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A rocket science safety expert on Sunday said Virgin Galactic "ignored" safety warnings in the years leading up to the deadly crash of its spacecraft in California, as investigators hunted for clues to accident's cause.
Carolynne Campbell, a rocket propulsion expert with the Netherlands-based International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, said she could not speculate on the cause of Friday's crash without "all the data." However, she said multiple warnings had been issued to Virgin since 2007, when three engineers died testing a rocket on the ground.
http://news.yahoo.com/probe-virgin-spaceship-crash-may-085338983.html
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Expert: Virgin 'Ignored' Space Safety Warnings
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A shapely CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING inside my costume..
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday November 03 2014, @09:52AM
Take any safety audit, and tell me how many auditors are ever willing to walk away without finding something. Seem like they feel they just haven't done their job if they don't find something. Just as a trivial example: We have to have our electrical systems in the building audited every ten years. During the audit last year, the guy pinged our central breaker cabinet, because it would theoretically be possible to reach over the top of the (very tall) cabinet and touch a live wire. Just why anyone would go into a locked electrical closet (with warning sign), reach up over the top of a panel of electrical breakers, and start groping around? But we have an official safety warning, so we know that the auditor was here. Gee, thanks.
The point: of course there have been safety warnings. Most of them were probably bullshit. This is just useless blathering unless it turns out that there were actually specific and important warnings that were ignored. Which is what the subsequent investigation will determine.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 03 2014, @12:36PM
I had the same thought as yours although I'd adjust the phrase from
specific and important
To
specific and important and relevant
For example several people are commenting on the incident where a bunch of people were hurt / killed in a stereotypical compressed gas accident during some ground testing where AFAIK the ground testing gear explosively failed.
Going all SN automotive analogy, just because someone blew up an air compressor while filling their car tires doesn't imply they "must have repeated" ignored the bomb strapped to the ignition switch.