The next one hundred years

The airline industry has accidents, kills customers, and doesn't go out
of business. Why? Because they try, really hard, to make their product
as safe a possible. In cases where they fudge safety for profit like
ValueJet apparently did, they can, and do, and should, go out of
business.

rmenich@... wrote:
>
> Ryan Healey wrote,
>
> "If a company ever disobeys even one safety regulation and causes loss of
> life
> or any kind of injury they should go bankrupt."
>
> Does this apply to companies that do business in space? Does this mean
> that the first space tourist who dies SHOULD cause the bankruptcy of the
> companies upon whose rockets or space stations the unfortunate accident
> occurred. Gee, if I were an investor, I'd run the other way and go put
> my money into a less risky terrestrial venture...
>
> Ryan Healey also wrote,
>
> "Protection against liability does need to exist but only when the
> accident would have happened if the company followed every safety
> regulation."
>
> What if the "safety regulation"s are ill-defined, incomplete, or
> contradictory? Plaintiff lawyers love this kind of stuff.
>
> By the way, who should decide how many such safety regulations there are?
> Should we maintain from get-go that space travel should be as safe as
> airline travel? Is that a reasonable assumption? If not, then what?
>
> Ryan Healey also wrote,
>
> "Best way to make things safe is to provide
> good incentives for safety and very big punishments for making an unsafe
> product."
>
> Any car company could choose to build a tank-like vehicle with airbags all
> over the place and 5-point harnesses and roll bars and... But such a
> vehicle would be very expensive, and few would buy it. Also, the company
> would run afoul of CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. And
> such a tank-like vehicle might not be very stylish, and a lot of what
> people want in a car is a personal statement. Do you understand that
> safety is but one of many considerations? Do you also understand that
> every day, people choose to buy vehicles that do not have the latest and
> greatest in safety equipment, and that they thus consciously or
> unconsciously choose to prioritize other concerns higher than safety? Not
> everyone wants to buy a Volvo, you know.
>
> The Safety-Is-Everything mentality is extraordinarily naiive and harmful
> to our economy. Trying to replicate that in space will delay yet further
> our arrival on the High Frontier.
>
> Ron
> ******
>
> Ryan Healey
> 02/14/02 01:17 AM
> Please respond to spacesettlers
>
> To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
> cc:
> Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] The next one hundred years
>
> The problem with your idea is that emotional damages are often the worst
> ones.
>
> Besides we must make sure that exemplarly damages can still be given
> because
> they can be very useful as punishment for companies that put profit ahead
> of
> lives. Protection against liability does need to exist but only when the
> accident would have happened if the company followed every safety
> regulation.
>
> If a company ever disobeys even one safety regulation and causes loss of
> life
> or any kind of injury they should go bankrupt. That's a good way to
> encourage
> companies to make safe products. If a product doesn't obey a regulation
> it
> shouldn't be used until it does. Best way to make things safe is to
> provide
> good incentives for safety and very big punishments for making an unsafe
> product.
>
> --- Ravenart@... wrote:
> >
> > Ron,
> >
> > This is but one of the many reason why I think that when we move beyond
> LEO
> > and create a long-term settlements, we will have to move fast to create
> a new
> > kind of legal system. I think archno-captialism in which each suits are
> > limit
> > ed to actual damages (NOT emotional and other nonsense) and are decided
> by a
> > third party who is paid 50-50% by both parties involded. A new system
> of
> > very simple laws in simple English can help provide the businesses a
> place of
> >
> > security from the silly and destructive lawsuits from which they can
> have the
> >
> > freedom to improve technology. This rapid process is a MUST if the
> colonies
> > are to be rapidlly improved in safety and comfort, so a strong
> protection
> > againest liability will be one of the first to be spelled out under the
> > articles dealing with private property and personal injury.
> >
> > Carl
>

--
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an
accident. Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.