Risk and Exploration
Avalanches: Beauty, Wonder, and Danger – with video (May 2009)
Keith’s note: There was a huge avalanche at Everest yesterday. So far it seems that 12 people were killed – all Sherpa guides. They were walking up the Khumu Icefall on their way to work. This (link above) is what Scott Parazynski and I witnessed in May 2009. At the time this was described as being a very, very big avalanche for Everest. As such, I can only imagine what yesterday’s fatal avalanche at Everest looked like. No one was injured in the avalanche in this video.
Massive Avalanche Over The Lower Khumbu Icefall – with video (May 2009)
As I watched this equally huge avalanche (link above) a week later I was almost certain that Scott was in it. We did not know for a while if he was. As it happened Scott and Danuru Sherpa climbed fast and were above the Khumbu icefall when it happened. But Scott’s climbing partner Rejean and his sherpa Dawa were caught in it. Dawa’s quick thinking saved Rejean’s life. Alas, one Sherpa guide was lost in this avalanche. It was a curious existence at Everest Base Camp. I awoke every morning to see the Khumbu Icefall outside my tent flap – calm and serene and always an instant away from becoming deadly. You get used to this – and then again you don’t.
NASA has its risks and tragedies as well. That said it is always – odd – to watch both cultures (climbing and space) deal with risk. The similarities in risks are often eerily similar yet the ways that the risks are dealt with is often utterly different. FYI I noted this disaprity a decade ago and this led to the Risk and Exploration Symposium that John Grunsfeld and I put together for NASA in 2004. By coincidence, John Grunsfeld was in orbit while Scott and I were at Everest.
Life is very fragile – even for the strongest of climbers – or the most skilled astronauts. But that doesn’t mean that all risks should be avoided. Many simply need to be confronted. The risks need to be understood and dealt with in a way that safeguards people while still allowing adventure and exploration to continue. Exploration is a risky endeavour – by definition.
What are the loss of crew rates for climbers on Everest versus astronauts? Seems like we’ve never lost anyone in space? even with fires and collisions and exploding service modules. Are ascent and EDL rated higher risk by NASA versus transit to/from Moon or Mars? Based on the Apollo 13 experience, I think I’d like a free-return “lifeboat” with the bare essentials of life support when going to Mars.
only 3 people have died while actually in space, the crew of Soyuz 11.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Sounds more like an EDL mishap even thought they were in space.
yes, that’s true. i wouldn’t argue against characterizing it in that way.
Roughly one climber dies for every 10 climbers that successfully summit. On K2, the second highest mountain in the world, for every 4 climbers that successfully summit, one climber dies. It’s the deadliest of the 8,000m peaks.
I don’t have a problem with this kind of adventure tourism, and I’m saddened that it was workers who were killed, but it is no more “exploration” than the millions of people visiting the pyramids, or Grand Canyon, or Paris.
“Adventure tourism”? Yea. That’s it. Do you have even the slightest idea what it takes in terms of strength, mental discipline, and endurance to climb Everest?
I Don’t understand your answer to Paul? So what? Many things take strength and mental discipline. Im an old cross country runner. I trained my body to run as far as 30 miles at under 7 minute mile pace. And run a mile in 4.20. Currently I work with Iron workers at age 58 rigging steel side by side with thirty something supermen, working 70 hours weeks. So what?
Yesterday I had a near miss. The fork lift driver dropped a bar joist that landed less than foot from me. It weighs over 1000 pounds. I deal with danger every day so my kid can go to college.
Climbing a mountain is just a silly game!
We talk about exploration here a lot and I don’t yet understand what it is. From what I see so far, its an excuse to waste money with flags and foot prints.
Silly game? You obviously have never climbed. Conditioning and strength are only parts of what it takes to climb. I rather doubt you’ll make the effort to understand or even try to understand.
“The spirit of adventure is not there any more. It is lost. There are people going up there who have no idea how to put on crampons. They are climbing because they have paid someone $65,000. It is very selfish. It endangers the lives of others.” — Jamling Tenzing Norgay
“Having people pay $65,000 and then be led up the mountain by a couple of experienced guides … isn’t really mountaineering at all” — Edmund Hillary
“We were real mountaineers: careful, aware and even afraid. By climbing mountains we were not learning how big we were. We were finding out how breakable, how weak and how full of fear we are. […] High-altitude alpinism has become tourism and show. These commercial trips to Everest, they are still dangerous. But [the] route is prepared by hundreds of Sherpas. Extra oxygen is available in all camps, right up to the summit. People will cook for you and lay out your beds. Clients feel safe and don’t care about the risks.” — Reinhold Messner
Perhaps they don’t understand either?
