An Accident at SpaceX(semafor.com)
semafor.com
An Accident at SpaceX
https://www.semafor.com/article/10/18/2022/space-x-technician-accident
224 comments
While I don't have numbers ready to cite, the steel industry is a superb analogue. It, too, is a hazardous production environment. It, too, has production rate as an OKR. I believe deaths in that industry used to measure in the thousands [1].
There's a history, at least in the US, of production rate correlating to fatality rate in certain hazardous industries. That said, one of the most famous steel CEOs (Paul O’Neill at Alcoa) put safety at the forefront and transformed the company and their production [2].
1: citation needed
2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2019/01/22/have-we-l...
There's a history, at least in the US, of production rate correlating to fatality rate in certain hazardous industries. That said, one of the most famous steel CEOs (Paul O’Neill at Alcoa) put safety at the forefront and transformed the company and their production [2].
1: citation needed
2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2019/01/22/have-we-l...
But the steel industry has been doing the same thing (with largely the same facilities) for the last 50 years. The move to recycling and mini-mills is the biggest change in the last 40 years. The same is largely true of aluminum mills. You should be able to figure out how to make that safe, but you won't make anything, if you demand that everything be as safe the first time as it will be in industries, which are a century old.
Aerospace industry is 120 years old.
Well, it was certainly a lot more dangerous then:
https://youtu.be/ZNAHcMMOHE8?t=395 : A trip to the moon 1901
But seriously, the point is that the techniques and facilities are not changing, which is blatantly not true of reusable meth-ox rockets. Or you can just say we'll stick to Saturn Vs to get to space.
https://youtu.be/ZNAHcMMOHE8?t=395 : A trip to the moon 1901
But seriously, the point is that the techniques and facilities are not changing, which is blatantly not true of reusable meth-ox rockets. Or you can just say we'll stick to Saturn Vs to get to space.
Your point is moot
Are you referring to the infamous Wright Brothers rocket ship?
By that logic the steel industry is 4000 years old.
With occupational safety, just like anything else, you can hire professionals and set whatever objectives and deadlines your budget allows. Companies that embrace it get much better and faster results than companies that resist it.
Your argument doesn’t hold well as the coal industry has been following the same recipe.
>While I don't have numbers ready to cite, the steel industry is a superb analogue. It, too, is a hazardous production environment. It, too, has production rate as an OKR. I believe deaths in that industry used to measure in the thousands [1].
I recently read RAILWAY ADVENTURES AND ANECDOTES (1885) <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31395/31395-h/31395-h.htm>, a collection of interesting moments from the first 50 years of railroads. Almost every page there is a mention of some fatal accident for passengers and crews (usually a boiler explosion, and/or a derailment), yet everyone seems very matter-of-fact about such things despite (or, rather, because of) their frequency.
I recently read RAILWAY ADVENTURES AND ANECDOTES (1885) <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31395/31395-h/31395-h.htm>, a collection of interesting moments from the first 50 years of railroads. Almost every page there is a mention of some fatal accident for passengers and crews (usually a boiler explosion, and/or a derailment), yet everyone seems very matter-of-fact about such things despite (or, rather, because of) their frequency.
I think the rough part of that analogy is that steel is at a different stage in its lifecycle as a product. Some innovation, to be sure, but nothing like this pace. Here, iteration speed is paramount.
Perhaps SpaceX should move somewhat more slowly and focus more on safety, but I hope that people keep in mind that the only way to be perfectly safe is to do nothing with any risk, which in this case translates to making no real progress on rocketry. That comes with species-level risks.
And if you double the amount of stuff done for each iteration, it might increase production time by much more than double, or potentially make some of the more difficult things impossible, as focus and momentum is lost, and mental state decays more between iterations.
Perhaps SpaceX should move somewhat more slowly and focus more on safety, but I hope that people keep in mind that the only way to be perfectly safe is to do nothing with any risk, which in this case translates to making no real progress on rocketry. That comes with species-level risks.
And if you double the amount of stuff done for each iteration, it might increase production time by much more than double, or potentially make some of the more difficult things impossible, as focus and momentum is lost, and mental state decays more between iterations.
When my father worked for Republic Steel (1958-1969) it had a very strong safety culture.
The wording of that sentence threw me off, he wrote 'necessarily' but my mind heard unnecessarily as well. I think the gist of the article is more to bring attention to the technicians who carry out the dangerous work than to assign blame to the industry. I think the author meant, it's dangerous work, but necessary to get it done quickly to be competitive.
Well, I interpreted that a little bit differently. The sentence was:
"speed and competitive pressure in the private space race make workplaces necessarily unsafe"
I took that as meaning "private space companies are moving too fast and cutting too many corners to keep their workplaces safe". Meaning the "necessarily" part is only because companies are choosing this speed (or, similarly, being forced to move at this speed because other companies are also moving too fast/cutting corners).
In other words, I think the author's intent is more damning than you are implying.
"speed and competitive pressure in the private space race make workplaces necessarily unsafe"
I took that as meaning "private space companies are moving too fast and cutting too many corners to keep their workplaces safe". Meaning the "necessarily" part is only because companies are choosing this speed (or, similarly, being forced to move at this speed because other companies are also moving too fast/cutting corners).
In other words, I think the author's intent is more damning than you are implying.
This is surely right. You wouldn’t use “necessarily” here to mean, like, “justifiably”. It means that it is a direct consequence of “moving too fast and cutting too many corners”, as opposed to an orthogonal safety lapse that can be shored up without changing the underlying circumstances. Inexorably.
Not to say the article is correct about this, of course.
Not to say the article is correct about this, of course.
I'm not crazy about the way the author is using "speed" here. The word is not only doing a lot of heavy-lifting, it is ambiguous because rockets can't be slow. "Rushing" or "hurrying" would be less ambiguous yet not as peremptory. I think using "haste" would be unambiguous yet still transmit some imperativeness.
Right, I meant necessary from the companies perspective. The author was certainly bringing to question the necessity of the industry from the broader perspective, his reference to Gil Scott Heron's song couldn't have made that clearer.
A sample size of one is definite proof for anything I already think is true!
Anecdote or spot data is definitely evidence though!
5 year Osha reported fatalities & serious injuries:
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/accidentsearch.search?acc_keyw...
Osha incident report for this incident:
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detai...
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/accidentsearch.search?acc_keyw...
Osha incident report for this incident:
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detai...
Also had they followed established safety standards the incident focused on would not have happened.
That actually sounds like a mature and potentially safe industry.
That actually sounds like a mature and potentially safe industry.
> Also had they followed established safety standards the incident focused on would not have happened.
Exactly.
I like to dump on Musk, but people disobey safety regulations all the time, and sometimes it bites them:
"Three Dead After Falling Into Molten Steel Pit" https://apnews.com/3c42c98020afcd458f1f49a861d0d87b
In this instance, the main culprit was the fact that they didn't dry out the mold properly which then cracked and leaked molten steel everywhere. However, people were not supposed to be standing on top of the cover plates during centrifugal caster operation.
There is a reason why you obey the safety regulations every single time.
Exactly.
I like to dump on Musk, but people disobey safety regulations all the time, and sometimes it bites them:
"Three Dead After Falling Into Molten Steel Pit" https://apnews.com/3c42c98020afcd458f1f49a861d0d87b
In this instance, the main culprit was the fact that they didn't dry out the mold properly which then cracked and leaked molten steel everywhere. However, people were not supposed to be standing on top of the cover plates during centrifugal caster operation.
There is a reason why you obey the safety regulations every single time.
This is an important point. We have regulators already working in this space, and OSHA and the like actually do a great job. When people mess up (and they do!) there's an existing bureaucracy to step in and force the companies to correct their processes. So it's entirely reasonable to feel that SpaceX is on the whole a safe industrial environment and that their OSHA fines were reasonable and just.
I think that’s fair. It’s worth noting that there are no shortage of NASA-related technician deaths. SpaceX already has 12,000, overall more employees than NASA and contractors at KSC and Cape Canaveral, and yet has no fatal incidents. That’s evidence to me that SpaceX, while it can improve more, has no worse safety than has been common overall in this industry. I think claims about how the industry is going “too fast” because they’re private miss the mark. SpaceX does some things that improve safety over the status quo, such as automating testing. Using automated stacking of the Starship stages (instead of labor intensive manual stacking) is potentially a big improvement.
Consider that there have been about 9 or 10 worker fatalities due to the Shuttle program (not counting the astronauts) in 135 flights of Shuttle vs zero SpaceX fatalities in nearly 200 Falcon launches, and I think it’s clear that finger wagging about private space “going too fast” is missing the mark. It’s actually possible that the slow practices of traditional contractors contributed to some of these deaths whereas the modern automation-driven SpaceX approach has limited fatalities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
Consider that there have been about 9 or 10 worker fatalities due to the Shuttle program (not counting the astronauts) in 135 flights of Shuttle vs zero SpaceX fatalities in nearly 200 Falcon launches, and I think it’s clear that finger wagging about private space “going too fast” is missing the mark. It’s actually possible that the slow practices of traditional contractors contributed to some of these deaths whereas the modern automation-driven SpaceX approach has limited fatalities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
I don't know what the figures are for agricultural accidents in the US but in the UK they're roughly 20 times the fatality rate of *every other industry in the country combined*, with a pretty steady 40 deaths per year since 1980.
If the US accident rate is similar (let's be generous - I suspect it's worse) then a rough back-of-an-envelope calculation puts that at 8000 deaths per year, and *you don't even hear about that*.
If the US accident rate is similar (let's be generous - I suspect it's worse) then a rough back-of-an-envelope calculation puts that at 8000 deaths per year, and *you don't even hear about that*.
The measure for safety shouldn't be the number of employees or the number of casualties but how preventable an accident is and what is the reason why it could not be avoided.
That's the point of the OSHA investigation but number of casualties is a comparable metric in a way that "how preventable an accident is" is not.
Well, if someone refused to follow an established standard, that's preventable.
