[AR] Re: AW&ST Space Tourism Accident Impact.
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 14:32:15 -0500 (EST)
On Thu, 2 Jan 2020, Uwe Klein wrote:
The nonsensical notion that "the first time a space tourist dies, it
will kill the industry" is a perennial one that won't go away.
The masses will smirk and the early customers are definitely aware of
the risk. ( .. and will have signed some statement to that effect. )
The main risk is not that the customers will all vanish, but that
legislators and/or regulators will overreact. Kill the industry, no,
probably not, but even a well-intentioned attempt to crank up the
regulatory oversight could gravely handicap it, perhaps to the point of
making profitability difficult.
It will definitely be better if the first fatal accident in revenue
service is the result of some technical subtlety, rather than blatant
negligence or corner-cutting.
Note, by the way, that if you read the AW&ST piece carefully, you'll see
that the headline writer goofed -- it's mostly talking about the risk that
a fatal accident could shut down the *company* in question, not the whole
industry. *That* is a real possibility, especially for a struggling
startup. Note, for example, that a single major-headlines crash with
distinct indications of negligence hurt ValuJet Airlines badly enough that
it acquired another small airline mostly (it would appear) as a plausible
excuse for a complete change of name. (For that matter, look at what a
mess Boeing -- a many-billion-dollars behemoth -- is in after two fatal
crashes due to corner-cutting...)
Henry
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