Being the 3400th Everest climber isn’t exactly exploring. That was my point. Regardless of how hard or how dangerous it is, it has nothing to do with exploring.
Those quotes in no way change the risk involved. Further, there is still exploration going on there. Every human going into the Death Zone is exploring the limits of human performance.
Risk is not “exploration”. Cars have risk. Cheeseburgers have risk. Rock-fishing is one of the most dangerous sports. But none of those things are exploration.
Adventure tourism is not exploration, nor is it “exploring the limits of human performance”. The risk is a known factor now. Has been for at least the last 3000 climbers.
I’m not saying that adventure tourism is bad, (**) whether you want to be led up mountains, or dive under polar ice, or raft the Amazon. But you are not exploring.
(** It can be bad. Dodgy operators. Corrupt officials. Exploited workers. Polluting, disruptive idiot tourists. But there’s nothing about the concept itself that’s bad. It’s just not “exploring”.)
And space is the same. Robots explore. Humans are either tourists or workers (“guides” for researchers on Earth.)
And I think once you get your head around that, you can put away notions of “exploring” and “challenge”, or equating difficulty and risk with value/purpose, or any other romantic but pointless crap that covers up the lack of purpose behind most manned program proposals. (And the lack of progress.) Humans are either tourists or workers for someone else. That’s it. Accept that and you can look at maximising the value of humans in space. Humans are more flexible than robots, but hideously expensive. How can we reduce costs, particularly operating costs (especially ground support), until we reach the point where it’s cheaper to send a human than to either send a robot or to launch a bespoke replacement.
And once you get your head around that, you realise that most of the arguments over destination or “vision” for HSF, over moon, Mars, asteroid, etc, are completely and utterly missing the point.
Reinhold Messner was truly one of the great mountaineers of history. He was the first man to climb Mount Everest alone, with no help whatever. He was the only man on the entire mountain, something which could probably never be repeated today with the vast number of climbers. And he did it again, the second time alone and without even oxygen. One cannot come closer to the absolute limits of human capabilities than that.
Only climbed the grand Tetons once. I climbed from 6000 feet to about 12000 feet. It was a rush. It was fun. It was challenging and the view was wonderful. I did that with my daughter who was living out there doing fire effects and controlled burns. My kids fights forest fires for a living at times.
Mr. Squared I logged on here this am to edit the silly out of my statement but leave the GAMES.
It’s past 4:30 am I’m late!!! Good day sir!
I have to work! No time for fun and games
Joe Q PUBLIC
And you wonder why the average working stiff doesn’t understand the Exploration thing??
Lol Mr. Squared I wanted to say exploration crap, but I cleaned it up for you lol
Running is seen as a waste of time by many as well – and with the exception of traffic accidents, is vastly less haardous. You miss the point of my post.
Yes, climbing in mountains, particularly the high mountains like the 8000m peaks, is rife with risk, risk that can only be minimized at best. You have weather that is not entirely predictable, snowpack, hanging glaciers and avalanche hazards which are not entirely predictable, and the small added risk that extended stays in the death zone add, namely that you will die in the death zone eventually if you don’t leave it. I haven’t even talked about the risk of falling.
I agree
My freshman year in college quit running because I had to study. I could no longer afford to run in circles.
And I do miss your point?
I will read again and try to understand.
I have a problem with it. Everest has been trashed and turned into a morgue – the money changers have entered the temple. No one seems to care about the mountain. It’s all hubris. We need to let this mountain rest now for a while. These people who want to be guided up this mountain need to find a new and greater challenge, closer to home.
My sympathies to the sherpa families. To me this proves that these commercial guiding ventures on Everest are an absolute failure, even if the clients reach the summit and can beat their chests, or enhance their resume, or say they have achieved enlightenment. If, let’s say, 20 people were killed fueling Falcon 9 at the launchpad what would the reaction from NASA be? Yet you can bet these Everest fiascos will continue to kill and hurt the locals and bring the mountain down to it’s knees.
Nepal is a poor country, landlocked and isolated, and adventure tourism is the only major industry that lifts people out of poverty. Like firefighting or police work in the US, there are unavoidable hazards. The best response would be to study the glaciers and see what is causing the avalanches; global warming could be a factor,and monitoring from orbit might provide clues. Possibly the unstable ice fall areas can be brought down safely with explosives; I’ve heard of this being done in the US.
