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From: hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John Hogg)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: What price safety? (was: Escape tower for shuttle orbiter?)
Message-ID: <2393@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Mar-86 14:12:09 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.2393
Posted: Mon Mar 24 14:12:09 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Mar-86 15:27:52 EST
References: <418@watcgl.UUCP> <627@bentley.UUCP> <2024@peora.UUCP>
Reply-To: hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John Hogg)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 32
Summary: 

Thoughts from another savage: I can certainly put a dollar value on human
life, given appropriate data to work from.  Challenger was MUCH more
valuable than her crew.  And any major additional escape mechanism is
unlikely to be worth the weight, cost, and time.

Why?  Because a shuttle costs ~$1,500,000,000US.  That is money collected
from Americans that could have been used for something else.  I happen to
believe that no better cause could be found for these funds, but other
options (ignoring simply not collecting them) do exist.

How many lives would be saved by another BILLION dollars spent on cancer
research?  How about reduction of air pollution?  Or, to be distressingly
plebian, what would a billion dollars of highway improvements do to the
death tolls on American roads?  I have no supporting data, but an
expenditure of this size would probably save orders of magnitudes more
lives in the long run.  American roads are poor!

Life is dangerous.  Space travel seems to be somewhat more dangerous than
remaining on the ground.  But, like computer security, at some point the
risks must be traded off against the costs.  An escape capsule or tower
would reduce payload, delay resumption of flights by a substantial amount,
add numerous potential failure points - and save fewer lives than mundane
highway guardrails.  If you truly believe that life is precious, approach
the saving of it with rationality.
-- 

John Hogg
Computer Systems Research Institute, UofT
...utzoo!utcsri!hogg

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