The argument against informed consent

[Vultur]

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.

Yes, exactly! I think VG would be better off talking in 'adventure tourism' type terms -- looking at e.g. the Everest people and what they say -- rather than emphasizing how safe their system is, which they really don't know.

[ey]

As far as the skydiving comparison, we should distinguish between accidents vs equipment failures that could conceivably be blamed on the manufacturer or jump operator.

http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/ shows about 19% of fatalities attributed to malfunctions. The remaining 81% could be due to jumper inexperience, dangerous maneuvers, or sheer bad luck.

I would say that skydiving is always going to entail some risk that you're solely responsible for. But on the other hand, if you pull the cord and it gets stuck or tangled due to poor manufacturing, that's pretty crappy on the part of the manufacturer. What if the manufacturer knew about the defect and could have solved it by using a different, more expensive material? I think there's a certain point where the manufacturer has to accept some responsibility and liability. On the other hand, if it's universally known that parachutes are going to fail N% of the time despite the best efforts of all parties involved, then it's a known risk and nobody should be culpable -- although also one that could perhaps be prevented in the future as parachute tech evolves.

Additionally: in skydiving, a lot of the fatalities are accidents that have nothing to do with the manufacturer or operator. On the other hand, with spaceflight, any accident is very likely the fault of the manufacturer, operator (including the pilot/crew), or bad luck (e.g. micrometeorites); not the passenger/customer. You can say that the customer knew the risks, but it doesn't absolve the launch company from blame if there's something they could and should have done differently to prevent the accident. The extend to which the company could be held financially liable is up for debate, though.

I would also divide things into failures of things that should work vs unrecognized or difficult problems. If some fundamental piece of hardware fails in ordinary operation, that's clearly a failure. If it's an accident that happens due to some unlikely circumstance, such as a bird strike, the company should strive to find solutions to the problem but I wouldn't blame them for not having it solved right off the bat.

[CJ]

It's awesome, but I'm not sure what it's got to do with this topic.

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. A third or fourth generation vehicle may start making in-roads to capture more risk-adverse customers, but first you actually have to be making money.

Burt Rutan, on the other hand, has always seemed to be arguing that this "barnstorming" phase could just be skipped.

Burt Rutan hasn't always made that argument, even in aviation. His Vari-eze and Long-eze aircraft were quite revolutionary at the time, and quite popular with pilots (And also popular with daredevil racers, modifiers, and yes, barnstormers). They were sold in kit form, and were classed experimental. For the Vari-eze, about 800 were sold. Out of those, about 45 had fatal crashes (Mostly due to build, not design, errors, or pilot error). The Long-eze had similar numbers. You could either build the kit yourself, or buy it from a kit builder. If the latter, you had to sign all sorts of waivers. In fact, if memory serves, you had to sign a load of waivers if you bought the kit direct from Rutan Aviation. (I never bought one, but I knew several people who had, and that's what I heard)

IMHO, there's absolutely nothing wrong with informed consent. In the medical field, it's the very basis of doctor-patient relations. In the case of wingsuits, skydiving, or other high risk activities, it's standard.

My concern is that too much focus on safety will result in higher prices, and thus less space travel and space business.

Perhaps a solution might be to adopt the FAA's metric; they place a dollar value on a statistical human life (around 6 million in 2000, if I remember right). They use this, amongst other things, as a guideline for judging whether a safety or security improvement is worthwhile. Could spaceflight use the same sort of metric? A safety measure that would statistically save a single life and costs 1 dollar would, I think, be seen as a good deal by most anyone, whereas a measure that costs a billion dollars to do the same would be seen far differently by many (Myself definitely included).
     



 

   

[Oli]

Adrenaline junkies usually don't have millions on their bank account.

Who said anything about millions? We're talking suborbital spaceflight here. There's a lot of skydivers who spend a lot of money on this sport. Annually, we're talking ~3 million jumps per year!

The first market wouldn't even be close to what you or I would call "spaceflight". It'd be rocketing up to ~4 km altitude - so that special breathing equipment isn't necessary. Then incrementally with breathing equipment, and eventually pressure suits, up to ~30 km altitude, ala Felix Baumgartner. The techniques developed would be some of those "inventions" that Rutan is talking about and would save lives.. of people who are actually flying.

One single flight is ~250k.

Regarding skydiving from high altitudes, you would do that with planes or balloons.

[docmordrid]

For the record,

in 2013 58 skydivers screwed themselves into the ground. About 25 so far this year. Peak year in the last decade was 2004 with 71.

Carry on....

[Doesitfloat]

Contrast that with:
30 people killed a year by ants.
100 people killed by icicles just in Russia.
450 people killed by falling out of bed.

And don't get me started with Vending Machine Deaths.
Source
http://www.oddee.com/item_98002.aspx

[Elmar Moelzer]

Informed consent is standard for medical procedures. Especially in the US, patients will frequently consent to procedures that are cheaper, but leave a higher risk to them. Since it is informed consent, there is no mal practice and patient has no legal angle. There are thousands of cases like that every day. I do not see why human spaceflight gets so much more attention when it comes to informed consent. If you want to go to space, you accept the risk. I even want to say that part of the appeal of being an astronaut is the risk (the whole hero thing).

[woods170]

The only reason a spaceflight fatality would be front-page news is that (almost) nobody goes into space. It's a 'rare' (as in: not common) thing.
 If however tens-of-thousand (or even more) people went into space each year, a spaceflight fatality would barely make page nine in your local newspaper.

So, it boils down to this: Informed consent, lawsuits, etc. are all besides the real issue; why are only a few hands full of people going into space?
 

[QuantumG]

I say it's the price. Economics 101.

Everything I've read Rutan (and a few others) say on the topic, they somehow think it's safety. I guess the logic goes that the big market demands less risk and if you can't get the big market then you can't afford to make the investment that makes it cheaper in the long run. i.e. $200k is expensive for suborbital.. but to get to a $25k flight you need to fly thousands of people first.

So, safety and price are tied in Rutan's argument. I've heard Max Hunter said something similar.

I don't disagree per se, but the key part of this argument is actually flying people. I can understand the aversion to taking risk when safety is your highest priority, but the logical conclusion is that you'll never fly. So far that's what's happened.

[Lar]

I'm not sure we are completely on topic here. And the topic itself is fairly iffy, so please do your best to stay pretty closely focused. ... some posts were trimmed while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to say.

[Vultur]

I don't disagree per se, but the key part of this argument is actually flying people.

I agree.

I mean, there's a certain mimimum level of safety - if the spacecraft disintegrated 1 in 3 flights that wouldn't be acceptable - but...