🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan06.165148.9581@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:
>>There is no need to man rate. It adds cost but doesn't affect
>>safety. If it where your money would buy the $70 million 98% safe
>>Atlas or the $90 million 98% safe Atlas?
>
>YOU say there's no need to man-rate. The astronaut community and anyone who
>goes up on it IS going to disagree with you. 

Depends on *who* goes up on it; sensible people will look at the reliability
figures and conclude that man-rating decreases the chances of a successful
flight (because it runs up the cost without increasing reliability).

The astronaut community is less conservative, overall, than their official
public image would have you think.  You'd have plenty of volunteers from
there if the engineering looked sensible and the purposes looked worthwhile,
even disregarding the number of qualified volunteers from elsewhere.

However, Doug's point is nevertheless valid, because the original context
was official government projects... and it is official NASA dogma that
man-rating is mandatory for such purposes.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry