Risk And Martian Exploration
Keith’s note: Last night there was a panel at the Humans To Mars Summit about risk and exploration. The panel was moderated by Leonard David and consisted of NAI Director Penny Boston, former astronaut and SMD AA John Grunsfeld, former Google space lead Tiffany Montague, and NASA SMD’s Rick Davis. At one point the 2004 Risk and Exploration Symposium that John and I put together back in 2004 was mentioned. The proceedings are online for free download here. I am currently writing two books – one on Astrobiology expeditions and the other as a follow-up to the 2004 Risk and Exploration Symposium (and another we did in 2007 at LSU).
For both of my books I have been amassing information on what risks people have taken (on expeditions in space and elsewhere) and how they have been called upon to take these risks. Specifically, I have been focusing on this question: “Would you be willing to deliberately risk your life to discover evidence of life on another world?”. Along with that question I’m wondering “Will NASA astronauts bound for Mars be asked to sign waivers with regard to risk as part of overall risk evaluations and informed consent? Will they only be allowed to go if they specifically agree to accept these risks?”.
At one point last night John said this:
"Hubble is the most transformative science instrument today and it was worth risking my life for" – @sciastro #HumansToMars #NASA pic.twitter.com/6nBfvW4M12
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) May 10, 2017
Clearly this issue is part of the overall risk assessment that astronauts make albeit somewhat personalized and ad hoc. By coincidence John was in orbit in May 2009 taking care of Hubble while another astronaut, Scott Parazynski, did his own risk analysis as he summitted Mt. Everest. I was 2-3 linear miles away from Scott doing education and public outreach for his climb at base camp recovering from an illness that left me with some permanent damage. So … I think about this topic a lot. As the notion of NASA sending humans to Mars starts to get serious, many more people will need to be thinking along these lines. Matt Damon got back OK in “The Martian”. But that was a movie.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago when Peggy Whitson broke the U.S. space endurance record. People who engage on expeditions to risky and dangerous places on Earth regularly waive certain safety and medical regulations in order to participate. I have done it more than once in the arctic and at Everest. You consider the risks, weigh the benefits, and then sign the forms. There are lifetime radiation exposure limits for astronauts that are supposed to be used to guide the selection of ISS crews. Now, these limits are apparently subject to selective waiver. So are these “limits” now becoming “guidelines”? Are astronauts now doing something similar to what terrestrial explorers do in order to spend more time in space? What is the process whereby NASA makes this waiver decision? What are the implications for the whole #JourneyToMars thing?
Accepting even a small increase in risk be it from radiation, weightlessness, or surface hazards on Mars can have a significant impact on mission design i.e. cost and schedule. Right now cost and schedule are the biggest risk to going to Mars in the first place.
Thoughts?
I suppose we’re in a agreement. We need to have a good discussion over what acceptable risks are for a crewed Mars mission, and figure out where the trade-offs are.
Hi Keith
Thoughtful article. We have already had the loss of human life in space exploration alas on both the US and Russian programmes.
Waivers for crew sound worrying. Everyone will sign rather than lose a flight opportunity but that doesn’t remove the health risks. The short cut of using waivers is too tempting. I guess the priorities to find an answer are:
1. In situ medical care after an accident or unforeseen illness. Scenario: astronaut loses leg on surface excursion.
2. Radiation shielding in space and on the ground
Scenario: significant increase in cancer risk for all crew leads to 50% of the crew dying within 5 years of the mission.
3. Physiological damage from long term zero G exposure. Scenario: astronauts suffer catastrophic heart damage and bone loss, despite all the best efforts at exercise.
4. Mental health support for crew cooped up. Didn’t the Russian Mars analogue experiment flag this up as a key issue? Scenario: reactive depression, personality clashes, crew dysfunction.
What’s the priority order? What have I missed?
Having said all this, you’d still get thousands wanting to be on the crew…
I’m not sure if it’s a direction you wanted this thread to go, Keith, but how does one’s family factor into the decisions being made by those who are choosing these risks?
For example, I’ve faced a number of high-mortality-rate medical circumstances in my life (one could say I’ve lived 45+ years past my warranty) and my attitude toward them all regarding my own self hasn’t changed since I was sixteen. If I end up in a box it won’t make a whit of difference to me if I worried about ending up there prior to ending up there. The only element that has changed in my mind & heart’s ‘calculations’ in such matters is my family (wife & kids).
