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.
Through interviews and government records, Reuters 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.
SpaceX, founded by Musk more than two decades ago, takes the stance that workers are responsible for protecting themselves, according to more than a dozen current and former employees, including a former senior executive.
Musk himself at times appeared cavalier about safety on visits to SpaceX sites: Four employees said he sometimes played with a novelty flamethrower and discouraged workers from wearing safety yellow because he dislikes bright colors.
I’ve commented on this previously, but this is essentially either a hit piece, or very poor reporting on Reuters’ part.
Basically nobody looks at raw numbers for injury statistics. It’s normalised to injures per million man hours worked, and when you take some conservative estimates on the size of SpaceX’s workforce and the time periods involved, you find that they land pretty much in the middle of current “heavy industry” injury rates.
But it surrrre does look bad if you look at the raw numbers, just like if you looked at the combined raw numbers of, say, 10 steel mills across the country.
Permalink to my previous, much longer, comment
mining industry / [LTIFR of] 5.5 is middle of the road for manufacturing and construction, generally, but that includes all sorts of manufacturing, from building houses, to steel foundries , to making cars
They work in clean rooms and should have far more controlled conditions and a better safety culture than those industries. This is not good enough.
Also “middle of the road” is concerning, considering that this stuff is going up into space.
Or you could read the comment he linked where he explains his reasoning and logic in detail.
