Re: NY Times Blockbuster: NASA Officials Loosen Acceptable Risk Standards for Shuttle.




Well, we have had this debate before here, many times, but I feel the real
worry here is that the providers of the documents fear for their jobs. Risk
assessment is not a precise science, and anyone who says it is, is living in
a dream world. The difficult bit is to get the actual figures to agree with
the perception, which is, I fancy what is going on here.

How safe is safe? I suppose the safest is if you leave the people on the
ground and fly it in a simulator connected to the real thing, even then, one
of your crew may get run over or have a car accident on the way to the
simulator!

It is the risk that informed people take to do what they enjoy that is the
one which ought to matter. it is the culture that would castigate employees
for raising concerns that needs to have more work done on it.

However, you have to realise that some people just are trouble makers, just
for the hell of it, or because they 'don't get it' as it were. If you work
in an industry where safety has to be the best you can achieve, the
goalposts will never be still, as not everything is achievable in reality.

If you think of the different way we assess risk of someone being in the
armed forces now, against a few years ago, then you can see that all sorts
of cultural things affect acceptable risk. The Shuttle is an old design,
things were different then.

Brian

--

Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email: briang1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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