Re: Re: starship-design: What is safest?

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 12/17/97 11:33:31 AM, TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl wrote:

>>In a two-way mission the crew may also die prematurely,
>>which does not make a two-way mission "not pure suicide".
>>In this respect, I see no difference between one-way 
>>and two-way missions.
>
>OK, so apparently certain increased chances of premature death are accepted
>by the public.
>Now all that we need to figure out is what mission has the highest risk. We
>all know each others visions (at least from those that have written lately).
>I'd wish we'd a bit hard data.
>
>Timothy


Two rules of thumb come to mind.

1)
People will accept higher risk from thinks they are in control of, then things
others control.  I.e. passengers worry more about the safety of airliners then
cars.  Thou they are safer in the airliner, they are not in control.

2)
In a system, to increse relyability:
  - Lower the stress and increase the tolerances (to wear or damage) of all
parts.
  - The fewer things to break, the less likelyhood of failure.
  - The less time you use a system (past the initial break in period) the less
likelyhood of problems.

So a simpler system with the least demands for precision and stress factors,
will last longer with less problems or repairs.  If you use such a system for
a shorter period of time, its far less likely to fail.

Does any of this help?

Kelly