Reuters: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

[ecarfan]

Reuters Special Report: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

Reuters documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds and one death. SpaceX employees say they’re paying the price for the billionaire’s push to colonize space at breakneck speed.

Not a good look for SpaceX.

The more than 600 SpaceX injuries Reuters documented represent only a portion of the total case count, a figure that is not publicly available. OSHA has required companies to report their total number of injuries annually since 2016, but SpaceX facilities failed to submit reports for most of those years. About two-thirds of the injuries Reuters uncovered came in years when SpaceX did not report that annual data, which OSHA collects to help prioritize on-site inspections of potentially dangerous workplaces.

 

[Grendal]

Reuters Special Report: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars


Not a good look for SpaceX.

Agreed. I'm somewhat skeptical of where Reuters got this "list." I'd like to know how an amputation could go unreported.

 

[ecarfan]

Agreed. I'm somewhat skeptical of where Reuters got this "list." I'd like to know how an amputation could go unreported.

The article doesn’t say that all the injuries listed were unreported.

Reuters unearthed details about the 600-plus injuries by examining court documents in worker lawsuits, employee medical records, state workers’ compensation claims and emergency-call records. The news agency also obtained, through public records requests, internal SpaceX injury logs that the company turned over to federal and state safety inspectors following serious safety incidents. Such logs are rarely made public. Regulators require companies to keep the records, which include descriptions of individual injuries, and to produce them upon request.

From the article:

Through interviews and government records, the news organization documented at least 600 injuries of SpaceX workers since 2014… Many were serious or disabling. The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were “crushed,” and nine with head injuries, including one skull fracture, four concussions and one traumatic brain injury. The cases also included five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents that led to amputations, 12 injuries involving multiple unspecified body parts, and seven workers with eye injuries. Others were relatively minor, including more than 170 reports of strains or sprains.

So a minor fraction of the 600 injuries were serious.

What would be interesting to know is a comparison with a similar company (ULA?) to see if SpaceX is better or worse, and look at serious injuries per thousand workers instead of just an absolute number.

 

[father_of_6]

C'mon. Every single thing written by Reuters is anti-Elon, LOL.

Anyways, NASA has *KILLED* people in their mission to tackle space. No one's ragging on them.

 

[Cosmacelf]

C'mon. Every single thing written by Reuters is anti-Elon, LOL.

Anyways, NASA has *KILLED* people in their mission to tackle space. No one's ragging on them.

Not to mention Virgin Galactic’s deaths.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Reuters Special Report: At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk's rush to Mars

Not a good look for SpaceX.

<peeve>
If there were electrocutions, there would have been more than one death.
</peeve>

 

[Krugerrand]

Bull pucky

 

[JB47394]

Bull pucky

That's an angry cat.

What would be interesting to know is a comparison with a similar company (ULA?) to see if SpaceX is better or worse, and look at serious injuries per thousand workers instead of just an absolute number.

Yes, context is always the missing bit with the media. Life is actually really boring, so the media has to present things out of context to make them worthy of discussion. If we had honest media, we'd all be better off.

I say that when the revolution happens, we should have the media people up on the wall right there with the lawyers. First round.

 

[Krugerrand]

That's an angry cat.

Like Maverick, the cat only has one look, so just as likely it’s really happy.

 

[father_of_6]

I say that when the revolution happens, we should have the media people up on the wall right there with the lawyers. First round.

LOL... there's an obvious group missing here. You must be a politician.

 

[Grendal]

Yes, context is always the missing bit with the media. Life is actually really boring, so the media has to present things out of context to make them worthy of discussion. If we had honest media, we'd all be better off.

I say that when the revolution happens, we should have the media people up on the wall right there with the lawyers. First round.

The media has been corrupted by capitalism. It is no longer about presenting news, information, and facts. It is about making money with mostly opinions pushing controversy and sensationalism. If it bleeds - it leads is now what generates clicks and attention. Clicks and attention is money.

 

[cwerdna]

Yes, context is always the missing bit with the media. Life is actually really boring, so the media has to present things out of context to make them worthy of discussion. If we had honest media, we'd all be better off.

