FLYING to space is just about the most dangerous thing a person can do. That’s part of the reason nobody has ventured past the International Space Station since the Apollo programme ended in 1972. But as government agencies like NASA and firms including SpaceX start to talk about putting humans on the moon and beyond, it is time to rethink how we approach risking lives in space.
NASA will only approve a spacecraft for human use if there is less than a 1 in 270 chance of crew fatalities over the course of its mission. That is still incredibly high. Good statistics for high-risk activities are hard to come by, but base jumping is about 10 times safer, according to that says there is one fatality for every 2317 jumps.
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Nominally, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates private space flight in the US, permits higher levels of risk. There are no requirements to ensure the safety of astronauts – private space firms just have to limit the risk of casualties on the ground, say from the debris of an exploding rocket.
But because nearly all space flight in the US is conducted in partnership with NASA, commercial firms generally follow the agency’s lead. NASA’s rules tend to become everyone’s rules, says former FAA official .
This close partnership could be set to change. Later this month, SpaceX is expected to test the Falcon Heavy, one of the most powerful rockets ever. If all goes to plan, the company says it will use the rocket to launch two paying customers on a jaunt around the moon later this year – the first ever private space tourism mission.
“There are no requirements to ensure the safety of astronauts on private spacecraft”
For these undisclosed individuals, the potential risk of injury or death is clearly outweighed by the reward of experiencing outer space. But if we want to do more than just joy rides – colonising Mars, for example – should we be prepared for more fatalities?
Of course, in an ideal world no one would die during a space mission, but pushing the boundaries of human endeavour requires risk-taking, almost by definition. Is it worth it, or would deaths turn the public off space flight all together?
To answer these questions, we must first look at who is taking the risks, and who stands to gain from them. Like other expensive and dangerous activities, space flight is governed by calculations of risk versus reward.
Astronauts will risk death to go to space, just as an Everest climber is willing to risk their life to reach the summit. And the candidate pool is deep – it seems unlikely that we will ever run out of people willing to be shot into space, regardless of the danger.
That willingness is part of why the FAA doesn’t regulate the spacefarers inside a craft. “Instead of safety, they’re getting what you call an informed consent regime,” says Montgomery. “They need to be told that it’s dangerous, that they could be killed or injured, that the government has not said it’s safe, and then they can take that risk if they want to.”
But the risk is different for an organisation developing passenger spacecraft, which stands to lose billions of dollars, its customers, investors and public trust.
Society doesn’t look kindly on companies, or government agencies, that kill their employees. NASA can’t afford to appear cavalier about the lives of its astronauts, who are seen as national heroes. And people are far less likely to pay SpaceX to take them to the moon if it seems even marginally likely that they will perish on the way. In simple terms, the firms “try not to blow anyone up because it’s bad for business”, says Montgomery.
Billion dollar rocket
That approach explains why it is often dollars, not deaths, that ultimately determine if a mission is too risky. A rocket big enough to send humans to the moon costs billions and if it blows up, that value goes up in smoke even if the humans inside are just fine.
“[NASA] would have designed the shuttle exactly the same way whether it had people in it or not,” says Rand Simberg, a consultant in human space flight and former aerospace engineer. “The hardware was unaffordable to lose, not the crew – we had lots of astronauts.”
The space shuttle Endeavour, which replaced Challenger after it blew up on launch in 1986 (see timeline), cost about $1.7 billion to build. The space shuttle’s long-delayed replacement, the Space Launch System (SLS), is even more expensive.
So the risks are measured in lives, cost and reputation, but what about the rewards of sending humans into space?
For NASA, it is hard to quantify. There is plenty of science and exploration to be done on the moon, Mars and elsewhere – but it is far from clear whether people can do that work better than robots, which are expendable and cheaper because they don’t require expensive life-support systems. Yes, sending people to space is awe-inspiring and good for your public image, but for a taxpayer-funded organisation, that may not be enough.
For space-flight firms founded by entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, though, sending humans to space is their reason for being. The website for Musk’s SpaceX says the company was founded “with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets”. Meanwhile, Blue Origin, Bezos’s firm, declares “Earth, in all its beauty, is just our starting place”.
Musk and Bezos looked at the rewards of going to space, sized up the risks, and poured billions of dollars into building companies with human space flight as their prime directive. But just because the rewards have been deemed worth it doesn’t mean SpaceX and Blue Origin are actually taking more risk.
“Elon has been successful in creating a cowboy image, but I think the reality is that they’re a little bit less cavalier than their public image would suggest,” says space policy researcher at George Washington University in Washington DC. While the SpaceX showman is happy to on the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy, he isn’t likely to put someone’s life on the line without further tests.
Still, the fact that SpaceX is planning to launch humans on a Falcon Heavy rocket within 12 months of its first flight shows the firm is more willing to roll the dice than NASA is – the agency has scheduled at least a two year gap between the first uncrewed and crewed launches of SLS.
The FAA’s light touch when it comes to space flight is designed to mimic how the aviation industry was regulated early on: it started out with few to no restrictions, then as aeroplanes got safer people would pay more for the safest journey, and now airlines are not legally permitted to compete on the basis of safety because there is an expectation that all passengers will safely disembark from nearly every flight. And the approach seems to have worked: according to a by the Aviation Safety Network, 2017 was the safest year in aviation history.
“Despite the cowboy image, Elon Musk isn’t likely to put someone’s life on the line without further tests”
Perhaps someday there will be a flight to the moon every 3 hours and the passengers won’t have to worry about risking their lives. But for now, every individual must make their own choice – and institutions must decide if they’re ready to risk their funding and reputations to blast those individuals past the stratosphere.
If they decide that settling other worlds is worth losing some human lives and billion-dollar rockets, things could change very quickly. NASA’s much-delayed SLS could potentially be sped up – talks of putting crew on its first flight fell apart last May, partially because it would be too dangerous.
We might not be able to make it to Mars right away, because much of the technology needed to send humans on that long, relatively dangerous voyage isn’t ready yet. But when we are prepared to go to the Red Planet, an endeavour that accepts a higher level of risk to travellers might take inspiration from explorers past.
“Magellan sent five ships – not because he needed five ships, but because he wanted to make sure one of them made it,” says Simberg. “If we were serious about going to Mars, we’d send armadas, and we’d expect to lose some.” After all, if the Mars ships were leaving tomorrow, there would be no shortage of volunteers.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Small steps, or giant leaps?”
