(December 16) Safe Is Not An Option, by Rand Simberg (Hybrid Meeting)

The history of exploration and establishment of new lands, science and technologies has always entailed risk to the health and lives of the explorers. Yet, when it comes to exploring and developing the high frontier of space, the harshest frontier ever, the highest value is apparently not the accomplishment of those goals, but of minimizing, if not eliminating, the possibility of injury or death of the humans carrying them out.

For decades since the end of Apollo, human spaceflight has been very expensive and relatively rare (about 500 people total, with a death rate of about 4%), largely because of this risk aversion on the part of the federal government and culture. From the Space Shuttle, to the International Space Station, the new commercial crew program to deliver astronauts to it, and the regulatory approach for commercial spaceflight providers, our attitude toward safety has been fundamentally irrational, expensive and even dangerous, while generating minimal accomplishment for maximal cost.

This presentation (based on the book of the same title) entertainingly explains why this means that we must regulate passenger safety in the new commercial spaceflight industry with a lighter hand than many might instinctively prefer, that NASA must more carefully evaluate rewards from a planned mission to rationally determine how much should be spent to avoid the loss of participants, and that Congress must stop insisting that safety is the highest priority, for such insistence is an eloquent testament to how unimportant they and the nation consider the opening of this new frontier.

Rand Simberg, MSE

Rand Simberg is a former project manager with Rockwell International having previously worked at the Aerospace Corporation. At Rockwell, he worked on a number of advanced concepts, including solar power satellites, launch and orbit transfer systems, space tethers, and lunar resource utilization. He has been cited as an expert in space transportation by the (now defunct) Office of Technology Assessment, and has provided key input into a number of space policy reports. He was editor of the Space Activists' Handbook (a publication of Spacepac) for several years. For the past thirty years, he has been the President of Interglobal Space Lines, Inc., a commercial space entrepreneurial company and consultancy, specializing in low-cost space access and tourism. He has dual degrees in engineering from the University of Michigan (concentrating in astronautics) and a masters in technical management from West Coast University, in Los Angeles. He writes regularly at PJ Media, The New Atlantis, and occasionally at National Review. He has written many pieces for Popular Mechanics, Fox News, America Online, PJMedia, National Review, Reason magazine, The Weekly Standard, and the Washington Times, among others. He has also written extensive essays on space policy and technology for the quarterly journal, The New Atlantis.

Tentative Agenda: (All Time PST (GMT -0800))

10:15 am - 11:00 am: Check-in, Networking

11:00 am - 11:05 am: Welcome and Introduction

11:05 am - 12:35 pm: Presentations and Q&A

02:00 pm: (Leave the Meeting Room by 2 pm PST)

Lawndale Library (Meeting Room)

14615 Burin Ave., Lawndale, CA 90260

(South of 105 Hwy and East of 405 Hwy/Pacific Coast Hwy (1))