Space launch is a different situation; it can be done safely provided one understands what safety entails. Unfortunately, the NASA approach to safety, based largely on administrative processes without much understanding of the real hardware, is not what’s required.
You miss the point entirely.
Ok, I’ll bite. What is the point?
I have always greatly admired the Sherpa guides, and now even more so. Similar to coal mine disasters, these tragedies remind us that there are people who do extremely difficult, dangerous jobs and who deserve our respect. And during times like these also our condolences to their friends, co-workers and families.
For those interested in the early exploration history of Everest, coincidentally earlier this week I found out that the British Film Institute has released on Blu-ray and DVD their recent restoration of the 1924 silent film “The Epic of Everest”, chronicling the 1924 Mallory and Irvine attempt on the summit. Mallory and Irvine were members of the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition, and their attempt on the summit on June 8th ended in tragedy as both climbers were lost after possibly having reached the summit. Mallory’s body was found in 1999, Irvine’s body so far has not been found.
The Epic of Everest was filmed on location by Captain John Noel, who was the official photographer for the 1924 expedition as he had been for the 1922 expedition. Pertinent to the tragedy this week, the 1922 attempt on the summit resulted in the deaths of seven porters during an avalanche.
A region free Blu-ray/DVD combo of The Epic of Everest is available from the BFI website and also Amazon U.K.
–
You miss the point entirely as well.
Here are some facts. Between 2003 and 2009, Hymalayan glaciers lost 174 gigatonnes of water:
http://www.nature.com/news/… The ice fall is an accumulation of ice on a slope, not Mt. Everest itself. Explosive control of avalance risk is not without its problems, but it has been used in the US for over 60 years:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009… As to NASA, please see my discussions of the basics of launch vehicle reliability elsewhere.
NASA is working with NIOSH to develop technology to reduce the risk of coal mining,both by using NASA technology to develop liquid air supplies for mining emergencies, and to improve robotics for mining that might allow miners to remain safely above ground. Hey, this isn’t a dig at NASA, it’s a slap on the back for a job well done!
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mi…
http://www.nasa.gov/offices…
Avalanche control via explosive is not an option at places like Mt Everest. Note that Everest Base Camp is at 19,000 feet.
Why would altitude be a factor?
The danger is glaciers. They are rivers of ice. You blow off the face, you’ve just created another face. (And as your comment to Mack-the-idiot showed, the glaciers are a moving target anyway. Constantly melting, shifting.)
The avalanche control in the US and similar places is about seasonal pack-snow. Whole different beastie.
Additionally, if you were to try explosives, you’d have to get them to altitude and positioned to do a precise drop. Which helicopters are going to get to the higher elevations on Everest?
I believe they often shoot big guns to trigger preemptive small avalanches for avalanche control, which isn’t limited by altitude. I could certainly see it being possible – in the video of the avalanche from Keith’s visit, there is a big ledge on the left that collapses. Maybe the ledge on the right collapsed this last time. They could shoot that off before the ledge becomes too big.
But this is Mt. Everest, not a ski resort. I also like to keep some wild places around as wild as possible with modern times as they are.
Is that why NASA has never built a Station with Gravity?? A Spinning Station. Not to bring the mountain down to our level, But leave it up there where only they can access it???
There’s gravity at the ISS. Perhaps you mean artificial gravity.
two biggest issues are complexity and mass. a rotating space station would have to be quite large, therefore heavy, therefore require lots of launches to construct. granted, a large space station is not an impossible goal (see the ISS) but it will be an engineering challenge and an expensive endeavor to design, build, and operate.
possible objection: build a small one, that rotates more slowly, to provide lesser gravity. the problem with smaller rotating space stations is a dramatically increased gravity gradient. a 2-meter tall astronaut standing in a 4-meter rotating station would feel literally ‘light-headed’; the head (nearer the axis of rotation) weighs 50% less than the feet!
furthermore, the Coriolis effect is an issue in very small rotating space stations. you want to avoid problems like this: http://chapters.marssociety…
large rotating space stations lessen both of these issues. typical sizes for practical rotating space stations are 400 meters in diameter, rotating at 1.5 RPM, producing 1g at the hub.
And that’s my point. It needs to be cheaper to send humans. That should be the only goal of government HSF, to make it so that it’s cheaper to send humans than to build and operate a robot capable of replicating a fraction of human ability.
Until that day, humans are not exploring. They are playing tourists in an environment as mapped and stocked and safe as we can make it.
When you’ve got a mission control room with more people monitoring a human flight than you would for an equivalent robot mission, haven’t you kind of missed the point in sending a human?