Nothing about this is because they're private. The faster you innovate, the more frequently you see accidents. For decades space programs were almost entirely government work and they suffered their fair share of accidents (in some cases like the soviets, considerably more). Conversely aviation is almost exclusively privately funded and one of the safest ways to travel is by air
In fact, government programs like Shuttle had MORE fatalities (9 or 10 technician fatalities, although you can quibble with some of them) in fewer launches than Falcon/SpaceX (none).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac...
Plus 14 astronauts, at least half of which were because the government management overruled engineering because they wanted the PR of a successful launch (and didn't get it).
> The faster you innovate, the more frequently you see accidents.
Do you though? I mean, again this article only cites three, and if that's all there were that seems to me to be a very reasonable accident rate in heavy industrial environments. People get crushed by backhoes almost every week just digging foundations and paving roads!
Do you though? I mean, again this article only cites three, and if that's all there were that seems to me to be a very reasonable accident rate in heavy industrial environments. People get crushed by backhoes almost every week just digging foundations and paving roads!
aviation is not exactly a laissez-faire industry with private industry self-regulating...
Haven't we had more spaceflight related deaths than the Soviet Union + Russia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe at least 54 deaths
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/70... at least 48 deaths
And 10x the amount of spaceflight?
No I'm pretty sure they have run more missions too. Remember after the shuttle and before SpaceX they were the sole ferry to the ISS.
There was like 1-2 flights with Russians per year, SpaceX flies much more.
[deleted]
> if the claim is that the space industry is unnecessarily unsafe then I'm not sure that's convincing.
The claim is that it's necessarily unsafe. You even quoted that part.
The claim is that it's necessarily unsafe. You even quoted that part.
It is worded funny in the quote. In the context of the entire article, the author is clearly saying that the "speed and and competitive pressure" are the casual factor for it becoming unsafe (i.e., given the requirement of going fast by higher ups, it is necessary to be unsafe).
So he's implying that if they weren't so focused on speed and competitive pressure it could be more safe. There's where I get "unnecessarily unsafe" from, because in the author's perspective it's not necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. My point is that I don't think it's obviously unsafe at all, or at least could use some statistics to support his argument that it is.
So he's implying that if they weren't so focused on speed and competitive pressure it could be more safe. There's where I get "unnecessarily unsafe" from, because in the author's perspective it's not necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. My point is that I don't think it's obviously unsafe at all, or at least could use some statistics to support his argument that it is.
There will always be risk/development tradeoff. You can play with the balance but the only way to bring it to zero is to stop development.
That's not to say that improvements can't be made. The real question is how many of the injuries and deaths were preventable by following the guidelines that already exist, and are generally followed but not perfectly followed.
That's not to say that improvements can't be made. The real question is how many of the injuries and deaths were preventable by following the guidelines that already exist, and are generally followed but not perfectly followed.
In the main example sounds like they didn't follow the safety rules that already exist / should have been followed.
I agree. If the majority of your business and industry is following the safety standards, then it shouldn't cost much time to increase compliance in a rare few occasions.
This is why I don't think the argument that development is too fast holds water.
On the other hand, if the company were flagrantly ignoring safety standards in their process, yes, it would slow it down.
This is why I don't think the argument that development is too fast holds water.
On the other hand, if the company were flagrantly ignoring safety standards in their process, yes, it would slow it down.
Ah, I see, that makes sense.
I agree with the author that it shouldn't be necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. The whole "will we get to X before country Y does" is IMO childish, dick-measuring nonsense, especially if getting there faster means more people have to die... because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much if humans "get to X" this year or next year or 5 years from now.
At the within-one-country level, you can eliminate concerns about one company out-competing another (via unsafe practices) with regulation. Globally, sure, you can't mandate that another country slows down in order to be more safe, but I think the downsides of allowing another country to get there faster are overblown.
If we look back at the US-Soviet space race during the Cold War, it doesn't seem all that clear to me that the US benefited all that much from being first to land on the moon. Consider that the Soviets won the first milestone in that race, and that many people don't even know that or have forgotten. And consider that, post-moon-landing, the space race was essentially over, and both the US and Soviets went on to focus more on military/intelligence and commercial applications for the ability to get things into Earth's orbit, and stay there. Sure, there were more moon landings after the first one, but I think while most people know who Neil Armstrong is, they couldn't name any of the people who landed on the moon in later missions. Hell, most people don't even remember that Collins flew with Armstrong, and I imagine there are quite a few who don't remember Aldrin landing as well on that trip. (How many people would actually recognize the name Gene Cernan, the last human's feet to touch the moon's surface? I hadn't heard of him until I just looked it up.)
Yes, you can make the argument that the US got some big-time global bragging rights for making it first, and that certainly conferred some economic benefits, but I would argue that the US's economic prosperity after that point, as well as the Soviets' eventual decline, was pretty much baked in at that point, and would have happened regardless of what happened with the space race.
So this is just a long-winded way for me to say that I don't think "getting there first" matters all that much, and that we should slow down and make sure all of this is safer. Sure, we're never going to eliminate all risk, and sending humans into space will number among the riskiest things we do for quite a while into the future, but there are levels of safety and unsafety that we should and shouldn't accept.
I agree with the author that it shouldn't be necessary to prioritize speed and competition over safety. The whole "will we get to X before country Y does" is IMO childish, dick-measuring nonsense, especially if getting there faster means more people have to die... because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much if humans "get to X" this year or next year or 5 years from now.
At the within-one-country level, you can eliminate concerns about one company out-competing another (via unsafe practices) with regulation. Globally, sure, you can't mandate that another country slows down in order to be more safe, but I think the downsides of allowing another country to get there faster are overblown.
If we look back at the US-Soviet space race during the Cold War, it doesn't seem all that clear to me that the US benefited all that much from being first to land on the moon. Consider that the Soviets won the first milestone in that race, and that many people don't even know that or have forgotten. And consider that, post-moon-landing, the space race was essentially over, and both the US and Soviets went on to focus more on military/intelligence and commercial applications for the ability to get things into Earth's orbit, and stay there. Sure, there were more moon landings after the first one, but I think while most people know who Neil Armstrong is, they couldn't name any of the people who landed on the moon in later missions. Hell, most people don't even remember that Collins flew with Armstrong, and I imagine there are quite a few who don't remember Aldrin landing as well on that trip. (How many people would actually recognize the name Gene Cernan, the last human's feet to touch the moon's surface? I hadn't heard of him until I just looked it up.)
Yes, you can make the argument that the US got some big-time global bragging rights for making it first, and that certainly conferred some economic benefits, but I would argue that the US's economic prosperity after that point, as well as the Soviets' eventual decline, was pretty much baked in at that point, and would have happened regardless of what happened with the space race.
So this is just a long-winded way for me to say that I don't think "getting there first" matters all that much, and that we should slow down and make sure all of this is safer. Sure, we're never going to eliminate all risk, and sending humans into space will number among the riskiest things we do for quite a while into the future, but there are levels of safety and unsafety that we should and shouldn't accept.
I agree that it likely is a nothingburger, but I wonder what the ratio looks like. The coal industry was probably much more sizeable than the number of workers working on rockets.
> 24 workers have been killed while in the space industry
Non-competitive US Government incompetence killed 14 astronauts since 1980.
Non-competitive US Government incompetence killed 14 astronauts since 1980.
they were fined by OSHA for severe safety violations, and they are also compared to a competing space company that is doing much better on safety. The incident does not warrant apologism of SpaceX or any "whataboutist" comparisons to other industries.
It's possible to both trust OSHA's findings and disagree with the article's assertion that the space industry in general is unsafe.
it's a funny sentence in the article everyone is picking apart, of course the space industry is not necessarily unsafe, the point seemed to be, and I may be misreading it, that the space industry happens to be more unsafe than it needs to be due to the competitive incentives at play.
Yes, I agree that's the point, and that's the point I disagree with. I don't think that the article contains robust evidence that the space industry as a whole happens to be more unsafe than it needs to be. It focuses on a single case study and cites what would generally be small accident numbers in any other industry. While this case is tragic, I think more evidence is necessary to establish the trend that the article is attempting to show.
The key question that everyone, especially SpaceX, should be asking is why was it even possible to run the test while Cabada was in an unsafe place?
System and safety design- a topic that a rocketry company should be deeply familiar with- should lead us to solutions where bad things are exceedingly impossible. Where you have to be trying to cause an accident for it to happen. This should extend beyond the product being built itself, to the factory, to the R&D, to every part of the organization where danger exists.
And when failure occurs, it behooves you to shout from the rooftop that you messed up, and show the world how you're making changes so it can't happen again. Being quiet about the failure of your system makes it sound a lot like you aren't planning to make any changes to it.
It's a bad culture to start in a rocketry company.
System and safety design- a topic that a rocketry company should be deeply familiar with- should lead us to solutions where bad things are exceedingly impossible. Where you have to be trying to cause an accident for it to happen. This should extend beyond the product being built itself, to the factory, to the R&D, to every part of the organization where danger exists.
And when failure occurs, it behooves you to shout from the rooftop that you messed up, and show the world how you're making changes so it can't happen again. Being quiet about the failure of your system makes it sound a lot like you aren't planning to make any changes to it.
It's a bad culture to start in a rocketry company.
> The key question that everyone, especially SpaceX, should be asking is why was it even possible to run the test while Cabada was in an unsafe place?
absolutely.
lockout/tagout may seem unnecessary, but it's specifically to avoid exactly these types of situations. Not is it not possible for someone to be in an unsafe place, it's not possible for miscommunications such that it BECOMES unsafe after the fact because that lockout is with a lock no one else can unlock except the person who did it.
It obviously requires humans actually DO the procedures, but I think that's part of the point with the question.
absolutely.
lockout/tagout may seem unnecessary, but it's specifically to avoid exactly these types of situations. Not is it not possible for someone to be in an unsafe place, it's not possible for miscommunications such that it BECOMES unsafe after the fact because that lockout is with a lock no one else can unlock except the person who did it.
