NASA was fully aware of drowning risk with ISS space suits

[Red Iron Crown]

Only in a zero sum game. Workplace safety is not a zero sum game. An accident that could result in death should be approached in the same manner as one that did cause death. Just because there were no fatal consequences does not mitigate the responsibility of management to attend to the matter as seriously as if there were. Unless you are willing to contend that me shooting at you and missing allows me to shoot at you again because the first shot wasn't fatal.

Of course it should be investigated, and it is being investigated. But that doesn't change the fact that an almost-fatal incident is less serious than a fatal one.

Or, using your own example, you would serve less time for shooting at me and missing than you would for shooting and killing me. Both are still serious, punishable offences, but the one with a corpse afterwards is more serious and carries a greater punishment.

It is easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that the water in the suit anomaly wasn't investigated enough; clearly true now that we know that the root cause wasn't what it was thought to be. But before the incident, it wasn't clear that the anomaly was caused by something other than what was thought. NASA was wrong about what caused the anomaly and wrong in believing that it had been sufficiently investigated, but being wrong is not the same thing as being negligent.

It is easy to say that they should have investigated further, and that they would have discovered the root cause; maybe that's true. But when do they stop investigating? Say they found what we now know to be the root cause and fixed it, how can they be sure that there's not some other deeper issue that needs correcting, too? At some point, somebody has to say, "We think we understand what's happening well enough and have fixed it, let's carry on" or else nothing will ever get done.

In this case, they were wrong when they got to that point, so they're investigating and revising procedures to prevent future similar errors. But, again, being wrong is not the same as being negligent. Space travel is complex and inherently dangerous, things are going to go wrong in ways that are not easily predictable and that means that occasionally life-threatening incidents are going to occur. NASA does what it can to minimize those incidents and learn as much as possible from them when they do occur, but they will never be able to eliminate such incidents completely.

***

I also wonder about what motive people think NASA has to be negligent. They're not an oil company driven by profit, so there's not an economic incentive in saving the cost and delay of deeper investigation. And, unlike oil companies, their funding is deeply affected when there is a fatal or near-fatal incident (recall all the talk about space being too dangerous to explore after the Columbia and Challenger disasters). So they really do have strong motives to do as much as possible to reduce the risks and very few motives to cut corners on safety. Which is why they don't.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Red Iron Crown
Typographical errors

[Belesari]

Politics. Both internal and external.

Of course it should be investigated, and it is being investigated. But that doesn't change the fact that an almost-fatal incident is less serious than an non-fatal one.

Or, using your own example, you would serve less time for shooting at me and missing than you would for shooting and killing me. Both are still serious, punishable offences, but the one with a corpse afterwards is more serious and carries a greater punishment.

It is easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that the water in the suit anomaly wasn't investigated enough; clearly true now that we know that the root cause wasn't what it was thought to be. But before the incident, it wasn't clear that the anomaly was caused by something other than what was thought. NASA was wrong about what caused the anomaly and wrong in believing that it had been sufficiently investigated, but being wrong is not the same thing as being negligent.

It is easy to say that they should have investigated further, and that they would have discovered the root cause; maybe that's true. But when do they stop investigating? Say they found what we now know to be the root cause and fixed it, how can they be sure that there's not some other deeper issue that needs correcting, too? At some point, somebody has to say, "We think we understand what's happening well enough and have fixed it, let's carry on" or else nothing will ever get done.

In this case, they were wrong when they got to that point, so they're investigating and revising procedures to prevent future similar errors. But, again, being wrong is not the same as being negligent. Space travel is complex and inherently dangerous, things are going to go wrong in ways that are not easily predictable and that means that occasionally life-threatening incidents are going to occur. NASA does what it can to minimize those incidents and learn as much as possible from them when they do occur, but they will never be able to eliminate such incidents completely.

***

I also wonder about what motive people think NASA has to be negligent. They're not an oil company driven by profit, so there's not an economic incentive in saving the cost and delay of deeper investigation. And, unlike oil companies, their funding is deeply affected when there is a fatal or near-fatal incident (recall all the talk about space being too dangerous to explore after the Columbia and Challenger disasters). So they really do have strong motives to do as much as possible to reduce the risks and very few motives to cut corners on safety. Which is why they don't.

[Red Iron Crown]

Care to be specific?