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Injury Rates at SpaceX Soar Above Industry Norms
(gizmodo.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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RATE. Injury rate per person.
The only thing that matters is how many injuries happen per person. That's the whole point. Every company could increase output by sacrificing worker's health, but we as society strongly condemn that because that's truly fucked up.
We should frame things in terms of injuries per worker per stock price. If our shareholders are happy who cares if Tommy's dad only has one leg now?
/s
You gotta keep in mind that spacex is more mass manufacturing things compared to legacy space.
They're aiming for 144 launches this year, that's 144 2nd stages. A second stage is being manufactured every 2.5 days.
Hundreds, if not thousands of satellites.
A better comparison would be to other manufacturers of this scale and complexity. Not someone who launches 2 rockets this years, maybe.
No absofuckinglutely not. That's psychotic and you should feel like garbage for even thinking that. Being ok with more people being hurt and killed just so a company can churn out more product is vile.
I never said I'm okay with people being injured, but it is FACT that injury rates change based off type of work.
No one in the space industry is mass manufacturing at the scale that SpaceX is so they are not a valid comparison.
If space projects can't be done faster without pushing kids into the orphan crushing machine, then it shouldn't be done faster.
Let me help your outraged mind understand this basic concept.
Lets say it takes 10 people to take a 2nd stage rocket from the loading bay, to the launch pad and get it mounted.
Lets say there are 1000 processes and safety checks to do this task, and 5% of the parts involved can only do the task 5 times before being inspected, replaced and/or refurbished for whatever reason.
SLS if I'm reading things right (I might be wrong) are going to launch ONCE in 2024.
That's 10 people doing 1000 processes with 0 part inspection or refurbishments required. (Edit: And they sit in an office for the rest of the year planning the next launch)
SpaceX with those same 10 people, because it only takes 10 people to do the task, are going to do 144 launches in 2024. Every 2.5 days they're going to move this thing.
That's 144,000 processes and safety checks, and 28.8 times that parts need to be monitored for wear and tear, refurbishment and replacements.
You don't think that there's a higher chance that those 10 people might do something wrong in those 144,000 times, or in one of the 28.8 inspections? That even if those 10 people did everything perfectly every single time, that maybe, a piece of hardware might fail unexpectedly?
You think those 10 people should have the exact same injury rate as the SLS people who did it once (edit: and then sat in an office the rest of the year)?
It's bonkers to think that.
The bottom line is this: if your accelerated processes are causing more workers to get injured, then you need to slow down. You must not churn out a second stage every 2.5 days if it means more injuries per worker.
Your argument is that these workers are doing more dangerous tasks more often and therefore that raises the injury rate, right? Well then they should be doing fewer dangerous tasks, and less often, then.
I never said otherwise. I just said that comparing the injury rate to the existing space industry wasn't accurate.
If accidents are happening because they are moving to fast they should of course address that.
They'll still have more accidents than the regular space industry because they are on incomparable scales.
Fair enough. A quick Google tells me the rate in the automotive industry is 6.3 per 100, which is close to SpaceX at 5.9 per 100. Might be more comparable to be fair.
That might be a closer comparison ya.
Both work with large objects at large scale.
Edit: And just because SpaceX is lower doesn't mean it's fine. There's clearly room for large improvement, especially if injuries are due to moving too fast. I'd also intuitively expect higher numbers in automotive as things are larger scale (millions) and faster.
That's a good point. We need better safety regulations for mass-manufactured space debris I imagine, since we just don't have that type so far.
I imagine to some extent they are writing their own as they go given that's the case. It probably wouldn't hurt to have regulators come in and see if any new rules are needed (and being followed). Not like ocean rocket recovery on a drone ship was a thing before.