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About Safe Is Not An Option
Product Description The history of exploration and establishment of new lands, science and technologies has always entailed risk to the health and lives of the explorers. Yet, when it comes to exploring and developing the high frontier of space, the harshest frontier ever, the highest value is apparently not the accomplishment of those goals, but of minimizing, if not eliminating, the possibility of injury or death of the humans carrying them out. For decades since the end of Apollo, human spaceflight has been very expensive and relatively rare (about 500 people total, with a death rate of about 4%), largely because of this risk aversion on the part of the federal government and culture. From the Space Shuttle, to the International Space Station, the new commercial crew program to deliver astronauts to it, and the regulatory approach for commercial spaceflight providers, our attitude toward safety has been fundamentally irrational, expensive and even dangerous, while generating minimal accomplishment for maximal cost. This book entertainingly explains why this means that we must regulate passenger safety in the new commercial spaceflight industry with a lighter hand than many might instinctively prefer, that NASA must more carefully evaluate rewards from a planned mission to rationally determine how much should be spent to avoid the loss of participants, and that Congress must stop insisting that safety is the highest priority, for such insistence is an eloquent testament to how unimportant they and the nation consider the opening of this new frontier. Review “Thoughtful, comprehensive, yet iconoclastic – Safe Is Not An Option succinctly addresses the unrealistically skewed risk-reward perception in the civilian government space sector. Speaking as a military aviator and astronaut, I believe this work wisely highlights the shortfalls of the NASA management not-truly-operational culture and offers a productive and realistic alternate viewpoint for anyone pursuing the “ad astra” dream.” Rick Searfoss Colonel, USAF Retired, Astronaut/Space Shuttle Commander, XCOR Aerospace Chief Test Pilot. “In 2008 I had the great privilege to fly privately to the International Space Station, where I lived for twelve days. Having grown up with a NASA astronaut father who flew on Skylab and the Shuttle, I have had a lifetime opportunity to see how flight safety has evolved in the United States. Having trained in and flown aboard the Soyuz, I have also seen the Russian approach to this same important issue. The two hardest items to control in space exploration are cost and safety. Interestingly, the Russian approach has often created both improved safety and cost in comparison with domestic strategies. If we as a global people are going to push the boundaries of humanity further into the cosmos, we must decide how much risk we should accept and how should we manage to that level of risk. Today, we seem so risk averse that we encumber the already difficult problem of space exploration with red tape, that slows down the activities, requires spiraling budgets and arguably does not improve safety in relative measure.” Richard Garriott Private Astronaut and Computer Game Pioneer. “Since the end of Apollo, U.S. space operations have ostensibly emphasized safety first. Rand Simberg persuasively explains why that has been a mistake, and how we must change if we are to succeed.” Glenn Reynolds aka “Instapundit” Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tennessee, and co-author Outer Space: Problems of Law & Policy. “A pioneer at the dawn of aviation observed: ‘If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial.’ And since ancient times it has been known that staying in the harbor is safer than venturing onto the high seas. But nature demands tolerance of risk if the human