They did try to present some context and comparisons, where possible.

 

[JB47394]

They did try to present some context and comparisons, where possible.

Yes, they did. I hadn't actually read the article and was very pleasantly surprised at that one. Sadly, I think the context was included because it favored their point It really does look like SpaceX is playing fast and loose with employee safety because they (unsurprisingly) have the libertarian attitude of letting employees fend for themselves. After all, they hire good, smart people who should know how to do things safely. Unfortunately, people in the business of safety know that doesn't end well. I'm reminded of the guys who were riding the deluge plate out to the launch site. They were unsecured and happily sitting on top until an adult got them down.

What has me a little surprised is that I've never heard of an ambulance going to Boca Chica. There are multiple YouTube groups that have the place under 24x7 video surveillance. Why haven't they seen anything? Are they just burying the bodies? Stuffing them in an employee car and driving them off to a hospital? Putting a bandaid on it and calling it done?

 

[scaesare]

Given the pace at which SpaceX is moving, it would be interesting to see a metric along the axis of "incident per work unit performed".

If a welder gets injured once per 10,000 ft of linear weld at SpaceX, and once per 3,000' elsewhere, which is a safer environment, even if it happens twice as frequently?

 

[scaesare]

Also, interesting observation over at NSF Forum:

...the way stuff is built at Boca, is more like running a major shipyard than building launch vehicles in clean factories.
SpaceX has clearly been inspired by how large ships are built in today's shipyards. The use of mobile cranes and SPMTs is directly borrowed from the ship building industry. Same for how the boosters and ships are built: from major sub assemblies. Boca is not a rocket factory, it is a (space)ship yard.
As such, it would be better to compare the injury rate to that of the US shipyard industry. Who's injury rate between 2010 and 2017 averaged 5.4 per 100 workers by the way.

They do seem to be operating very differently than traditional rocket builders...

 

[father_of_6]

Given the pace at which SpaceX is moving, it would be interesting to see a metric along the axis of "incident per work unit performed".

I'd go one step further and measure based on incidents per "unit of progress". Not exactly sure how you'd measure that, but I feel like reusable rockets launching twice a week should be enough "progress" to afford them a few injuries.

 

[ecarfan]

If it bleeds - it leads is now what generates clicks and attention.

Some historic perspective: that phrase originated in the 1890s. Now it’s clicks, back then it was nickels from selling papers (the physical kind). There is nothing new about it. IMO, modern media is not worse than William Randolph Hearst’s sensationalism well over a century ago and in fact is better because now there are many more choices and no one company controls what people information sources people can access In a given geographic market. Though obviously in some countries governments exert fairly effective control over information.

I'd go one step further and measure based on incidents per "unit of progress". Not exactly sure how you'd measure that, but I feel like reusable rockets launching twice a week should be enough "progress" to afford them a few injuries.

The families of the injured workers likely disagree with your analysis.

 

[scaesare]

Some historic perspective: that phrase originated in the 1890s. Now it’s clicks, back then it was nickels from selling papers (the physical kind). There is nothing new about it. IMO, modern media is not worse than William Randolph Hearst’s sensationalism well over a century ago and in fact is better because now there are many more choices and no one company controls what people information sources people can access In a given geographic market. Though obviously in some countries governments exert fairly effective control over information.

The families of the injured workers likely disagree with your analysis.

I'd agree that "allowable" injuries should always target zero.

My point was more along the lines of questioning the idea of comparing injuries per timeframe/worker.

There's the general idea that working faster can cause more injuries, as less consideration is given to safety... which can be true. However, going as slow as possible isn't necessarily better either. It's more along the lines of "works as fast as you safely can".

I'd suggest approach, training, and culture affect this greatly.

If I shingle a roof once a yr, and hurt myself every time, I don't believe I'm safer than the guy who roofs every day and gets hurt twice in a year.

As such, comparing stats doesn't always tell the whole story. Blindly doing so often contributes to union-type stereotypical ridiculousness wherein folks work at the slowest pace possible...