" becomes a relative concept. I firmly believe the pioneers of commercial human spaceflight CAN have it both ways, i.e., offer a realtively risky opportunity while optimizing for safety on those factors that are well understood and controllable.
Posted by: Vernon McDonald | August 2, 2007 07:18 PM