It obviously requires humans actually DO the procedures, but I think that's part of the point with the question.
> lockout/tagout may seem unnecessary, but it's specifically to avoid exactly these types of situations. Not is it not possible for someone to be in an unsafe place, it's not possible for miscommunications such that it BECOMES unsafe after the fact because that lockout is with a lock no one else can unlock except the person who did it.
And despite many comments in this discussion thread asserting that safety reduces progress and speed, lockout/tagout and similar procedures reduce the number of accidents and mishaps. That leads to less downtime spent picking up the body parts or cleaning a corpse out of the equipment. This is one of those "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" things. Get into a good routine with good safety measures and you can get shit done instead of cleaning up shit.
And despite many comments in this discussion thread asserting that safety reduces progress and speed, lockout/tagout and similar procedures reduce the number of accidents and mishaps. That leads to less downtime spent picking up the body parts or cleaning a corpse out of the equipment. This is one of those "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" things. Get into a good routine with good safety measures and you can get shit done instead of cleaning up shit.
You don't even need to slow down, in some cases. I was watching a video[0] about how shinkansen trains are serviced each day, and noticed at one point[2] when the workers are ready to clean the top of the train they do a "point and call"[1] routine at a gate. Now, I am not exactly sure what the purpose is for that, because there isn't much context in the video, but I am logically assuming that they are checking that the train's overhead wires are depowered, and the gate probably only allows itself to be opened when that is the case. Even if that's not the exact reason here, I could imagine a test facility where you had occupancy sensors inside and a lockout gate that operated in this fashion, and wouldn't allow a human to be inside the room while pressure was increased in the test valve. I honestly don't get the cowboy attitude in here, we can progress to space quickly AND safely.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieRwRS0VUUM
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
[2]: https://youtu.be/ieRwRS0VUUM?t=578
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieRwRS0VUUM
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
[2]: https://youtu.be/ieRwRS0VUUM?t=578
The Shinkansen services claim zero passenger fatalities (and close to zero passenger injuries, on account of a recent mishap). If you carefully parse the language of these claims, taking note to discount those ineptly rephrasing official claims, these statistics usually do not include workers. Here's a paper discussing how those trains are cleaned: https://siliconflatirons.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Trou... Exhibit 10, page 11 shows the number of employee accidents for the years 2001-2005. No year had zero. 2004 and 2005 were as high as 18 employee accidents.
Here's a fatality from just last year during tunnel construction for a maglev line: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/10/29/national/jr-tun...
Here's a fatality from just last year during tunnel construction for a maglev line: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/10/29/national/jr-tun...
Ok but I’m talking about one specific safety effort in regards to the article not the general safety record. I’m not saying everyone has to have zero accidents, but clearly there are things we can do that aren’t having some guy spray liquid on a pressurized valve.
There's a section in the article relating the procedure of spraying the pressurized engine with a liquid to check for bubbles. The bubbles indicate leaks. Humans go close to the engine to check for leaks. They can point and call all they want, it is inherently unsafe for them to be there. It is unclear to me how that procedure could be replaced and I won't dismiss it as cowboy attitude.
It's SpaceX, sister company of Tesla. They can have a small bot that goes around spraying and many cameras and other sensors observing. And given they're looking for potentially very small leaks from a pressurized system you wouldn't want a person physically present when the leak is discovered at high pressure anyways, not unless you want to see the effect of a very narrow high pressure stream hitting human skin (or a fast moving piece of hardware hitting their skull).
I'm sure if the tech were up to the task, they'd have a robot you could walk around with and look at things. But it'd need really good resolution and dynamic range paired with flexible and fine motor control to lean into an engine and look for tiny bubbles. This is a research field of its own. Not something they just have.
For example: Humans improve their visual perception by lightly shifting their heads to avoid reflections, gauge shadows and mitigate obstructions. If the tech can't follow, you have an inferior solution. A solution where bubbles will be missed. Just staring at a screen is not the same. Even if you can tilt the camera.
For example: Humans improve their visual perception by lightly shifting their heads to avoid reflections, gauge shadows and mitigate obstructions. If the tech can't follow, you have an inferior solution. A solution where bubbles will be missed. Just staring at a screen is not the same. Even if you can tilt the camera.
The bubble test is not carried out at full pressure. That's the point: you find the leaks before blowing the engine up because you didn't spot a leak.
The tag-out system could, for example, use a pressure relief valve. I suspect they even have one already when running the test, but if someone was in the wrong space when the relief valve wasn't in place then I assume they're not using it as a tag point.
The tag-out system could, for example, use a pressure relief valve. I suspect they even have one already when running the test, but if someone was in the wrong space when the relief valve wasn't in place then I assume they're not using it as a tag point.
> lockout/tagout may seem unnecessary, but it's specifically to avoid exactly these types of situations
Thank you! I was trying desperately to remember what that system is called but deleted that sentence from my reply because I had forgotten it!
Thank you! I was trying desperately to remember what that system is called but deleted that sentence from my reply because I had forgotten it!
The idea that every accident can be prevented by delight is a ridiculous and utopian trope, and to demonize an entire corporate culture and group of 12k employees without any background information is the height of hubris.
Nobody would ever design a ladder that cannot be climbed without a safety harness being properly worn, but many people are injured or killed in ladder accidents at workplaces every year. In your world that's a design failure, but out here in reality it's often carelessness or sheer bad luck.
Nobody would ever design a ladder that cannot be climbed without a safety harness being properly worn, but many people are injured or killed in ladder accidents at workplaces every year. In your world that's a design failure, but out here in reality it's often carelessness or sheer bad luck.
>but out here in reality
This, I expect, is exactly the kind of bad cultural attitude that @mabbo was referring to. You're advocating for accidents as being an unavoidable cost of business while preemptively hand-waving them as being the fault of careless employees or fate.
As @P5fRxh5kUvp2th points out, there are established industry safety measures to avoid exactly these kinds of accidents when working around dangerous machinery, in the lockout/tagout system.
If tests are locked out while employees are tagged into an area, you can't accidentally smack them into a coma with an over-pressurized part blowing out. By requiring tag ins to access dangerous areas, you don't have to have employees remember someone is out there, or that a test is coming, or worry about anyone getting confused on either front.
Blaming the employee for being where they shouldn't be or the other for running tests when someone was nearby is a cop out. It shouldn't even be possible for it to happen at all.
Design your systems and processes to expect that humans are fallible.
This, I expect, is exactly the kind of bad cultural attitude that @mabbo was referring to. You're advocating for accidents as being an unavoidable cost of business while preemptively hand-waving them as being the fault of careless employees or fate.
As @P5fRxh5kUvp2th points out, there are established industry safety measures to avoid exactly these kinds of accidents when working around dangerous machinery, in the lockout/tagout system.
If tests are locked out while employees are tagged into an area, you can't accidentally smack them into a coma with an over-pressurized part blowing out. By requiring tag ins to access dangerous areas, you don't have to have employees remember someone is out there, or that a test is coming, or worry about anyone getting confused on either front.
Blaming the employee for being where they shouldn't be or the other for running tests when someone was nearby is a cop out. It shouldn't even be possible for it to happen at all.
Design your systems and processes to expect that humans are fallible.
> You're advocating for accidents as being an unavoidable cost of business while preemptively hand-waving them as being the fault of careless employees or fate.
This needs seconding. It's ridiculous to say that we can't demonize an entire company of 12,000 people, and in the same breath, turn around to demonize the line workers of that company.
It's no less ridiculous to instead demonize the line workers that got hurt, which seems to be both post-facto cherrypicking, and victim blaming.
This needs seconding. It's ridiculous to say that we can't demonize an entire company of 12,000 people, and in the same breath, turn around to demonize the line workers of that company.
It's no less ridiculous to instead demonize the line workers that got hurt, which seems to be both post-facto cherrypicking, and victim blaming.
Impossible. Humans will find a way to bypass anything.
As a kid, I remember a lot of people complained about how annoying car seatbelts are, and tried to avoid them, but I haven't heard that sentiment at all in the past 20 years - everyone I know is perfectly happy with them as a safety measure. It seems to me it just required some time for the culture to shift.
Do not make The Perfect an enemy of The Good.
Merely because some accidents still happen despite motivated and brilliant people working to prevent them does not mean that the effort should not be made.
You don't abandon the endeavor, but nor do you just throw caution to the winds.
The article had a great example of a competing space company with an evidently solid safety culture; an accident was reported, and inspection done, and zero issues were found (which is quite difficult to be good enough have an OSHA inspection find nothing of note)
>> Relativity has a strong safety record relative to others in the industry, with just one OSHA safety inspection since it was founded in 2015. The inspection, spurred by an accident, did not result in a violation.
Merely because some accidents still happen despite motivated and brilliant people working to prevent them does not mean that the effort should not be made.
You don't abandon the endeavor, but nor do you just throw caution to the winds.
The article had a great example of a competing space company with an evidently solid safety culture; an accident was reported, and inspection done, and zero issues were found (which is quite difficult to be good enough have an OSHA inspection find nothing of note)
>> Relativity has a strong safety record relative to others in the industry, with just one OSHA safety inspection since it was founded in 2015. The inspection, spurred by an accident, did not result in a violation.
It’s worth noting that SpaceX has about 20 times the number of employees as Relativity and Relativity has not yet launched anything to orbit whereas Falcon has over 180 flights. I don’t think we can objectively say the culture at Relativity is objectively safer yet. Relativity is also an extremely new company in comparison to SpaceX.
> Do not make The Perfect an enemy of The Good.
That's all well and good, but you also can't demonize an entire culture based on unrealistic navel-gazing. It's entirely possible this was a process or design problem that could have been prevented, but it's also possible that it's not - pretending you know based on few details in a one-sided article is pretty silly.
That's all well and good, but you also can't demonize an entire culture based on unrealistic navel-gazing. It's entirely possible this was a process or design problem that could have been prevented, but it's also possible that it's not - pretending you know based on few details in a one-sided article is pretty silly.
