“There needs to be a generic attitude change from ‘it’s okay to die if you sign a waiver, and you gotta fly so that the pieces don’t hit the bystanders’,” Rutan said, “to identify and encourage the safety breakthroughs that do exist—I mean the inventions that people already have out there—and then require equivalent safety on whatever else you’re going to do.” - source 2006.
Certification is not expensive because of the FAA. And I’ll tell you something, it’s the very best thing you can buy when you have an accident and somebody gets killed. The plaintiff’s attorney’s job is to convince that non-technical jury that you did a sloppy job, that you didn’t do enough for his safety. The very best thing you can do is say that there are specific government certification requirements and I met every one of them, and you even get to bring the government in to certify to the jury that you passed all of the safety requirements. Without that you can’t survive as an industry: you can’t survive the first accident, and you can’t insure. So you got to have government certification that protects passengers. - source 2004.
Taken to its logical conclusion, outlaw sky and scuba diving and all providers that make them possible. More will die from them than spaceflight for a considerable time. Hell, outlaw bicycles.
Informed consent or not, killing your customers is bad for business.
I think actually flying people is what would attract the required capital to suborbital spaceflight, and flying space divers and other high-risk aware people is a great way to start.
Adrenaline junkies usually don't have millions on their bank account.
I see where Burt Rutan is coming from but does the government (or anyone else) really know either:1. What society would accept as a low enough risk for space tourism?2. How to assure that a given space transportation system meets a given risk target?I can accept certification as a longer-term aim, but I'm sceptical anyone can meaningfully certify at the moment.I guess a more cynical view might be it doesn't really matter what certification requires, as long as the government is helping to cover an operator's arse, but I don't think this is the forum for that line of argument!
Quote from: RonM on 06/23/2014 11:11 pmInformed consent or not, killing your customers is bad for business.An amusing quip, but not exactly rational.
In the US, people can sue for just about any reason, including disputing a signed contract. If you sign a consent form, your surviving family members can still sue for your loss. A company would be foolish to depend on informed consent.
Quote from: RonM on 06/24/2014 12:01 amIn the US, people can sue for just about any reason, including disputing a signed contract. If you sign a consent form, your surviving family members can still sue for your loss. A company would be foolish to depend on informed consent. The courts must be jammed packed full of the lawsuits of dead skydivers. In fact there's an average of 21 deaths per year and zero lawsuits.If you have no reasonable expectation of "safety", you don't have a strong case. The problem here is that the providers really want suborbital spaceflight to be less risky than it is, and they're marketing their (future) product that way. That's what would make a lawsuit legitimate and an informed consent dispute workable. Rutan makes the great argument that providers can just pass the buck to the government regulators.
Right now they're not flying at all and haven't been flying for the last 10 years. If they insist on "a reasonable level of safety" that is unobtainable with a first generation vehicle, they'll never fly.
