RISK THRESHOLDS for HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT by ROBERT PAUL
DEFINING, CHARACTERIZING, AND ESTABLISHING “SAFE ENOUGH” RISK THRESHOLDS FOR HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT by ROBERT PAUL OCAMPO B.A., Haverford College, 2003 M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences 2016 This thesis entitled: Defining, Characterizing, and Establishing “Safe Enough” Risk Thresholds for Human Space Flight written by Robert Paul Ocampo has been approved for the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences Dr. David Klaus Dr. James Nabity Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline iii Ocampo, Robert Paul (Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering Sciences) Defining, Characterizing, and Establishing “Safe Enough” Risk Thresholds for Human Space Flight Thesis directed by Professor David M. Klaus No spacecraft will ever be perfectly safe. Consequently, engineers must strive to design, develop, and operate spacecraft that are safe enough. This thesis presents a conceptual framework for defining and characterizing “safe” and distinguishing “safe enough” from “not safe enough.” Space Shuttle and Soyuz safety records are presented in the context of this framework, and compared to the safety records of various modes of transportation (automotive, rail, boating, general aviation, commercial aviation) and adventure sport activities (skydiving, mountaineering, SCUBA diving). From these comparisons, a heuristic method for predicting space flight risk is derived. This method, which is built upon the inverse correlation between risk and usage, can coarsely predict risk in the absence of detailed spacecraft data.
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