> pretending you know based on few details in a one-sided article is pretty silly
No. It is not. There is one telling detail in the article. SpaceX was fined by OSHA. That pretty much means in itself that there were things SpaceX shoulf have done which they didn’t.
We can’t and won’t do each our own investigation. Nobody believes that the article has enough details to decide the case on its merrits. But we know that someone professional did the investigation and found the company violated the safety norms. That is what we have these agencies for.
No. It is not. There is one telling detail in the article. SpaceX was fined by OSHA. That pretty much means in itself that there were things SpaceX shoulf have done which they didn’t.
We can’t and won’t do each our own investigation. Nobody believes that the article has enough details to decide the case on its merrits. But we know that someone professional did the investigation and found the company violated the safety norms. That is what we have these agencies for.
> SpaceX was fined $18,475 by OSHA for two safety violations, one of which was rated the highest penalty level of “serious” and a maximum gravity of 10.
Though the article says "highest penalty level," according to OSHA's website had the violation been "Willful or Repeated" it would have resulted in up to a $145k fine[1].
[1] https://www.osha.gov/penalties
Though the article says "highest penalty level," according to OSHA's website had the violation been "Willful or Repeated" it would have resulted in up to a $145k fine[1].
[1] https://www.osha.gov/penalties
> SpaceX was fined by OSHA
We don't know what for, or if the fined offense would have prevented this accident.
We don't know what for, or if the fined offense would have prevented this accident.
Considering Relativity hasn't actually launched a rocket yet (they are aiming for first launch this year), they are more a prospective competitor.
To extend that line of argument a bit, what about a more professional tool/system, e.g. cherry pickers?
Doesn’t it seem reasonable to you to design and engineer cherry pickers such that the bucket can’t be moved unless a safety harness is attached?
Doesn’t it seem reasonable to you to design and engineer cherry pickers such that the bucket can’t be moved unless a safety harness is attached?
> Doesn’t it seem reasonable to you to design and engineer cherry pickers such that the bucket can’t be moved unless a safety harness is attached?
No - that seems unreasonable too, as there's no reasonable way for the cherry picker to know if the harness is being worn by anyone, so it's just safety theater.
No - that seems unreasonable too, as there's no reasonable way for the cherry picker to know if the harness is being worn by anyone, so it's just safety theater.
Combine it with immediately firing anyone caught attaching an empty harness to a cherry picker and the cherry picker can be reasonably sure that the harness is worn by someone.
You replace ladders with scaffolding and cherry pickers or similar things, though those too can have their safety issues ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YBxOA-aQQE )
I guarantee you that every job site manager in the WORLD can identify the unsafe employees, even if they're doing 'everything by the book'.
Some of it can be designed away (two-hand tools for example) but some of it is basically inherent.
I guarantee you that every job site manager in the WORLD can identify the unsafe employees, even if they're doing 'everything by the book'.
Some of it can be designed away (two-hand tools for example) but some of it is basically inherent.
Accepting at face value the claim that "every job site manager on earth" really can identify the "unsafe employees", then these managers are negligent and thus culpable for the failed outcomes.
An infinitely better course of action is to ban all known-unsafe employees from operating in the risky path. Workers who unnecessarily put themselves and everyone else in jeopardy have no business being in the path.
With that said, I'm highly skeptical about the veracity of this claim. Human behavior is fundamentally unstable, oscillating in the continuity spectrum between stable and erratic. However, the amount of variability for a given individual tends to be stable, which may be what you are saying a good and effective manager should be able to catch.
Regardless, humans are wetware and fundamentally error prone. Best to account for this element of our nature in the larger system design.
An infinitely better course of action is to ban all known-unsafe employees from operating in the risky path. Workers who unnecessarily put themselves and everyone else in jeopardy have no business being in the path.
With that said, I'm highly skeptical about the veracity of this claim. Human behavior is fundamentally unstable, oscillating in the continuity spectrum between stable and erratic. However, the amount of variability for a given individual tends to be stable, which may be what you are saying a good and effective manager should be able to catch.
Regardless, humans are wetware and fundamentally error prone. Best to account for this element of our nature in the larger system design.
[deleted]
Relevant quote from the article:
> In the accident involving Cabada, OSHA’s accident investigation summary noted that “the final step in the pressure check operation, venting, was done for the first time using an automated program as opposed to the normal manual method that had been used in previous operations.”
> In the accident involving Cabada, OSHA’s accident investigation summary noted that “the final step in the pressure check operation, venting, was done for the first time using an automated program as opposed to the normal manual method that had been used in previous operations.”
"At 12:44 p.m. on January 18, 2022, an employee, an integration technician, was p erforming pneumatic pressure checks on a Raptor V2 Engine while at the Integrati on Stand. The final step in the pressure check operation, venting, was done for the first time using an automated program as opposed to the normal manual method that had been used in previous operations. Immediately after initiating the aut omated venting, the employee was struck by the fuel controller cover which broke free from the controller module. The controller cover had sheared at the vertic al to horizontal beveled seam, liberating the cover face from the assembly. The employee suffered a skull fracture and head trauma and was hospitalized in a com a for months."
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detai...
It sounds like a number of things went wrong:
1) The automated program malfunctioned.
2) The controller cover welds failed.
3) The employee was too close.
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detai...
It sounds like a number of things went wrong:
1) The automated program malfunctioned.
2) The controller cover welds failed.
3) The employee was too close.
How are you supposed to know ahead of time that a place is unsafe? Cabada should have been perfectly safe where they were, but at least one safety system failed. Ultimately you can never completely eliminate danger, at best you can reduce risk below some rational threshold for failure modes you are already aware of.
And self flagellation after an accident does nothing to improve safety. Worse, it feels like you're doing something when you're not. Further, doing so right away leads to kneejerk reactions which might feel like an improvement but which are poorly suited for actually addressing the problem. The proper approach is to methodically investigate the issue, figure out what went wrong, and make appropriate, actionable changes. There is absolutely no reason to make a public announcement at any point in the process - safety is not a PR tactic.
And self flagellation after an accident does nothing to improve safety. Worse, it feels like you're doing something when you're not. Further, doing so right away leads to kneejerk reactions which might feel like an improvement but which are poorly suited for actually addressing the problem. The proper approach is to methodically investigate the issue, figure out what went wrong, and make appropriate, actionable changes. There is absolutely no reason to make a public announcement at any point in the process - safety is not a PR tactic.
> How are you supposed to know ahead of time that a place is unsafe?
I’m not even sure if you are asking this seriously. You make a safety assesment. People who do this kind of engineering task go through the systems methodically and they write up the dangers, hazards and the mitigations.
This is not some kind of new unheard of physics. This is not Gordon Freeman pushing an unusual crystal into an anti-mass spectrometer which results in headcrabs eating everyone who doesn’t have a crowbar. High pressure systems, cryogenics, flamable gasses and liquids all have known hazards and with proper systems and procedures they all can be mitigated.
> Cabada should have been perfectly safe where they were, but at least one safety system failed.
I’m working from a very limited set of information but the article states he should not have been where he was during a test. If that is true we have processes to mitigate that risk. (Lockout-tagout) That is pretty standard really.
> The proper approach is to methodically investigate the issue, figure out what went wrong, and make appropriate, actionable changes.
I agree with that.
> There is absolutely no reason to make a public announcement at any point in the process - safety is not a PR tactic.
Sure. But not talking about incidents is a PR tactic. Asking the grieving family to remove a picture of the hurt worker which depicts him in context of his work is a PR tactic.
I’m not even sure if you are asking this seriously. You make a safety assesment. People who do this kind of engineering task go through the systems methodically and they write up the dangers, hazards and the mitigations.
This is not some kind of new unheard of physics. This is not Gordon Freeman pushing an unusual crystal into an anti-mass spectrometer which results in headcrabs eating everyone who doesn’t have a crowbar. High pressure systems, cryogenics, flamable gasses and liquids all have known hazards and with proper systems and procedures they all can be mitigated.
> Cabada should have been perfectly safe where they were, but at least one safety system failed.
I’m working from a very limited set of information but the article states he should not have been where he was during a test. If that is true we have processes to mitigate that risk. (Lockout-tagout) That is pretty standard really.
> The proper approach is to methodically investigate the issue, figure out what went wrong, and make appropriate, actionable changes.
I agree with that.
> There is absolutely no reason to make a public announcement at any point in the process - safety is not a PR tactic.
Sure. But not talking about incidents is a PR tactic. Asking the grieving family to remove a picture of the hurt worker which depicts him in context of his work is a PR tactic.
> I’m not even sure if you are asking this seriously. You make a safety assesment. People who do this kind of engineering task go through the systems methodically and they write up the dangers, hazards and the mitigations.
There is a fundamental difference between "we have assessed the risk and here it is below some threshold where we are confident that no further safety measures are required" and "this place is safe, no accidents can happen here."
> Cabada, a ten-year veteran at the company, shouldn’t have been near the valve when it hit maximum pressure, according to people with knowledge of the accident, *but it ramped up faster than expected, blowing a shield off the valve* and knocking him unconscious.
A lockout would have done nothing. The test didn't start early, the test went wrong, and a place that was supposed to be safe at the time suddenly wasn't. The fact a safety shield blew off means they recognized that they went through the effort of identifying potential safety issues and implementing safeguards, but those safeguards were inadequate.
> Asking the grieving family to remove a picture of the hurt worker which depicts him in context of his work is a PR tactic.
The article doesn't say that the picture change was requested by spacex, only that it occured after the start of the family's legal proceedings against the company.
> But not talking about incidents is a PR tactic.
I mean in the sense that anything can influence public opinion, sure. But obviously what I am saying is that you're not supposed to take safety measures to improve your image in the public sphere, you take safety measures to ensure the wellbeing of your employees. A company that is serious about safety, instead of PR, will do what is effective (ie collecting evidence and making an informed, rational decision) instead of what is popular (doing something for the sake of being seen doing something which seems sensible to a person unfamiliar with the situation - like a lockout).
