Bob Zimmerman says that the former “hovers over [the latter] like a vulture.”
While there are no doubt many in Congress with that attitude, I was actually encouraged by Chairman Palazzo’s remarks this morning at the Space Transportation Conference, in which he expressed support for an extension of the “moratorium” because it will “stifle innovation” to overregulate at this point. (Note: At the hearing yesterday, he used the phrase “learning period,” as industry does. It’s possible he used the “m” word because he was reading from notes put together by staffer that hadn’t gotten the memo.)
Bob is quite right; “…it is none of Congress’s business what these parties agree to”
And if a person wants to work for $2 per hour, it is none of Congress’s business
And if a person wants to shoot off firecrackers on the 4th of July, it is none of Congress’s business.
And if a person wants to go without insurance, it is none of Congress’s business
And if a person wants to take drugs, it is none of Congress’s business
And if a person wants to start an airline that doesn’t molest its customers prior to boarding, it is none of Congress’s business.
The first time a tourist is killed in one of these private launches the industry is dead, sued and regulated into oblivion. I don’t celebrate this; it’s just what this country has become. We all have to be protected from our own bad decisions don’t you know?
The first time someone is killed in one of those newe fangled steam locomotives the train is dead….
The first time someone is killed in one of those new fangled auto mobiles the car is dead….
The first time someone is killed in one of those new fangled aero planes the plane is dead….
Comrade Vladislaw, you nailed it exactly. I’ve been frustrated by the “one accident and the industry is over” mindset for decades. Part of it stems from the self-obsession of space people with their first love. We think that because we consider what we do to be the be all and end all of human endeavors, that everyone else does as well. The truth is that people are mostly completely oblivious to what we do. I would imagine that only one out of 1,000 people (if that) could tell you what Dragon/ISS or Cygnus/ISS means. Very few people in the space launch industry (incredibly) even know what the X PRIZE was. The general public isn’t going to even notice it if anyone is killed in a space accident, even if it is a “celebrity.” Will Rogers, one of the most popular people in America, was an advocate of aviation, and was killed in a general aviation accident. It didn’t bring about the end of general aviation, or a huge public outcry for regulation.
There is the argument today that “the public” is very risk averse. That’s bulls**t. The public doesn’t give a damn about people who do what they regard as stupid things that get them killed. Busybodies who believe that the government should be able to dictate all aspects of human life will seize on any accident just to extend their control. It isn’t out of concern, simply out of power lust. But it may reduce future fatalities in space to zero by the one means that can produce that outcome: don’t fly.
The one difference is that we live in a more litigious society today. When the inevitable space accident happens, there will be lawsuits regardless of how many release statements the passengers signed. Will the space tourism companies be able to get liability insurance, and if so, at what price? Without insurance, an accident could result in enough lawsuits to put that company out of business.
NASA is spending a billion dollars this year on the Orion capsule alone. How much of that absurd cost is due to putting safety as the highest priority? How much is due to it being yet another Lockheed-Martin cost-plus contract? If safety is truly NASA’s highest priority, they shouldn’t launch people at all.
Don’t get me wrong, safety and reliability are important. It’s just that safety can’t be the most important thing or you’ll never get out of bed. But if you stay in bed, you’ll still weaken and die. Life has a 100% mortality rate. We’re all going to die sometime of something. There are people who are willing to risk everything if the rewards are high enough. Only they can determine what rewards are worth risking their life over and which ones aren’t. Some will risk their lives for a thrill, some for fame and fortune, while others will do it for scientific discovery and exploration. We should let them make their own choices.
It will really depend on what is at fault that caused the accident. Just because I misuse a piece of equipment and a death occurs doesn’t automatically mean the fault will be assigned to the equipment.
so a crash occurs, the company files bankrupcy, the assets are bought up by another player, the system is renamed and it goes back in operation. If the rocket/capsule is at fault.. a bit trickier but still in general, companies get bought up all the time and given a facelift on the product and it meets new safety standards. American yankee peddlers have always been great at selling the sizzle and not the steak. I really do not fear for the industry even if there is an accident. I highly doubt the assets will remain idle.
