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Regardless of regulations, as engineer you should be comfortable of flying a rocket that you designed/built/engineered. Would you go for that if odds of dying w

Regardless of regulations, as engineer you should be comfortable of flying a rocket that you designed/built/engineered. Would you go for that if odds of dying would be as high as 20% (one of five) ?

throwaway2016a 10y ago
That statistic is based on a very small samples size. In the span of less than a year the SpaceX failure rate is now about 7%. In another year it will probably be 2% if things go well. From an engineering and process perspective, early models are more failure prone.
Chris_Jay 10y ago
That would depend on other factors. For a test flight, I'd suggest we volunteer a chimp. If the plan was to establish a colony, and it meant my descendants might be some of the first humans to explore the wider galaxy... Well, let me put it this way: absent clinical immortality, I can't imagine being male, childless, and unwilling to take that chance.
thaumasiotes 10y ago
> as engineer you should be comfortable of flying a rocket that you designed/built/engineered I don't think this is true. Some examples: - If I were a flight engineer (which I'm not), I would be happy to design a plane that I was confident a pilot could fly within safety levels that were acceptable to me, regardless of whether I felt I could personally fly it as safely. - I've seen a modern blacksmith write about certain female customers' desire for chest armor molded into the shape of breasts. This is fairly dangerous -- such armor effectively aims a large metal spike at the center of your chest -- and completely unnecessary. He showed a photo, with a comment along the lines of "I made this woman a boob plate [his term] because she asked for it to be made that way. I live in fear that one day she will trip and crack her sternum. But wearing the armor makes her feel sexy, and that matters too." - If I design something with a 10% failure rate, and someone else is happy to operate it knowing it has a 10% failure rate, and it really does have a 10% failure rate, why is it my place to tell them "I wouldn't operate that myself, and therefore you can't either?"

Regardless of regulations, as engineer you should be comfortable of flying a rocket that you designed/built/engineered. Would you go for that if odds of dying would be as high as 20% (one of five) ?

throwaway2016a 10y ago

That statistic is based on a very small samples size. In the span of less than a year the SpaceX failure rate is now about 7%. In another year it will probably be 2% if things go well. From an engineering and process perspective, early models are more failure prone.

Chris_Jay 10y ago

That would depend on other factors. For a test flight, I'd suggest we volunteer a chimp. If the plan was to establish a colony, and it meant my descendants might be some of the first humans to explore the wider galaxy... Well, let me put it this way: absent clinical immortality, I can't imagine being male, childless, and unwilling to take that chance.

thaumasiotes 10y ago

> as engineer you should be comfortable of flying a rocket that you designed/built/engineered I don't think this is true. Some examples: - If I were a flight engineer (which I'm not), I would be happy to design a plane that I was confident a pilot could fly within safety levels that were acceptable to me, regardless of whether I felt I could personally fly it as safely. - I've seen a modern blacksmith write about certain female customers' desire for chest armor molded into the shape of breasts. This is fairly dangerous -- such armor effectively aims a large metal spike at the center of your chest -- and completely unnecessary. He showed a photo, with a comment along the lines of "I made this woman a boob plate [his term] because she asked for it to be made that way. I live in fear that one day she will trip and crack her sternum. But wearing the armor makes her feel sexy, and that matters too." - If I design something with a 10% failure rate, and someone else is happy to operate it knowing it has a 10% failure rate, and it really does have a 10% failure rate, why is it my place to tell them "I wouldn't operate that myself, and therefore you can't either?"