Clark Lindsey addresses the ludicrous, but widespread notion that there is something different about space passenger travel that makes it so fragile that the industry will somehow be destroyed by a single accident.

I suspect that the source of this is the same one that causes us to irrationally grieve astronauts that we've never met, and demand that no more ever die. There seems to be something different about space in the minds of many that causes people to check their brains at the door when discussing it.

It's just another place, people. Folks are going to die opening up frontiers, as they always have. Get over it.

Exactly. And keep in mind that everyone who is at risk of death is a volunteer. It isn't as though "The Man" is gonna pull you out of your house to fly to space. (I wish)

Very true,

How many people die in car accidents, airplane crashes, etc. and no one (well except a lunatic fringe few) suggest we stop those activities. How many people died opeing up the western frontier in the 1800's, does the Donner party ring a bell, and yet people still kept going. People will die, vehicles will be lost but there will still be plenty of other people who will line up to go.

Every time there is a car crash we don't all stop driving until the cause is determined, same with airplane crashes. That is the problem with the eggs in one basket shuttle. Once there are several different types of vehicles to access space any one accident will not stop access.

"The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us are going to the stars!"

I don't think the cult of safety limits itself to human spaceflight. In virtually every nook of American life there are riskaphobes (audeophobes?) who try to limit and contain the behavior of others. It is sadly nothing more than the Nanny state trying to expand its influence.

For example, I give you the outdoor/public anti-smoking laws.

Why do we grieve astronauts we have never meet, because they are heroes / national treasures! Obviously we don’t want our national treasures destroyed (unless they are in the military and fighting in Iraq).

Back when they were flying the DCX (1992 or 1993) I remember Jrry Pournelle talkinga bout the followin DCY and how the folks that would fly it would be "test pilots", because when the inevitable happens:

1) If a test pilot dies, you name a street after him at Edwards and move on.

2) I an astronaut dies its a national tradgedy and it sets your program development back for years.

An no, it doesn't make sense, but it's true anyway.

As I've said many times, the Apollo program - actually, the whole 'space race' created the pre-Copernican (almost literally) notion that somehow space is different.

_Governments_ went off and did things that to most people were utterly astonishing in their improbabiility. It was whole nations that went into space and to the Moon, following events with baited breath. That people got the idea that it cost billions of govenment dollars easily caused the impression that it was so _inherently_ difficult that it had to cost billions of government dollars.

NASA's bureaucracy, while overselling the abilities of the Shuttle design it was able to get to solve the cost problem, saw every advantage on a day to day basis to promote the excess tech and high overhead that only reinforced the public's misimpressiona in the end.

The problem isn't the activity physically being stopped because of a crash. It's your super rich patrons (at least for the early stages) deciding, or having it decided for them, that it's too expensive or risky to take part.

A lot of the people who can afford $200K for a joy ride are going to have a number of responsibilities and probably be carrying hefty life insurance. I can then see a scenario where companies refuse senior executives the right to fly while still serving, studios refusing actors under contract etc...

Space tourism has an enemy in regulation, but I think it has a greater one than early air travel did in the way that people and institutions react to risk these days.

In issue marketing its know as the risk amplification effect and its based on how the public and the media perceive risk. Actually there is an extensive literature on it under the field of risk communication.

The Hindenburg accident killed the commercial passenger airship even though only 35 of the 97 people on board were killed. By contrast a 70% survival rate in a commercial airliner would be considered a miracle. Why the difference? The news reel of the accident, just as the news reels of the Challenger and Columbia created graphic images of risk.

And when a test pilot dies there is rarely any video of it released to the media, at least not for a long while after the event. While the space shuttle accidents are often accompanied by video. Also the public is aware of the astronauts because of the NASA PR machine. How many test pilots, ones flying today, is the average space fan able to name, let alone the public?

So the impact on the industry will depend on two factors. How graphic the images are of the accident and who was on board at the time. If its someone famous, like a Stephen Hawkings or a Michael Jordan and there are films it will have a major impact (Knute Rockne turned a regular airline crash into a Congressional hearing on the industry in 1930...). On the other hand if there is no video and no famous individuals are on it the media will just move on, as it has, except for the alt.space community, for the Scaled Composite accident and the industry will survive.

So really it’s a factor of the nature of the accident.

The second factor is also how the industry itself reacts. If it continues on the current course, of spending a lot time focusing on the impact and viewing it as a major risk to the industry it likely will become one. Its know as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not to mention it leaves a great body of source material for the press to distort as the nuclear power industry found out first hand… On the other hand, if the industry adopts the attitude of test pilots, and doesn’t make a big deal of it as it has with Scaled Composites with a lot of self-reflect, then its also more likely to be a minor factor. Note I am not saying the industry doesn’t develop a strong safety culture or fails to develop a crisis plan, just they don’t dwell on it like they have been.

I can then see a scenario where companies refuse senior executives the right to fly while still serving, studios refusing actors under contract etc...

There are no actors under contract. The studio contract system ended decades ago.

The treatment accorded astronaut deaths is no more (or less) irrational than the believe that "we" are going into space when we watch astronauts on teevee.

If someone believes that "we" walked on the Moon, built the International Space Station, and will return to the Moon in Constellation capsules, then it's logical for the same person to believe that "we" died in the Apollo, Challenger, and Columbia accidents. One is just as real as the other.

I can then see a scenario where companies refuse senior executives the right to fly while still serving, studios refusing actors under contract etc...

Actually, cast insurers already prevent actors (and sometimes directors) from performing risky activities like motorcycling, piloting aircraft, skiing, surfing, etc.