There is a fundamental difference between "we have assessed the risk and here it is below some threshold where we are confident that no further safety measures are required" and "this place is safe, no accidents can happen here."
> Cabada, a ten-year veteran at the company, shouldn’t have been near the valve when it hit maximum pressure, according to people with knowledge of the accident, *but it ramped up faster than expected, blowing a shield off the valve* and knocking him unconscious.
A lockout would have done nothing. The test didn't start early, the test went wrong, and a place that was supposed to be safe at the time suddenly wasn't. The fact a safety shield blew off means they recognized that they went through the effort of identifying potential safety issues and implementing safeguards, but those safeguards were inadequate.
> Asking the grieving family to remove a picture of the hurt worker which depicts him in context of his work is a PR tactic.
The article doesn't say that the picture change was requested by spacex, only that it occured after the start of the family's legal proceedings against the company.
> But not talking about incidents is a PR tactic.
I mean in the sense that anything can influence public opinion, sure. But obviously what I am saying is that you're not supposed to take safety measures to improve your image in the public sphere, you take safety measures to ensure the wellbeing of your employees. A company that is serious about safety, instead of PR, will do what is effective (ie collecting evidence and making an informed, rational decision) instead of what is popular (doing something for the sake of being seen doing something which seems sensible to a person unfamiliar with the situation - like a lockout).
> There is a fundamental difference between "we have assessed the risk and here it is below some threshold where we are confident that no further safety measures are required" and "this place is safe, no accidents can happen here."
But that is not what was asked in the comment. What was asked is how you know if something is unsafe.
> A lockout would have done nothing.
You state that very confidently. Do you have insider information you are privy to?
Computers controling valves can go bad. Valves can stuck open or closed. Open wider than they were meant to. Open faster than they meant to. You take a diagram of the aparatus and go through all the possible way a valve can misbehave on all possible computer controlled valves and ask: “what would be the consequence of that?” You realise that there is a possibility that a system in question goes rapidly to a high pressure state. You then ask what harm that might cause? You realise that it might blow parts of. Or at least you are not confident that it can’t. So you ask an engineer what is their mitigation for that. If they say “oh we just know it is dangerous, we would never stand by the pipes when the test is running” then you ask them to employ a lockout system.
Look. I don’t know anything more about the test they were running than what is written in the article. You are assuming that he was in a safe place, but suddenly it was not a safe place anymore. How does that happen in your opinion? Did the pressure just suddenly teleport in? It is a ton of work to validate control software. Much easier to just stand in a place where even if the controls go haywire you will be okay.
I’m reading the same sentence differently from you. To me it means that he shouldn’t have been there during a test. (And also the test shouldn’t have blown up the valve.)
But that is not what was asked in the comment. What was asked is how you know if something is unsafe.
> A lockout would have done nothing.
You state that very confidently. Do you have insider information you are privy to?
Computers controling valves can go bad. Valves can stuck open or closed. Open wider than they were meant to. Open faster than they meant to. You take a diagram of the aparatus and go through all the possible way a valve can misbehave on all possible computer controlled valves and ask: “what would be the consequence of that?” You realise that there is a possibility that a system in question goes rapidly to a high pressure state. You then ask what harm that might cause? You realise that it might blow parts of. Or at least you are not confident that it can’t. So you ask an engineer what is their mitigation for that. If they say “oh we just know it is dangerous, we would never stand by the pipes when the test is running” then you ask them to employ a lockout system.
Look. I don’t know anything more about the test they were running than what is written in the article. You are assuming that he was in a safe place, but suddenly it was not a safe place anymore. How does that happen in your opinion? Did the pressure just suddenly teleport in? It is a ton of work to validate control software. Much easier to just stand in a place where even if the controls go haywire you will be okay.
I’m reading the same sentence differently from you. To me it means that he shouldn’t have been there during a test. (And also the test shouldn’t have blown up the valve.)
> How are you supposed to know ahead of time that a place is unsafe? Cabada should have been perfectly safe where they were, but at least one safety system failed.
Any potentially unsafe location should be behind a LOTO / safety interlock, and you should not be able to access it without locking it.
Any potentially unsafe location should be behind a LOTO / safety interlock, and you should not be able to access it without locking it.
All locations are potentially unsafe locations. An interlock prevents people from being in a place they aren't supposed to be, it does nothing for when something goes wrong in a place you are supposed to be. You can take precautions to reduce the odds of something bad happening at the place you are supposed to be, but there's always something else that can go wrong.
> All locations are potentially unsafe locations.
You’re not even going to pretend being honest about this uh?
> An interlock prevents people from being in a place they aren't supposed to be, it does nothing for when something goes wrong in a place you are supposed to be.
What sort of nonsense is that? The point of an interlock is to keep the place where you’re supposed to be safe for as long as you’re there. And stop you from being there if it’s unsafe.
> there's always something else that can go wrong.
Yeah sure a volcano could explode from below your desk. Whatever.
You’re not even going to pretend being honest about this uh?
> An interlock prevents people from being in a place they aren't supposed to be, it does nothing for when something goes wrong in a place you are supposed to be.
What sort of nonsense is that? The point of an interlock is to keep the place where you’re supposed to be safe for as long as you’re there. And stop you from being there if it’s unsafe.
> there's always something else that can go wrong.
Yeah sure a volcano could explode from below your desk. Whatever.
> Yeah sure a volcano could explode from below your desk. Whatever.
It seems you're the one not even pretending to be honest here.
Obviously we are talking here about the sort of potentially dangerous work where there are serious risks to begin with.
> The point of an interlock is to keep the place where you’re supposed to be safe for as long as you’re there. And stop you from being there if it’s unsafe.
How would an interlock keep the place you are supposed to be safe? An interlock just stops something from running when its activated. When you shut down something to go inside for maintenance or whatever, an interlock stops someone from accidentally turning it on while you're inside. But when you're not inside and something is supposed to be running, the interlock is not going to do anything to contain a mechanical failure.
Imagine someone photographing sharks. They're in a shark cage to protect them. Compared to outside of the cage, they are relatively safe. An interlock might ensure that they are indeed inside the cage before a bucket of chum is dumped to attract sharks. But an interlock does nothing to protect them from a failure of the cage - maybe due to poor maintenance part of it rusted, or perhaps there was a defect with some of the welding to begin with - as far as anyone is aware, the photographers are in a "safe" place but really they're not.
It seems you're the one not even pretending to be honest here.
Obviously we are talking here about the sort of potentially dangerous work where there are serious risks to begin with.
> The point of an interlock is to keep the place where you’re supposed to be safe for as long as you’re there. And stop you from being there if it’s unsafe.
How would an interlock keep the place you are supposed to be safe? An interlock just stops something from running when its activated. When you shut down something to go inside for maintenance or whatever, an interlock stops someone from accidentally turning it on while you're inside. But when you're not inside and something is supposed to be running, the interlock is not going to do anything to contain a mechanical failure.
Imagine someone photographing sharks. They're in a shark cage to protect them. Compared to outside of the cage, they are relatively safe. An interlock might ensure that they are indeed inside the cage before a bucket of chum is dumped to attract sharks. But an interlock does nothing to protect them from a failure of the cage - maybe due to poor maintenance part of it rusted, or perhaps there was a defect with some of the welding to begin with - as far as anyone is aware, the photographers are in a "safe" place but really they're not.
> SpaceX was fined $18,475 by OSHA for two safety violations, one of which was rated the highest penalty level of “serious” and a maximum gravity of 10.
Am I reading this right? One of the two safety violations was rated the maximum gravity of 10, yet could not have had a penalty of more than $18,475? That is not even couch money for a company the size of SpaceX. I really hope I'm missing some critical piece of info which makes this all make sense. Someone please assuage my concerns here.
Am I reading this right? One of the two safety violations was rated the maximum gravity of 10, yet could not have had a penalty of more than $18,475? That is not even couch money for a company the size of SpaceX. I really hope I'm missing some critical piece of info which makes this all make sense. Someone please assuage my concerns here.
A serious violation is not the highest penalty level. It's the highest that you can get (are likely to get) on the first pass. If you don't correct the flaw in your operations, they can come back and give you a "Willful violation" which is an order of magnitude larger.
Serious or even willful OSHA penalties on the scale of $7,000 or $70,000 are pretty insignificant to a large-scale operation. However, OSHA citations, used as evidence of negligence in a lawsuit, are enormously significant.
That's why when OSHA gets involved at a jobsite, smart companies choose to immediately shut down the work in question until an outside contractor can verify that the flaw has been corrected. The OSHA inspector can be tasked with interviewing employees and getting court orders so that the courts can eventually shut down a facility, but you never, ever want it to go that far.
Serious or even willful OSHA penalties on the scale of $7,000 or $70,000 are pretty insignificant to a large-scale operation. However, OSHA citations, used as evidence of negligence in a lawsuit, are enormously significant.
That's why when OSHA gets involved at a jobsite, smart companies choose to immediately shut down the work in question until an outside contractor can verify that the flaw has been corrected. The OSHA inspector can be tasked with interviewing employees and getting court orders so that the courts can eventually shut down a facility, but you never, ever want it to go that far.
I don't follow, $7k-70k is still nothing to the likes of SpaceX. Why are human lives valued so little? Why aren't organization size and resources taken into account when computing the violation penalty amount?
If you fine too much, you change the incentives to prioritize cover-ups and legal fights. OSHA's goal is to reduce the likelihood of workplace injuries. That usually means working with the companies and employees, not imposing ruinous fines that result in layoffs or factory closures.
Got it, different from the goal and motivation behind GDPR, for example.
Thank you, chroma.
Thank you, chroma.
