4 ms·

And no one was hurt so everything worked out?

jsiepkes 3y ago
I took an extra mortgage with my house as collateral and went to the casino with that money. I won a lot of money, so that made it a smart decision, right?
- hedora 3y ago
  If you can do that with high probability (9 times out of 10?), then yes. All safety critical stuff comes down to high-stakes gambling. One approach that I've seen work well is to estimate the expected number of terrible events per year (which is just the mean time to failure of the system). Things start to be reasonably at about a 0.01 probability per year. (So, we'd expect SpaceX to crash in a populated area once a century. If they launch roughly 100 rockets per year. That means that there has to be a less than a 1 in 10,000 chance that a given rocket crashes and that it kills someone in the process.) (The 0.01 is picked as an example. I have no idea how many zeros the actual FAA regulatory process aims for, or if they go by expected deaths vs. incident rates, etc.)
  - hef19898 3y ago
    If memory serves well, it something like 10^(-9) propability for a catastrophic failure for civil airliners. No idea about bon-people carrying space rockets.
    - hedora 3y ago
      If that is per flight, then it starts to look like 10^-3 per year.
mlyle 3y ago
This isn't really great logic. Lofting concrete chunks over populated areas isn't exactly "everything worked out" or "safe" even if everyone happens to survive.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  That was sand, not concrete.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > That was sand, not concrete "...many large concrete chunks, stainless-steel sheets, metal and other objects were 'hurled thousands of feet away,' along with a plume of concrete particles that resulted in the miles-away scattering. A 3½-acre fire also started on Boca Chica State Park, south of the launch pad, the agency said." https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-26/spacex-starship-explosion-blasted-concrete-up-to-6-5-miles-away https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-26/spacex-sta...
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      That does not contradict what I said. The concrete chunks did not get as far as populated areas. Also articles dated 4-26 significantly predated any lab analysis of the particles that reached Boca Chica Ranch and Port Isabel. It was presumed they were concrete particles, but they were just sand.
      - mlyle 3y ago
        Even if things are "just sand", silicosis is a thing and drowning a populated area in it is not super great.
        bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Silicosis from 30 seconds of exposure to a small amount of sand is not a thing.
        mlyle 3y ago
        Covering homes with fine dust, and then having that abate in 30 seconds, is not a thing.

I took an extra mortgage with my house as collateral and went to the casino with that money. I won a lot of money, so that made it a smart decision, right?

hedora 3y ago
If you can do that with high probability (9 times out of 10?), then yes. All safety critical stuff comes down to high-stakes gambling. One approach that I've seen work well is to estimate the expected number of terrible events per year (which is just the mean time to failure of the system). Things start to be reasonably at about a 0.01 probability per year. (So, we'd expect SpaceX to crash in a populated area once a century. If they launch roughly 100 rockets per year. That means that there has to be a less than a 1 in 10,000 chance that a given rocket crashes and that it kills someone in the process.) (The 0.01 is picked as an example. I have no idea how many zeros the actual FAA regulatory process aims for, or if they go by expected deaths vs. incident rates, etc.)
- hef19898 3y ago
  If memory serves well, it something like 10^(-9) propability for a catastrophic failure for civil airliners. No idea about bon-people carrying space rockets.
  - hedora 3y ago
    If that is per flight, then it starts to look like 10^-3 per year.

mlyle 3y ago

This isn't really great logic. Lofting concrete chunks over populated areas isn't exactly "everything worked out" or "safe" even if everyone happens to survive.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
That was sand, not concrete.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > That was sand, not concrete "...many large concrete chunks, stainless-steel sheets, metal and other objects were 'hurled thousands of feet away,' along with a plume of concrete particles that resulted in the miles-away scattering. A 3½-acre fire also started on Boca Chica State Park, south of the launch pad, the agency said." https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-26/spacex-starship-explosion-blasted-concrete-up-to-6-5-miles-away https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-26/spacex-sta...
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    That does not contradict what I said. The concrete chunks did not get as far as populated areas. Also articles dated 4-26 significantly predated any lab analysis of the particles that reached Boca Chica Ranch and Port Isabel. It was presumed they were concrete particles, but they were just sand.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      Even if things are "just sand", silicosis is a thing and drowning a populated area in it is not super great.
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Silicosis from 30 seconds of exposure to a small amount of sand is not a thing.
        mlyle 3y ago
        Covering homes with fine dust, and then having that abate in 30 seconds, is not a thing.