To use the referenced example/quote from Dr. G above…was repairing/upgrading HST…or in your case, K, climbing Everest… worth the quite measurable higher chance of making one’s wife a widow and one’s child(ren) orphans?
And in a related question: How much of the decision—really—is about reaching for greater achievements for the sake of humanity’s advancement, and how much is about pursuing one’s own passion because doing so is personally fun & exhilarating (i.e., intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually ‘entertaining’/fulfilling)?
I am most aware that I may die tomorrow due to any number of reasons, but I do not think that I would today willingly increase the chance of my demise—as I am fairly certain I would have when I was unmarried & without children—to explore even for the objective of potentially finding extraterrestrial life.
Maybe, after a few more years, when my kids have all grown up…
That may be tangential to Keith’s questions. I think he’s getting at willingness to take risks, as a personal choice, versus a organization’s official safety policies. Your point, which is quite correct, is about someone’s motives for personally accepting risk, not whether or not it should be a personal choice.
If you aren’t familiar with it, I’d recommend taking a look at John Behrendt’s book, _The_Ninth_Circle_. It’s about his experiences doing scientific work in Antarctica during the early 1960s. In particular, he talks quite a bit about aircraft-related field work at a time when VX-6, the Navy squadron flying them around, had the highest accident rate in the world (due to weather and surface conditions.) His earlier book, _Innocents_on_the_Ice_ is also interesting, but more about social dynamics of a small, isolated group. Unfortunately, they might be hard to find (not exactly best sellers) and some might consider the writing style a little dry.
I can walk down to the nearest recruitment center and voluntarily sign up to serve my country in the most dangerous line of work possible. Why can’t an astronaut voluntarily accept the same level of risk to life and limb for the more justifiable cause of science?
How is science a more justifiable cause than protecting another’s ability to do science (among other pursuits, like live in freedom)?
We may wish that we didn’t need such protection, but wishing doesn’t make such a need go away.
Aside from that, I agree with your larger point.
From my perspective, the risk accepted by the individual is the least of the concerns. This is particularly true when talking about more or less statistically defined events like radiation exposure. After all, most young men of my era were very happy to do completely stupid things (drink and drive, ride motorcycles without protective gear, etc) with no gain except juvenile satisfaction.
The issue for me is the potential for losing the whole mission, particularly because of a design issue or other item that could have been prevented. Experienced designers and managers know that there is no such thing as a perfect machine. They are constantly required to make judgments about what is “good enough” based on insufficient data. Add to that the enormous unknowns about the space environment and the odds of losing one or more crew to a sub-optimal decision increases to very high levels.
Obviously those who are familiar with my background know that this is something that haunted me for years. It was not practical to get all of the information I needed to be certain of my decisions, but there was also a strong incentive to keep things moving. The crew was almost always “good to go” so their sense of risk was rarely the issue.
I am a supporter of human exploration of the moon and mars, in that order, as part of a well planned effort to understand and mitigate the risks. I am also a strong supporter of commercial contributions to those missions, though with the understanding that every new increment of pressure adds to the likelihood of a bad decision. That is why I have advocated that commercial crew suppliers to NASA be protected from financial loss if they need to delay or even cancel a mission due to a technical issue.
Flying humans in space safely requires the clearest heads we can find, and that includes insulating them from financial pressure as much as possible.
NASA’s internal risk aversion is so high that Orion was required to have a lower risk of crew injury from a launch abort than the ejection seats in a T-38.
And then they expected it to parachute through burning clouds of solid propellant.
NASA isn’t “risk averse”, they are “risk stupid”.
Rather than speculate, suggest you check-out NASA policy document NPR 8900.1 NASA Health and Medical Requirements for Human Space Exploration, Appendices E, F, G, which is in the NASA NODIS system and is accessible by the public.
The issue I raise is not mentioned.
The document is related to your comments in the next to last paragraph regarding possibly going beyond established medical limits. You mention “selective waiver” of limits and ask “what is the process”? The document describes a process by which the additional risk can be considered. It relates to a situation where a medical standard cannot be met. If the standard can be met, then it is within the bounds of acceptable risk. If the standard cannot be met than there is an issue, and it isn’t as simple as an astronaut saying they’ll just take the risk.