OSHA penalties are laughably low. Willful and repeated violations only cost a maximum of $150k/per incident, while serious but non-willful/first time violations are capped at about $14k/incident. The real money can be in workers comp/lawsuits, but those damages are capped based on expected lifetime earnings or, if you're lucky, a multiple of expected lifetime earnings. What's really messed up is that courts typically use your demographics to calculate your expected lifetime earnings (e.g. if you're black you will get a smaller settlement than a white person because statistically black people earn less than the average person over their lifetimes). When I first read that I thought it could not possibly be true, that there had to be some vitiate that made it make sense, but it's just how it's typically done.
Globally, protections for blue collar workers are crap. The US actually has pretty good worker protections all things considered (like, even compared to Europe).
Globally, protections for blue collar workers are crap. The US actually has pretty good worker protections all things considered (like, even compared to Europe).
A $150K penalty could potentially ruin a small company. It's pocket change for SpaceX. Penalties should be proportionate to the assets or market cap of the offender, so that all offenders feel the same pain.
I agree with this. The penalties should be sized such that every company feels that safety is their top priority without any company being driven out of business for a properly addressed accident.
I took a minute to look. $14,502 is the highest fine for an accidental violation, however you can also be charged that amount per date for failure to fix the violation, and the penalty increases 10x to $145k for violations that are willful or repeated.
This seems fair-ish to me. Accidents happen, and we want to disincentivize them, but we want to disincentivize negligence even more. To make monetary disincentives effective, I would argue that it'd be better to assess penalties as a % of profit rather than as a flat fee, so big companies pay more than small companies. But we have the same issue with traffic citations. Someone rich pays the same speeding fee as someone poor, so it's not as effective as a disincentive.
More importantly, we should keep in mind that it's not like OSHA violations are the only possible monetary compensation. For example, SpaceX may be liable for a civil lawsuit from the victim or his family.
This seems fair-ish to me. Accidents happen, and we want to disincentivize them, but we want to disincentivize negligence even more. To make monetary disincentives effective, I would argue that it'd be better to assess penalties as a % of profit rather than as a flat fee, so big companies pay more than small companies. But we have the same issue with traffic citations. Someone rich pays the same speeding fee as someone poor, so it's not as effective as a disincentive.
More importantly, we should keep in mind that it's not like OSHA violations are the only possible monetary compensation. For example, SpaceX may be liable for a civil lawsuit from the victim or his family.
> I would argue that it'd be better to assess penalties as a % of profit rather than as a flat fee, so big companies pay more than small companies.
On the day when that rule goes into effect, Wall Street's lawyers & financial engineers will have already shuffled all the even-slightly-risky jobs into a maze of little break-even subcontractors, shell companies, and subsidiaries.
On the day when that rule goes into effect, Wall Street's lawyers & financial engineers will have already shuffled all the even-slightly-risky jobs into a maze of little break-even subcontractors, shell companies, and subsidiaries.
Yeah that kind of stuff is always going to happen. It's super tough to plug every single loophole and stop every single infraction, so we have to accept that that's not the goal. Hell, when you make murder illegal, murders commit their crimes in secret. Still, you accomplish the goal of making it much less common, and that's a win.
It's worth noting a bigger company typically has more potential osha violations. A 10 person shop might be ruined by a single willful violation, but you have to screw up pretty bad to get that willful violation. On the otherhand if you have a 10,000 person company and only one or two things are wrong, you're clearly making a serious effort to comply. If the cost of a single violation scaled with company size, then in practice organizations above a certain level of complexity would just not be possible to operate. Maybe there is something to be said for discouraging overly large corporate entities that can't keep track of of all their constituent parts, but it's very different from a trust fund baby paying to turn off speed limits.
Should really also reflect the company involved. That is peanuts to SpaceX, fine should be in the millions. But, your point on possible civil lawsuits makes sense. As a legal fine, though for a corporation last worth $100B, not enough.
> violations was rated the maximum gravity of 10, yet could not have had a penalty of more than $18,475
OSHA isn't a punitive organization. That said, OSHA violations frequently convert into civil damages. This seems fairer than the government getting a check.
Also, OSHA violations aren't restricted to safety incidents. Once an incident occurs, OSHA can go back and assess fines for each violation that didn't result in an injury.
OSHA isn't a punitive organization. That said, OSHA violations frequently convert into civil damages. This seems fairer than the government getting a check.
Also, OSHA violations aren't restricted to safety incidents. Once an incident occurs, OSHA can go back and assess fines for each violation that didn't result in an injury.
There is a maximum of $14,502 per violation. If you are trying to maintain a decently safe workplace, I think a that is probably roughly appropriate for a serious mistake in safety. I believe if you have many ways in which your workplace is unsafe it would build up pretty quick.
Willful or Repeated violations cost 10x more. And failing to fix something costs 14k per day.
Source: https://www.osha.gov/penalties
Willful or Repeated violations cost 10x more. And failing to fix something costs 14k per day.
Source: https://www.osha.gov/penalties
OSHA's primary purpose is not punitive. It is to ensure that organizations create and follow safety procedures. OSHA is not a silver bullet. Nothing is. Sometimes things just suck. I cannot assuage your concerns.
Too late to edit this, sorry.
> "Sometimes things just suck"
I don't want this to sound like normalizing a safety deficit. It's not OK. But the incident happened and that sucks. OSHA can't immediately fix things and that sucks. Punitive damages don't immediately fix things and that sucks; they add some motivation, but they don't directly fix anything.
> "Sometimes things just suck"
I don't want this to sound like normalizing a safety deficit. It's not OK. But the incident happened and that sucks. OSHA can't immediately fix things and that sucks. Punitive damages don't immediately fix things and that sucks; they add some motivation, but they don't directly fix anything.
"Relativity has a strong safety record relative to others in the industry, with just one OSHA safety inspection since it was founded in 2015. The inspection, spurred by an accident, did not result in a violation."
Yeah sure, let's called Relativity safe while totally ignoring the fact that they have a team of 700 (compared to 12,000 at SpaceX), spent bulk of the last seven years working on 3D printing rocket parts taking VC money (unlike SpaceX, which rose to the leading and in some cases only launch provider in US), and never launched a rocket as of today.
Oh and Relativity still had one OSHA inspection, where as SpaceX had a total of 5 health and safety violations since 2014.
Perhaps the author needs to calibrate his mental picture of safety before calling Relativity relatively safe.
Yeah sure, let's called Relativity safe while totally ignoring the fact that they have a team of 700 (compared to 12,000 at SpaceX), spent bulk of the last seven years working on 3D printing rocket parts taking VC money (unlike SpaceX, which rose to the leading and in some cases only launch provider in US), and never launched a rocket as of today.
Oh and Relativity still had one OSHA inspection, where as SpaceX had a total of 5 health and safety violations since 2014.
Perhaps the author needs to calibrate his mental picture of safety before calling Relativity relatively safe.
Meta-comment here, but it’s somewhat notable that this is the very first link submitted to HN from Semafor, which is a new media company started by Justin Smith, formerly of Bloomberg and The Atlantic, and Ben Smith, formerly of The NY Times and founding editor of Buzzfeed News.
And it hit the top of the front page—not bad for a first impression.
And it hit the top of the front page—not bad for a first impression.
Right. I'd not heard of the organisation previously and did some exploring.
The FT has a good background bit, also just released today. Paywall: <https://archive.ph/GkSjG>
The FT has a good background bit, also just released today. Paywall: <https://archive.ph/GkSjG>
It's never a bad idea to compare a story like this to the overall work-related injury/fatality statistics:
https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...
There's the absolute number of events to consider, plus the overall rate of injury to consider, the latter being more of a risk estimate. Here are the top three by a fair margin (first number is total deaths, second is rate is per 100,000 full time employees in that sector, for the year 2020):
Construction: 1,008 10.2
Transportation and warehousing 805 13.4
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting 511 21.5
I don't see any breakdown in that data for the space industry, but that's the kind of information that would put this report in some kind of context.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...
There's the absolute number of events to consider, plus the overall rate of injury to consider, the latter being more of a risk estimate. Here are the top three by a fair margin (first number is total deaths, second is rate is per 100,000 full time employees in that sector, for the year 2020):
Construction: 1,008 10.2
Transportation and warehousing 805 13.4
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting 511 21.5
I don't see any breakdown in that data for the space industry, but that's the kind of information that would put this report in some kind of context.
With high tech manufacturing you’d want to compare against mature higher risk industries such as oil and gas, chemical, pharmaceutical manufacturing, food manufacturing, and semiconductors, plus military noncombat operations and military contractors.
There are ideally engineering controls and standard operating procedures or documented deviations, even in research or pilot facilities. Construction and agriculture, apart from the design phase (like residential crafts, HVAC, industrial electricians or cement etc) do not have the same workplace standards as an industrial facility or field site with cohabitation of engineering, operations, and contractors. There are always exceptions with safe contractors and bad facilities.
If you are routinely testing a pressure relief valve and there is not a documented procedure around this or a permit addressing limiting exposure to that energy that might be a problem in retrospect. Ideally, industries would operate in good faith of regulations and not just outside the envelope of punitive measures. But regulatory stuff is complicated and specific depending on location. I simply wanted to point out it would be helpful to compare incident statistics against common risk profile industries.
There are ideally engineering controls and standard operating procedures or documented deviations, even in research or pilot facilities. Construction and agriculture, apart from the design phase (like residential crafts, HVAC, industrial electricians or cement etc) do not have the same workplace standards as an industrial facility or field site with cohabitation of engineering, operations, and contractors. There are always exceptions with safe contractors and bad facilities.
If you are routinely testing a pressure relief valve and there is not a documented procedure around this or a permit addressing limiting exposure to that energy that might be a problem in retrospect. Ideally, industries would operate in good faith of regulations and not just outside the envelope of punitive measures. But regulatory stuff is complicated and specific depending on location. I simply wanted to point out it would be helpful to compare incident statistics against common risk profile industries.
What's the main point of this article? It seems like it's to question if we should go to space, but it uses a few examples of injury or death. How doe the accident rates compare to other things? Without that, it seems like there's nothing here.
