Texas Proud
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 16, 2005
- Messages
- 17,269
I'm an engineer and have worked in new technology fields all my life, including area where the consequences were significant in terms of life, equipment, and politics...think military space here.
The way it works is, if you want to use an unproven, potentially risky technology, you study the heck out of it, "prove" that it works in theory, and then carefully prove it works in practice under controlled-risk situations. You don't just develop it and try it.
I've worked on programs with formal military urgency requirements where people were dying every day that the technology was delayed. You still test it thoroughly and understand the risks. I have no doubt the oil industry does this as well, just apparently not well enough.
I've said before, I am not opposed to drilling, and I do suspect that one implication of this will be a much more conservative approach in the industry. But the only way you will have that is if you make the business consequences as severe as the human, ecological, and economic. The worst that can happen to BP is that they go under. Individual workers in future situations need to know that they have personal accountability if this is going to actually lead to change.
I've worked in a situation where I was an employee of a company but I was also accountable to the government for certain types of things that could happen. My boss only had a vague idea what I was working on. This is not unusual in the defense sector. It means you do your job regardless of what you are told. You follow the rules even when directed not to. The guy who directed you to take a short cut gets fired after a few attempts to do that to people. And eventually you end up with people who work for the common good rather than for the company's profits alone. They don't take shortcuts because there is nothing to gain and a great deal to lose.
Interesting you should mention space.... because the two space shuttles that blew up seems to me that the government (at least gvmt run) is not any better than others...
And as a percent... that was 2 out of 134 (when the last flights are flown)... not a good percent IMO...
remember... the second one was after a 'through review' so it wouldn't happen again... and there could have been a third with the foam coming off as it did...
Edit to add.... did anybody get charged with a crime in either of these disasters Just asking....
Did the gvmt pay all the wages for everybody who was laid off during that through review Just asking...