I disagree. If one of the vehicles proves to be that unsafe, someone in Congress will give it a contract to deport Justin Bieber.
The first time a tourist is killed in one of these private launches the industry is dead, sued and regulated into oblivion. I don’t celebrate this; it’s just what this country has become.
Really? Just last fall, the Lone Star Flight Museum had a P-51 Mustang crash into the Gulf of Mexico, killing the pilot and one passenger. I don’t recall the aviation-museum industry being “dead, sued, and regulated into oblivion.” In fact, the LSFM is still offering warbird rides.
Can you give an example of one industry that was sued/regulated into oblivion because one customer was killed?
Well, there’s bound to be something that has held back rhinoceros riding at the rodeo, because it sounds like something everyone would want to watch.
if you knew much about Rhino’s you might have your answer.
PETA?
Well Ed I take your point. Yet I do think whether or not the Leviathan stirs can depend upon how much their rice bowl is being reduced by private companies – lots of pork is lost if we don’t continue with gubbmint space. Some porker congresscritters will will complain if their district loses jobs to private companies and will seek revenge if there’s an accident or death.
Also, in an election year, some politicians will latch onto an easy issue to obtain a little gravitas – look at that look of deep concern on the congresscritter’s face.
Also, a lot depends upon how spectacular the event is. A P-51 diving into the ocean is not as spectacular as a rocket exploding the paying customers into hash.
Once other congressional members see the justification is gone, that pork is back on the auction block and it will go some place else. Congressional members will shift it and not vote for their pork anymore … my guess, it will go towards energy or infrastructure and the pork premium will be slowly stripped from NASA as they transitition into utilizing more commercial services.
With all due respect there doesn’t appear to be much innovation happening.
SpaceX is doing a 2 stage ELV with a medium sized capsule. The innovations
of SpaceX are more in driving costs out but not a lot of technology or design.
The rest of the industry hasn’t yet demonstrated a lot of innovation.
“Driving costs out” is innovation in this industry, you fool. And if actually reusing the first stage isn’t innovation, you wouldn’t know what it was if it kicked you in the groin (even if you had anything there).
The cost savings are because of innovations in the engineering. You know, the technology and design.
Minor details in how things are held, oriented, cast, machined, fitted, andor polished lead to the 1700+ year pause between the aeolipile and Newcomen or Watts. Yes, the materials science progressed. Wait, it did for SpaceX as well, duh.
Well, damn. That’s what I get for pausing to read more about Neucomen.
Clayton M. Christensen coined a new term called distruptive innovation, you may enjoy reading about the observation of this action.
“Christensen defines a disruptive innovation as a product or service designed for a new set of customers.
“Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation
Elon correctly points to the ‘forcing function.’ SpaceX itself is a forcing function causing others to think about how they will compete. Otherwise they would just think about how to get their piece of the pie without any innovation.
Without the forcing function, disruptive innovation does not happen. The ‘geniuses’ just keep patting themselves because they KNOW (the science is settled is the stupidest most ignorant misunderstanding of what science is…) there is no other way. When another way is shown, they just explain it’s all part of the paradigm they already explained to us. Nothing to see. Move on.
A forcing function is any task, activity or event that forces you to take action and produce a result. That EVENT that is forcing the action IS the distruptive technology.
oops.. the distruptive innovation. Disruptive technology will be reusablity if SpaceX can nail it down.
The point is a forcing function is not a guaranteed eventuality. Somebody has to have the vision to risk the act. Otherwise we go merrily along spending a huge opportunity cost that a handful of people out of billions are even aware of.
Meanwhile those billions are snorting derision at concepts they will later assume were obvious.
New technology for its own sake is engineering masturbation. SpaceX is applying technology in ways that dramatically lower costs. If they achieve reusability, that’s a radical change in the space launch business. Reusability would so lower the costs of space launch that no one else could compete on price.
