Safe Is Not An Option: Overcoming The Futile Obsession With Getting Everyone Back Alive That Is Killing Our Expansion Into Space

Book arrived on time and in good quality

This book is a winning combination of important and easy to read. It's important because it raises issues that lawmakers, policy makers, industry and prospective customers must all address, namely, what is our appetite for risk in space travel? The book starts with inspiring stories, many of which we are already familiar with, but when Simberg offers them as contrast to society's aversion to risk, it shows starkly how much we've changed since setting sail in wooden boats and facing a hostile continent.After showing the pitfalls of demanding perfect safety (which would mean we shouldn't get out of bed in the morning, much less launch rockets), Simberg raises an important issue that needs to be part of the public discussion. When the nation thought space was important, we were willing to take risks. All modes of transport carry risks, but we accept those risks because we need to get places. So, he asks, why do we need to go to space? He argues that the settlement of space is reason enough. The Commercial Space Launch Act would appear to support his thesis. There, Congress said "the goal of safely opening space to the American people and their private commercial, scientific, and cultural enterprises should guide Federal space investments, policies, and regulations."Finally, the writing is smooth, the explanations clear, and the arguments cogent. It's a quick read, and I highly recommend it.

This is an excellent book by somebody with the right background to write it. Somewhere in it he makes an analogy with the early days of flight. In the 1910s and 1920s a lot wasn't understood about airflight, like whether biplanes or monoplanes, or something else, was the better design, and whether to place the flaps in front of the wings or behind them. There was a lot of experimentation, and many accidents. Imagine if NASA (and the US Congress) had been around to manage progress, and after each accident they suspended airflight for 3 years while safety committees met and so on. We would still be flying biplanes - or perhaps not. The "red-tape" overheads might have killed off interest.I think the analogy hits the spot. When you don't really know what works, you want many opportunities to experiment. The US congress/NASA approach has meant that flights have been few, massively expensive, and at the end of the day, not safe anyway. And not much progress has occurred since the 60s. I recommend this book for anyone interested in space.

First, let me confess - I am a Safety Engineer on a manned spaceflight program. This book was recommended by one of my coworkers. It is obvious that the author is familiar with the various space programs over the decades as the facts he states are accurate. I could not agree more with his opinions regarding the "over the top" safety requirements that are being imposed. Having worked with several astronauts, I realize that they are not as risk adverse as are the program management that develops some of the outlandish safety requirements. We, as a country, have lost our pioneering spirit - we need to realize that exploration and seeking new frontiers does come with a certain amount of risk. By attempting to alleviate all risk through safety requirements, we are greatly increasing cost with requirements that don't result in quantifiable risk reduction. If you wonder why we have made little progress in space exploration over the last few decades, you should read this book.

Simberg ably tackles one of the most difficult topics in space exploration. It's not an engineering problem, but rather the unreasonable expectation that everybody must come back alive. The obsession with safety comes from a sort of reverence for astronauts and also from fear of losing expensive and sometimes irreplaceable hardware like the space shuttles. An obsession with safety is most easily satisfied by not flying at all; but if moving a few of our eggs off our one basket is important to the species (and it is) then we need to admit the risk inherent in space travel. High expectations of safety greatly increase the costs of spacecraft and launch vehicles (without necessarily resulting in the desired safety), so Simberg argues "safe enough" is a more rational standard. This is a great book that should spark many necessary discussions.

I'm a bit of a new space junkie, but this book really put into words why space exploration was so dead before the rise of commercial crew, SpaceX, and the like. Briefly, we were afraid to take risks, because no one seemed to actually value what we were doing. Missions turned into pork projects for the same reason: no one had their eye on the prize. This is a must read for anyone trying to figure out why NASA's crewed missions just can't seem to get their $&@& together of late, and it offers a prescription for our future in space: the abandonment of legacy hardware and legacy thinking.

Simberg provides one of the most succinct and clear summaries of why NASA is not the agency the American public thinks it is. The book outlines why NASA's perverse focus on safety at nearly all costs is a clear indication that space exploration is not a priority within NASA or Congress. If it were a priority then we would be willing to take the risks necessary. Risks more along the lines of our other national priorities such as the wars we fight, the resources we extract, and the businesses we build.Whether you are in the business or not this is a great introduction to what needs to be fixed. If I could afford it I'd buy a copy for every hotel room in the DC beltway.

This book highlights an issue, safety, that is not just a problem in the space industry but has infiltrated the US at every level. As a country we have become so risk averse and concerned with safety that everything grinds to a halt. I recommend this book highly but I believe we need to look at more than just the space industry and begin to work at gaining that spirit of adventure that we used to have in all walks of life.

This book is subtitled: Overcoming the futile obsession with getting everyone back alive that is killing our expansion into space. It is a review into and commentary on the current risk averse nature of the US civilian space program. As the early space shots demonstrated, it is almost impossible to recognise all of the hazards that are likely to be faced - so it is only with actual experience that we learn them. Despite common belief and the cost, the Space Shuttle was not safe and was doomed because it was not reliable. And similar errors appear to have been made in the Constellation program in the mistaken belief that Shuttle derived hardware was safe. The author argues that NASA is constrained by the insistence of politicians that space flight be "safe" without ever defining what that means. Eventually the author advocates that NASA should get out of human space activities and leave that to commercial operators if the US is ever to realise the dream of settling space. I would recommend this book to space advocates, especially those frustrated with the current state of NASA’s developments.

This book is fundamental to understand the current context and situation of national space agencies and why we got to the Moon with tech from the 60s, yet we never went beyond low earth orbit in 40+ years. 100% would recommend to any space enthusiast.