Will there be a surge in injuries to workers over the next month?
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
> The 2022 injury rate at the company’s manufacturing-and-launch facility near Brownsville, Texas, was 4.8 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers – six times higher than the space-industry average of 0.8.
So it doesn’t seem good…
Most of those companies make tiny sats, or things like small thrusters. Or even small sub-components. And even those that build larger things, build them at far smaller rates.
SpaceX in Brownsville should be compared to things like manufacturing oil platforms or maybe wind power plants.
Seems like others do as well.
"industry average" is meaningless. The aerospace industry consists of 90%+ office workers, very unlike SpaceX.
McGregor is the most active rocket engine test facility in the world.
How are their insure rates compared 'per rocket engine test' with other places that test large rocket engines. But again, most of those are tiny rocket engines being test, so how about we look at insure per unit of thrust tested.
> The company’s facility in Redmond, Washington, had a rate of 0.8, the same as the industry average.
And what is the rate per sat produced compared to others?
That feels a bit um... unethical to suggest as a good measure? :(
Along the lines of "we produce more stuff, so cutting corners on worker safety is ok".
But that's not really got anything to do with injury rates yeah?
So if a company only does 5 engine test and 1 launch a year and has 10 injuries, then that is inherently worse then a company that does 1000 engine tests and 100 launches but has 20 injuries.
Or do you disagree?
However, we both know reality tends to be more complex than that.
For example, a company with vastly more experience doing engine tests (etc) should also have vastly more experience designing safe testing processes and procedures. To the point where they may eliminate injuries completely. ;)
So saying worker injuries are acceptable due to the output quantity of stuff still seems like an excuse for poor workplace practises.
If they double their output of stuff, are you ok with them increasing the number of worker injuries rather than figuring out how to reduce or eliminate the injuries?
If SpaceX does 100x as many rocket engine test but has only a 2x worse insure rates then what you suggest:
> should also have vastly more experience designing safe testing processes and procedures
Is already true.
So articles that just say 'SpaceX bad because more insury then avg' just don't actually provide any information.
> To the point where they may eliminate injuries completely. ;)
> So saying worker injuries are acceptable due to the output quantity of stuff still seems like an excuse for poor workplace practises.
Sure if we lived in a perfect world that would be nice. But no other type of building anything has perfect safety.
And the way you are phrasing your statement still just assumes SpaceX has 'poor workplace practices'. But we in my opinion have not actually been presented sufficient evidence that this is actually true.
So yes its no excuse for 'poor practices' but I have yet to be convinced that their practices actually poor. There is a difference between saying their practice isn't perfect and its actually poor.
It seems to me these articles just want to say something bad about SpaceX because they know this will create clicks rather then do the actual real work of analyzing safety in rocket testing and manufacturing.
> If they double their output of stuff, are you ok with them increasing the number of worker injuries rather than figuring out how to reduce or eliminate the injuries?
You are simply framing the question in a way where there can never be right answer. Of course continuously improving safety is important. At the same time evaluating safety by comparing companies that do 100x more of something and then screaming 'see they are unsafe, is clearly not fair either'.
If they double their output and injury rates go up by 1.1x times, then that is pretty successful.
So before being negative, please actually show me real actual data in how much their output went up compare do their injury rate. Then maybe we can figure out something relevant about their safety practices. Until then this is just headlines.
And lets compare with relevant industries. How does their rocket engine test facility compare with other rocket engine test facilities. The South Texas manufacturing sight should be compared with a shipyard or building an oil platforms, and not with companies building small rocket.
Again, I don't buy that increasing output by default means increasing injury rates at all is acceptable. :(
There's just not enough info in these theoretical examples, and neither of us are experts in the domain.
For example, are they doubling the output with the same # of staff (eg increased automation path), or by ~doubling the number of workers?
If it's by doubling the number of workers, then you might be right. But if they're using increased automation without increasing worker count, then an increased # of injuries would by pretty shitty.
Well but that really isn't it.
Its more like doing X has some inherent danger and if you do more of X then its likely more people are gone be insured. So comparing to some 'industry avg' in an industry that also includes people building cube-sats compared to the most powerful rocket engine isn't really fair.
And I wasn't suggesting this to say what SpaceX is doing is inherently ok (I don't know enough) but to establish better comparative baselines.
Then we can actually figure out if SpaceX is more unsafe or simply does more dangerous activity.