I dunno….there’s an awful lot of seat belt and bike helmet mandatory types in this world. Busybodies who impose their will on other people because they know what’s good for them. My town government just decreed (not popular vote…decreed) that plastic grocery bags are now outlawed.
We know what’s good for you.
I also think a lot of the public think of space travel as unusual. Even if Christa McAulliffe wasn’t on the shuttle, the public would be aghast…yet not think twice about an airline disaster or the 50k or so who die on the highways.
After all, viewing space travel and rocketry as spectacular and incomparably hard is the very reason Rand had to write his book. I think the very fact that Rand had to write his book tells you immediately that the general view of rocketry disasters is that they are special, spectacular and need to be eradicated through regulatory control.
Do you know why auto deaths are rarely talked about? Because they are so common they only matter to a very limited few who knew the people involved. It has to REALLY be a unique crash or someone really famous to even make a national headline.
Deaths associated with space are very rare, so rare they make the national news. A few accidents down the road and people will go back to talking about beiber’s latest escapade instead of some space accident … seems to be human nature, the more common the death the less noise made about it.
“Can you give an example of one industry that was sued/regulated into oblivion because one customer was killed?”
Yes, all the businesses that don’t exist because of our nanny state government.
How about Machine Guns are Us? Where’s that business? Or Hand Grenade Mart, Harry’s Heroine Shop, or M80 World. And don’t tell me that you can buy M80s in Mexico, those things aren’t EVEN that same thing that I had as a kid. A real M80 will blow a mail box off it’s post 25 feet in the air, those Mexican things will barely blow the door open. Not that I’d know anything about blowing mail boxes up, that’s a federal crime! I’ve just heard about it.
“In 1982, facing unprecedented liability for asbestos injury claims, Johns Manville voluntarily filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code”
Now where will I get those asbestos shakes I love so much?
But in your examples, people who weren’t taking part in the activity were suffering the effects of it. People got tired of kids blowing up their mailboxes. Machine guns weren’t banned because they were injuring their users, they were banned because a bunch of 1930’s bank robbers went on crime sprees because they had the cops and locals outgunned. Either everyone would have to buy a machine gun to level the playing field, or they could just try to keep them off the general market by taxing them. As for asbestos, everyone became frightened of being one of its victims.
If the average voter started living in fear of getting hit by an errant space rocket, then we certainly would regulate the activity into non-existence, but as long as the casualties are limited to the “fools” who choose to ride in one, the accident’s shouldn’t have much more effect than other accidents, such as with mountaineering, car racing, or stunt flying.
what about Harry’s Heroine Shop?
Harry is doing quite well. Heroin is an $11 billion industry in the US, according to government estimates. Hardly an industry that has been destroyed.
If the government is as effective at stopping human spaceflight as it is at stopping heroin… well…
Do you have an actual point?
a point?
Yes, you asked for 1 and I gave you several examples of industries that the government has regulated out of business. Lawyers have sued many others out of business. There are hundreds if not thousands of other examples. In my estimation strapping yourself to the top of a rocket will eventually be another because our nannies in Washington will deem it to dangerious to allow people the freedom to make their own choice.
BTW, other dangerous activities like driving are allowed to continue while heroin use isn’t because there’s no shortage of people who stand ready to pass judgment on what constitutes a justifiable risk and what doesn’t. Someone will say that riding a rocket is just for fun and therefore not a necessity, just like heroine. Of course I could be wrong; maybe someone will start selling rocket rides in the dark alleys of Harlem.
Heroin… the strongest pain reliever you can get without a prescription.
No, you didn’t give “several examples” of industries that were “sued and regulated into oblivion… The first time a person was killed.” Or even one.
All you’ve done is drone on about gun manufacturing and heroin distribution — neither of which have been “obliterated.” (And neither of which is particularly relevant to space transportation, for reasons which should be obvious.)
Also, there’s a difference between “heroin” and “heroine.” You might want to consult a good dictionary,