The Dangers of Space Travel

[Needles_10]

Since NASI Director made a thread of a similar title for what happens in KSP, I thought it was about time that we had a proper discussion about the real-life risks which come with space travel.

To start things off, I'd like to point out that no matter how many benefits there are from launching people and probes out of our atmosphere, space travel is filled with dangers. We've had a number of incidents involving space travel, and these have raised many questions about the dangerous part of the "final frontier". Here's where we'll discuss them.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Needles_10

[tipsyMJT]

I don't think there is any problem at all with launching humans into space. No ethics problem whatsoever. The astronauts know the danger of what they are doing and they understand that something could come along on their mission that was unforeseen and could make them endure a very torturous death. I dare to bet that if you ask any astronaut they will tell you that anyone who believes that space travel is unethical and cruel to the astronaut is ridiculous. It's the same as saying being a soldier, race car driver, construction worker, or crab fisherman is unethical. They all know the risks of death going into their occupation and they still choose to do it. It's their life and their life only that they are putting in danger so why stop them. This proposes a peculiar question for the issues of suicide but i'm not going to go into that because it is a much too touchy topic. BUT Now that that is out of the way we get to the root of the question. The only logical reason i can imagine having anything to do with the good or bad ethics of space travel would be with the launching of animals into the dangers of space to test the ways their instincts may freak out upon interaction with the foreign environment such as space and this breaks down even farther to just the basic animal rights and anti animal testing movements. Is it unethical because of the harm that may come to the animals? Is the fact that they are in more danger then they would be if they were sitting on your couch make it cruel? i don't know, but, does letting your dog run into a crowded street make you a cruel person? No matter your answer to the previous questions I have another for you. Does making an animal freak out and spin violently because it's natural instinct is to right itself but then it can't because there is no direction to right itself to in the zero gravity (okay fine outward inertial force equaling gravitational attractive force inward) situation of space, cruel? I sure don't know the answer. I foresee this conversation possibly branching of into religion, animal rights, and maybe even civil rights. I'll be coming back often i know that.

[meve12]

A good samaritian tradition seems like a good start.

[Karriz]

I think a manned spacecraft should always be designed with safety in mind, and the ground team should pay extra attention to any anomalies.

I read an interesting article about Shuttle Atlantis, which was almost lost in 1988, just like what happened to Columbia: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/

Frankly, I think Space shuttle was dangerous. It was a fine vehicle, but way more dangerous than a traditional space capsule.

[Seret]

Well space agencies do have a duty of care to their astronauts, even though they're all volunteering for a dangerous job. As long as the folks on the engineering side are doing their work diligently and the process is being efficiently managed in terms of quality then I don't think there's a big ethical issue. It's really just more of a normal engineering risk management question.

[Nuke]

people who are willing to take risks should be allowed to take risks. astronauts know what they are signing up for.

[Needles_10]

Maybe "ethics" was the wrong word to use. I'll rephrase the OP.

[Kerbin Dallas Multipass]

Manned spaceflight is dangerous and I personally do not believe it will become routine like civil aviation any time soon.

This seems to be fine with the astronauts and all the people involved, so I don't see any ethical problem.

I think however that the dangers should be better communicated - to the people in charge and the public. The Space Shuttle program is (imho) a bad example since it was "marketed" as a commuter ride into space (hence the name shuttle I assume). At the same time the safety systems were laid out quite patchy and real improvements were only implemented after major incidents.

[Tex]

Space travel truly IS risky. Many common people (not like us Kerbonauts ) don't understand much of the risks these brave, brave people undertake. Even the most obvious ones are bad enough, e.g., the Challenger breakup, but there are countless ways you could be injured, permanently or otherwise, or even killed.

Personally, I think the rewards far, faaar outweigh the risks. I myself wish to be an astronaut in the near future.

[Dunbaratu]

The ethics of spaceflight does account for a large part of what makes manned flight more expensive than unmanned flight. The risk allowed on a robot mission is far larger, for ethical reasons, so you can save mass on safety systems. A robot doesn't have to COME BACK, so you can send one-way missions where doing that with manned flight requires the astronauts to volunteer for suicide. (Not just "there is some risk of death" but "the risk of death is 100%".) Not having to come back saves an enormous amount on fuel mass. Also, the requirements of life support are large. Keeping a human alive while adrift for 6 months is going to take quite a bit of equipment and stores, whereas a robot can just be turned off during the trip.

And then there's the extra volume needed for psychology reasons. While it may be possible to keep a human alive in a chair for 6 months with barely enough room to stretch arms and legs out, you're almost guaranteed to end up with an utterly insane human by the time it's over. And even ignoring the ethics of doing that to an astronaut (even a volunteer), an insane human won't be useful for completing the mission goals. So you need a lot more living space than that just to keep the human sane. Probably the closest analogy to the long term spaceflight in cramped space problem we've already seen here on earth is nuclear submarine sailors. But even THEY don't have to spend 100% of that time in their bunks not moving. There are corridors and other rooms. Tiny rooms, but its still quite a bit more space than, say, the Apollo astronauts had and they only were expected to have to live in that space for about a week. Lifting something the size of, say 3 submarine's bunks, 1 submarine's toilet, 1 tiny kitchen/dining/meeting space, and 1 cockpit area, is still quite a hefty payload. We've never sent anything to Mars anywhere near that enormous before.

And of course, radiation. That means shielding. And that means even more mass.

So basically, yes I think manned spaceflight is a good thing despite the dangers, BUT those very dangers themselves are the things that make manned flight so incredibly expensive and bulky. Therefore I'd rather see effort concentrated MORE on the research into cheaper ways to lift things into orbit. That's the key linchpin that's restricting manned flight right now. As long as getting a single kilogram of mass into orbit is as expensive as it is now, the extra kilograms needed for manned versus unmanned flight will continue to make manned flight very hard to justify. The way to reduce the risks, and also to make it more feasible, is to attack the problem that getting mass into orbit is too expensive. Currently it's way cheaper to have craft that operate using very expensive but very small engines that burn very expensive but very small amounts of fuel than it is to have them use cheap engines that use cheap but bulky fuel, just because those kilograms cost more than rare materials do.