Where
*****This is a hybrid meeting, with in-person and online attendance. The speaker will present in person.
*In-person attendance:
Lawndale Library (Meeting Room)
14615 Burin Ave., Lawndale, CA 90260
(South of 105 Hwy and East of 405 Hwy/Pacific Coast Hwy (1))
(Near SpaceX Hawthorne, and close to Northrop Grumman Space Park)
(also online for a hybrid event)
(This event is not sponsored by the Lawndale Library)
*Online attendance:
Zoom connection information will be provided in the confirmation email after registration / RSVP. Please also check Spam, Junk, Promotion or other folder, in case it's filtered into those folders. If it's directly filtered for deletion and you could not find it, please provide an alternative email address. Thank you very much.
Contact
American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Los Angeles - Las Vegas Section
(If you are sick or don't feel well, please stay home and attend online on Zoom.)
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(Any special ticket request or for group rate, please contact events.aiaalalv@gmail.com)
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AIAA LA-LV 12/16 Section (Town Hall) Meeting
Safe Is Not An Option:
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.
speaker
Rand Simberg, MSE
Consultant in Aerospace Industries
Adjunct Scholar at Competitive Enterprise Institute,
Book Author,
Freelancer at Popular Mechanics, and
President at Interglobal Space Lines.
Formerly in engineering and management at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, CA
Former project manager with Rockwell International Rockwell International in Downey, CA
(The speaker will present in person.)
Tentative Agenda: (All Time PST (GMT -0800)) (US and Canada)
10:15 am: Check-in, Networking
11:00 am: Introduction and welcome
11:05 am: Presentation + Q/A
12:45 pm: Networking
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, East/North of 405 Hwy, East of Pacific Coast Hwy (1))
(Near SpaceX Hawthorne, and close to Northrop Grumman Space Park)
(also online on Zoom for a hybrid event)
(This event is not sponsored by the Lawndale Library)
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.
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