"SpaceX has made no announcement to the public or to its workers about his status"
HIPAA and other legal compliance?
"SpaceX has made no announcement to the public or to its workers about his status"
HIPAA and other legal compliance?
Is SpaceX a covered entity providing health care? If not, HIPAA is not at issue.
Ok, then Americans with disabilities or whatever.
The point is, most companies don't release this information and I believe there are legal reasons for that.
The point is, most companies don't release this information and I believe there are legal reasons for that.
The legal reason isn't that they aren't allowed to, it is that it can only hurt them.
Why would a company highlight failures if they don't have to? Especially when their statements can later be used against them in civil or criminal proceedings.
Why would a company highlight failures if they don't have to? Especially when their statements can later be used against them in civil or criminal proceedings.
This is the company that released a video of a bunch of their rockets exploding, "How not to land an orbital rocket booster". They are usually pretty open with their failures, at least in engineering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ
I guess I didn't specify that "failure of an experimental rocket for a company developing new rockets" is a different category than "failure of workplace safety procedures that permanently disables a family man"
I thought the difference was clear
I thought the difference was clear
the difference is clear to be sure, just pointing out that at least in engineering, they have never been shy to publicize their failures, and use them to improve processes. I would hope that that attitude would apply equally to safety, but it seems like it does not.
I'm almost certain that FMLA, ADA, etc have provisions that require the employer to treat the information as confidential. Even things like contact tracing for covid keeps the person anonymous.
HIPAA!
I just heard an interview on ABC Radio with The Guardian journalist Anne Davies about safety issues during the construction of the Sydney Metro rail system here in Australia. Amongst other things a 30 tonne train carriage transporting equipment travelled 1.5km uncontrolled in a half built tunnel and an escalator being installed at an underground station fell 4 floors. Unfortunately accidents happen in all industries despite combined effort of regulators, companies and employees. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/18/out-o...
I'm really surprised there aren't more accidents at spacex...
They aren't following some well tested process that is well understood.
They're trying new things that might go wrong in unexpected ways. Yet somehow their accident rates are still low. That's pretty impressive.
They aren't following some well tested process that is well understood.
They're trying new things that might go wrong in unexpected ways. Yet somehow their accident rates are still low. That's pretty impressive.
Don't let that stop hack journos from writing hit pieces anyway!
I've always been sad for John Bjornstad and Forrest Cole who died in a Space Shuttle test in 1981 when they entered a nitrogen-filled compartment. Since they were workers and not astronauts, they are treated as footnotes and not heroes.
This is incredibly sad, but accidents happen. This is a good example of the type of incident which leads to procedures and reforms which will erode the agility of the organization. It's entropy, and it happens to every org. This is a big reason why NASA has a hard time executing compared to spacex.
I really see this as part of the natural cycle of any org. Nimble companies grow, incidents happen, corruption happens, safeguards are put in place to prevent issues from recurring and before you know it, the company is no longer nimble.
I really see this as part of the natural cycle of any org. Nimble companies grow, incidents happen, corruption happens, safeguards are put in place to prevent issues from recurring and before you know it, the company is no longer nimble.
Safeguards do not make a company less nimble and it's frankly embarrassing that people think that. We should not have to sacrifice people in the name of growth. And the thinking that it's ok to hurt people because it's a "natural cycle of any org" is ridiculous and should be ridiculed.
Every company should have a culture of safety where accidents are investigated to determine what changes should be made to processes to ensure there is less harm if that type of accident happens again.
That includes tech companies where an accident could be deleting a database or a space company where an accident is a pressure valve exploding.
safeguards are always at odds with agility and latitude.
can you devise a safeguard for this incident which wouldn't negatively impact both of these concepts?
can you devise a safeguard for this incident which wouldn't negatively impact both of these concepts?
I'm not sure if it's because this is a particular engineering-learning crowd that is pro space or SpaceX or something else but the general lack of empathy toward a human being who has suffered is concerning when reading this thread, especially when you consider that this was in fact a very serious injury that could have been prevented with an appropriate adherence to safety protocol.
Move fast and break things was a terrible mantra but it seems to have seeped in...or perhaps was always there.
Move fast and break things was a terrible mantra but it seems to have seeped in...or perhaps was always there.
Your empathy has you blinded to the real motive here, the author doesn’t give a damn about the person. ‘Move fast and break things’ which the article has made you believe that means human safety. Now that you’ve taken the bait it’s time to spread your misinformation to your friends. Maybe make some tweets. That’s how the media controls you and the narrative.
If the history of avation is anything to go by, the incredibly stringent safety guidelines everybody must follow is not out of the goodness of their hearts but rather written by legislators in the blood of crash victims.
The fact that NASA actually treats it's humans as not expendable must be the exception to the rule then. These companies won't mind literally shredding people to proceed faster than their competition unless they are actively forced not to. Having no regard for safety is a competitive advantage if the time saved allows a leg up over all competitors in such a fast moving market. Truly any concerns over a complete flippant ignorance of having safety procedures can be drowned out by an army of fanboys going "it's worth it because space" for free if everyone lets them.
Of the thousands of US workplace deaths per year, I wonder why this workplace injury (serious, but not fatal) gets an entire article? Hmm...
It's owned by the same person who owns a car company that makes headlines every time their cars catch fire after a serious accident. It's very irresponsible of El*n to make lithium batteries that are capable of igniting when punctured and destroyed.
Accidents happen in non-capitalist contexts as well. Reaching for that as a cause without any evidence is weak.
Profit motive is like gravity - it's always there, in every society. It may have other names, like making your superior happy, but it's there.
You have to guard against profit motive weakening your core values - you have to put up guard rails. If those guard rails are missing, that's very bad. If those guard rails are there, and people avoiding them is normalized, that's very bad. If those guard rails are there, and people get in trouble for avoiding them, that's very bad.
If those guard rails are there, and you have a comprehensive process for reviewing incidents and updating rules and processes based on real world factors, then you're part of the way towards good safety culture.
Safety culture is the decisions that individual team members and teams make. Safety culture is also the corporate process for evaluating incidents. And also the way that resources are or are not assigned when concerns are raised. And so many other things.
Profit motive is like gravity - it's always there, in every society. It may have other names, like making your superior happy, but it's there.
You have to guard against profit motive weakening your core values - you have to put up guard rails. If those guard rails are missing, that's very bad. If those guard rails are there, and people avoiding them is normalized, that's very bad. If those guard rails are there, and people get in trouble for avoiding them, that's very bad.
If those guard rails are there, and you have a comprehensive process for reviewing incidents and updating rules and processes based on real world factors, then you're part of the way towards good safety culture.
Safety culture is the decisions that individual team members and teams make. Safety culture is also the corporate process for evaluating incidents. And also the way that resources are or are not assigned when concerns are raised. And so many other things.
This is exactly where those lofty Mission + Values statements come into play and why they're important when they're both written and lived well (as opposed to just some bland generic screed made from corporate buzzword bingo terms that everyone ignores).
The Mission is what you're trying to achieve (the profit motive, in some form), and the Values are the guardrails. They say explicitly what things you won't sacrifice (like human rights and lives) in service of the mission.
Having this stuff laid out clearly from the top down helps a lot with getting efforts to create and enforce those lower level processes taken seriously.
The Mission is what you're trying to achieve (the profit motive, in some form), and the Values are the guardrails. They say explicitly what things you won't sacrifice (like human rights and lives) in service of the mission.
Having this stuff laid out clearly from the top down helps a lot with getting efforts to create and enforce those lower level processes taken seriously.
And when teams ask for resources to fix issues, they have to get those resources. Its all very well for an executive to say those lofty things, it also has to be funded.
Unfortunately, sometimes people in the middle just assume that saving money is more important; the CEO might have told them to allocate resources, but the request just got squashed along the way.
Unfortunately, sometimes people in the middle just assume that saving money is more important; the CEO might have told them to allocate resources, but the request just got squashed along the way.
https://revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-saf...
"(In 2017) The rate of serious injuries, requiring time off or a work restriction, was 30 percent worse than the previous year’s industry average."
"(In 2017) The rate of serious injuries, requiring time off or a work restriction, was 30 percent worse than the previous year’s industry average."
Appalling tone of conversation. Comparing a multibillion dollar high tech company's workplace safety procedures to street violence in poor parts of the US or in mechanized agriculture is insulting. SpaceX has tried to ignore this tragedy and their silence and opaqueness about it mean nothing will be learned that could prevent the next disaster.
Could you talk more in depth about your experience with the safety processes that exist at SpaceX, and how the events around TFA had an impact on safety at SpaceX? Were you part of the team that investigated directly or did you only see the results of the internal investigation second hand? Can you tell me about which processes you'd specifically like to see impacted and how they fit into the workflow at hand?
I'm interested to hear the data and information that went into your opinion that nothing will change.
I'm interested to hear the data and information that went into your opinion that nothing will change.
Somebody got hurt so the space race is unsafe…
We should probably halt agriculture and cancel automobiles also.
Also all injuries need a press release.
We should probably halt agriculture and cancel automobiles also.
Also all injuries need a press release.
While it is a sad story, it reminded me of a parallel issue with another "Race" for technology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
So, the worst possible violation costs you $18K?
I suppose you can afford a few of them if you're SpaceX. (Especially the way they pay - your salary comes pre-reduced for several violations/year)
I suppose you can afford a few of them if you're SpaceX. (Especially the way they pay - your salary comes pre-reduced for several violations/year)
BTW, there is only one job that is not subjected to ionising radiation exposure limits: the astronaut. Radiation in space is just too damn strong, there's not much that can be done about it without spending high multiples of what's already being spent for manned space travel.
Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_ionizing_radiation_...
Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_ionizing_radiation_...
This is a glimpse of the aerospace industry behind the curtain. Much of it is backed by the filipino and hispanic working class in LA. These guys live in the roughest neighborhoods and are in charge of precision assembly of human transport. I don't know the exact ratio, but maybe 5 technicians like him per office engineer.
SpaceX is a for profit organisation.
