Re^3: "Practices and Principles" to death

[zentara]

I grew up in Detroit, and the big problem back then was "how much money do you put into highway safety". Did you know that with enough money, you can make a 99.99% safe highway? But would they spend it?....no... bad publicity be damned. What it ultimately came down to, was the cost of an human life. They could compute all the losses due to insurance companies paying out death and accident costs, and it was cheaper than making the highways safer. Same with the Pinto gas tank. Remember them exploding? But it was cheaper to payoff all the people sueing, rather than fix the problem.

So nowadays it comes down to what the value of a human life is, or for that matter, the value of a corporation. Nowadays, it's quite common for a corporation that gets huge bad publicity, to declare bankruptcy, and reform under another name.

Since this touched on Sattellites, and space, the issue is definitely on the table....... what is the value of an astronaut's life?