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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!vgfranceschi
From: vgfranceschi@watcgl.UUCP (Valerio Franceschin)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: What price safety? (was: Escape tower for shuttle orbiter?)
Message-ID: <453@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 21:11:24 EST
Article-I.D.: watcgl.453
Posted: Fri Mar 14 21:11:24 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 04:10:25 EST
References: <418@watcgl.UUCP> <627@bentley.UUCP>, <2024@peora.UUCP> <635@bentley.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 49

> desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) in <12286@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>:
> >   I hate to sound callous, but I don't see the point of all of this just
> >to save the crew.  If you could save the orbiter, that would be great, but
> >you are talking about something that has got to cost hundreds of millions
> >of dollars just to save the crew.  Doesn't this seem a trifle excessive?
> 
> vgfranceschi@watcgl.UUCP (Valerio Franceschin) in <418@watcgl.UUCP>:
> >You don't sound callous, you sound like a neanderthal SAVAGE!
> 
> kwh@bentley.UUCP (Karl Heuer) in <627@bentley.UUCP>:
> >Do you have airbags in your car?  If not, would you pay a million dollars
> >to have them installed?  They do save lives.
> 
> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) in <2024@peora.UUCP>:
> >I think this analogy is fallacious.  It would make more sense to take the
> >ratio    (cost of shuttle safety mechanism) / (cost of shuttle) = r
> >and then multiply r * (cost of car)... you could then ask if the person is
> >willing to pay that much.  The reason is that a person's individual budget
> >is much smaller than NASA's ...
> 
> Actually, the point I was trying to make is that we must place a finite
> value on safety; just because something will save lives does not mean it

So why didn't you say that instead of providing that blatantly fallacious
analogy?  I'm glad it was someone else and not I that pointed it out.

> should be done.  David asked a perfectly valid question, and I thought
> Valerio's attack was unjustified.  Cost-vs.-Safety decisions have to be
> made.

Of course cost-vs-safety factors have to be considered, NASA has a limited
budget.  What ticked me off about David's posting is his suggestion that the 
orbiter is more precious than "just the crew."  This is the same kind of
criminal mentality employed by nuclear strategists when they talk of 10 million
casualties during a nuclear exchange to be "acceptable."  I'm sorry but I
value human life and I find this reasoning to be repulsive.  I stand by my 
original comment!

> safety feature.  (Interesting thought experiment: suppose that before the
> 51L flight, the safety issue had come up and NASA had "solved" it with some
> form of ejection seats.  Then Challenger blows up before the crew can escape.
> NASA might have had even more of a PR problem!)

Imagine the PR problem that NASA would have if it was primarily concerned with
it's hardware first and foremost, and then the lives of the crew.  "Well, yes,
we could've got them out, but either way, the orbiter would've been lost.  So
we figured it wasn't worth it.  After all, we can always train more astronauts".

Valerio Franceschin