You might find it hard to believe, but having select few design equipment and processes that will then be used by much less skilled and paid workers is how most production companies work.
Now, I don't have any numbers. But if SpaceX is able to hire and maintain predominantly minority staff (assuming they are paid a reasonable wage) isn't it a win for those communities?
You might find it hard to believe, but having select few design equipment and processes that will then be used by much less skilled and paid workers is how most production companies work.
Now, I don't have any numbers. But if SpaceX is able to hire and maintain predominantly minority staff (assuming they are paid a reasonable wage) isn't it a win for those communities?
I feel like Francisco Cabada probably doesn't count it as a win.
Not sure. Many people are happy to take risks to improve the lives of the next generation. I work in R&D and when my kids have asked if I could die at work, I say “yes” with a smile :)
Hire enough people to work around dangerous things and you will get accidents.
The question really is whether the company is reasonably trying to prevent unnecessary risks and react with changes when accidents happen.
The question really is whether the company is reasonably trying to prevent unnecessary risks and react with changes when accidents happen.
> Much of it is backed by the filipino and hispanic working class in LA
Most of the aerospace industry isn't in Los Angeles [1].
[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172011.htm#st
Most of the aerospace industry isn't in Los Angeles [1].
[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172011.htm#st
xwdv(3)
Stop groaning and get back to work!!!
> The company’s silence on the incident is a particularly dramatic reflection of a core dynamic in America’s new space race: The unspoken truth that human lives are at play at every level.
???? Does a company need to make an announcement or public statement for every incident that occurs at work?
There are risks at every job. How is this even an article-worthy?
???? Does a company need to make an announcement or public statement for every incident that occurs at work?
There are risks at every job. How is this even an article-worthy?
> There are risks at every job. How is this even an article-worthy?
A sadly large % of the people reading news on-line have nearly forgotten that hazardous real-world jobs still exist. (Vs. office jobs where "fell and sprained wrist while getting out of an extra-comfy wheely chair" is just about the worst workplace injury they can imagine.)
Also, it's SpaceX. Loads of construction, roofing, etc. workers get maimed & killed every year, and are barely worth a passing mention in the local paper.
A sadly large % of the people reading news on-line have nearly forgotten that hazardous real-world jobs still exist. (Vs. office jobs where "fell and sprained wrist while getting out of an extra-comfy wheely chair" is just about the worst workplace injury they can imagine.)
Also, it's SpaceX. Loads of construction, roofing, etc. workers get maimed & killed every year, and are barely worth a passing mention in the local paper.
It's not about the number but about the reason.
There is a difference if a job is dangerous and somebody gets hurt or dies despite compliance with all safety measures or if an accident happens because of safety violations.
There is a difference if a job is dangerous and somebody gets hurt or dies despite compliance with all safety measures or if an accident happens because of safety violations.
Reasonable Assumption: A whole lot of the barely-covered injuries and deaths at various little tree-trimming, construction, roofing, etc. firms also involve safety violations.
I'd imagine they're silent regarding it because 1) it's an active safety investigation 2) legal will be involved 3) it's frankly nobody else's business, seeing as it's a private business
OSHA incidents probably don't fit the "nobody's business" pattern, in the same way major breaches like the one that happened at Uber don't.
Is this meant to say, if it's an OSHA involved incident, it should be made public knowledge?
I'd remove the word "should". OSHA incidents create public records. They are, by definition, our business.
I was not actually aware these incidents were made public record, so TIL. For this specific instance, here is a link for any interested. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detai...
Essentially all public functions that create records create, by definition, public records. There are exceptions, but they're much narrower than you'd expect. You're entitled to demand copies of the records that federal agencies collect, and those records are created with the expectation that they can be produced on demand. Most agencies do a reasonable job of making things overtly public, so you can just download them. But even if they don't, you can just FOIA them.
>”2) legal will be involved”
In court, an apology, even something as simple as saying “sorry”, can be used as an admission of guilt. It behooves them to say as little as possible.
In court, an apology, even something as simple as saying “sorry”, can be used as an admission of guilt. It behooves them to say as little as possible.
I mean #2 is obviously correct but that shouldn't make the public feel any better. Precisely because there are downsides (including legal and political) for announcing incidents they will only do so if they have to.
> that shouldn't make the public feel any better
The incident was reported to a federal agency. I’m not sure I’d want my medical history publicly aired if I were injured at work.
The incident was reported to a federal agency. I’m not sure I’d want my medical history publicly aired if I were injured at work.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-cabadas-during-this-diff...
The family started a public GoFundme page. I think its clear that it is in the interest of both the family and labor at large to get stories about workplace injuries to the public.
The family started a public GoFundme page. I think its clear that it is in the interest of both the family and labor at large to get stories about workplace injuries to the public.
It's interesting to note that the family has changed the main picture to remove any overt SpaceX references.
Workplace safety violations are absolutely society's "business."
> frankly nobody else's business, seeing as it's a private business
Uhh, wut? How many people have to die inside a private business before it does become other peoples business. And how do you know if you've got your blinders on.
Uhh, wut? How many people have to die inside a private business before it does become other peoples business. And how do you know if you've got your blinders on.
>3) it's frankly nobody else's business, seeing as it's a private business
It is however a private business taking public money. If a government was pumping millions of dollars into a company that was producing an unsafe work environment resulting in injury and death (not saying that is the case) but I think the public has a right to know.
It is however a private business taking public money. If a government was pumping millions of dollars into a company that was producing an unsafe work environment resulting in injury and death (not saying that is the case) but I think the public has a right to know.
That's OSHA's job, not SpaceX's. And I don't think you can take a single incident and use that to determine if a workplace is safe or not. Especially considering the context of it being a rocket factory.
I pump money into a lot of local businesses, and yet they never send me workplace safety reports.
Because openness about failure is indicative of willingness to accept criticism. Doesn't mean they need to accept fault.
Being completely silent on the matter gives the appearance that they are pretending it didn't happen, that they want no one asking questions about it.
Being completely silent on the matter gives the appearance that they are pretending it didn't happen, that they want no one asking questions about it.
So, this basically serves no real purpose, other than keeping appearances and sending proper signals to bored strangers on the internet, affecting nothing at all.
What would be sufficient openness? What do you think they should be saying and to whom? Who should they be seeking and accepting criticism from?
Should Space X proactively issue notice to the media and request for public feedback?
Should they be emailing all employees details?
Should Elon be posting on twitter for feedback?
Should Space X proactively issue notice to the media and request for public feedback?
Should they be emailing all employees details?
Should Elon be posting on twitter for feedback?
Among other standards, OSHA reporting requirements:
<https://www.hseblog.com/osha-accident-reporting-requirements...>
<https://www.hseblog.com/osha-accident-reporting-requirements...>
Are you seriously implying that they didn't?
Someone claimed that they were insufficiently open and I'm asking what they should have done that they did not
Someone claimed that they were insufficiently open and I'm asking what they should have done that they did not
Or don’t want to provide meat for the legal meat grinder.
Maybe they should?
Already most companies do the absolute least OSHA lets them get away with (and often not even that...)
Already most companies do the absolute least OSHA lets them get away with (and often not even that...)
What do you expect them to do, especially considering legal and healthcare/PHI constraints?
SpaceX is not a covered entity under HIPAA, they are under no PHI constraints that healthcare providers are under.
Over the decade I worked in retail and warehouses prior to becoming an accountant, I never once saw an OSHA inspector.
My impression is that OSHA tends to be reactive.
Unless there was an incident or a report of unsafe activity you aren't going to see OSHA.
Unless there was an incident or a report of unsafe activity you aren't going to see OSHA.
It gets clicks!
And karma votes :-)
And satisfaction that you are one of those few people who not only care about human lives, also actively fights a billions of dollar worth megacorp.
If NASA would, then why SpaceX no?
Internally they definitely should.
The other dozen poor soles who probably died in work related accidents today don't count as they have nothing to do with Elon Musk.
moffkalast(2)
LegitShady(1)
"Safe" jobs like cube farms where people don't exercise and destroy their neuromuscular systems over time?
And the death rate is unlikely to be worse than: crab fishing, mining, petroleum extraction, manufacturing, etc.
and... "semafor"? Never heard of this. This article reeks of "popular hotbutton company" + "drama" to drive clicks.
The real issue is lack of universal healthcare of course.
And the death rate is unlikely to be worse than: crab fishing, mining, petroleum extraction, manufacturing, etc.
and... "semafor"? Never heard of this. This article reeks of "popular hotbutton company" + "drama" to drive clicks.
The real issue is lack of universal healthcare of course.
Semafor is a new media venture which launched today. Its founders have strong former experience.
See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33252667>
See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33252667>
Just gave a talk at MIT and we discussed with the students how the hacking culture is essentially gone there due to the safety-at-all-costs mindset seeping into America.
In my opinion, it’s partly due to being an aging society. (1960 median age ~ 29, today it is around 39). Young people are generally more willing to be risky and try new things, and since the adults have all the power and are more litigious, of course we will end up ruled by rules and regulations that only get more complicated and time consuming.
Our society has never been safer, but we have used that comfort to be incredibly unhealthy/obese as well. Interesting times (possibly more boring times to come).
In my opinion, it’s partly due to being an aging society. (1960 median age ~ 29, today it is around 39). Young people are generally more willing to be risky and try new things, and since the adults have all the power and are more litigious, of course we will end up ruled by rules and regulations that only get more complicated and time consuming.
Our society has never been safer, but we have used that comfort to be incredibly unhealthy/obese as well. Interesting times (possibly more boring times to come).
Is there any actual statistics that support that claim? The article says that at least 24 workers have been killed while in the space industry since 1980. Compare that to coal fatalities, of which there were nearly 2,000 fatalities over the same period.
SpaceX has 12,000 people and are making rockets so it seems like some degree of danger will be inherent. Of course this should be reduced where-ever possible, but if the claim is that the space industry is unnecessarily unsafe then I'm not sure that's convincing.