Two Russian workers were killed and several injured last week while cleaning out a rocket tank at a Russian spaceport.
Two Russian workers were killed and several injured last week while cleaning out a rocket tank at a Russian spaceport.
The article says that the accident occurred because of a failure to follow safety regulations, which suggests that the quality control issues in Russia’s space industry still exist.
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Two Russian workers were killed and several injured last week while cleaning out a rocket tank at a Russian spaceport.
The article says that the accident occurred because of a failure to follow safety regulations, which suggests that the quality control issues in Russia’s space industry still exist.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I don’t have much love for the Russians politically but the state of their space industry is sad and it directly effects our partnership with them. I hope they get their act together. It also points to potential problems with their nuclear stockpile.
If they are willing to violate safety procedures then one has to wonder what other safety/quality-related procedures they also violate.
Entering areas that potentially lack sufficient oxygen (confined spaces) is a lesson that has been learned too many times, usually due to tragedy, and because this violated existing procedures, it suggests that it has been learned in Russia at least once, also.
At the risk of sounding bureaucratic (oh, god, I never thought I would grow up to sound like my father!), many procedures and rules were put in place for a valid reason, and they should be followed until they are officially changed (for the better, we hope).
In engineering, change is bad, unless you understand the system you want to change. Even if it doesn’t work now as you want it to, you need to understand it in order to know what will fix the problem, otherwise you are just messing around and risking unpredictable results, an excellent way to generate unintended consequences — a serious quality problem. (This is even true of social engineering, which is why laws and their associated websites can go so terribly wrong.)
There is a saying in the aviation and railroad sectors (and probably many others): Every rule is written in blood.
I’ve worked for companies that had contracts with Boeing and Intel, and those folks are VERY serious about safety. Intel requires all contractors to take a full day course on safety procedures, followed immediately by a drug test. Strictly one procedural strike and you’re out. Not just for the day, but permanently. You can imagine your job life expectancy if you have to tell your boss you’ve been banned from the job site.
Those experiences and others have given me a real appreciation for proper procedure. After all, we all want to go home with the same number of body parts, and life, we started the day with. Some of my colleagues may think me an old woman sometimes, but avoidable risk is just that, avoidable.