7 ms·

SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

38 points by mywacaday 4mo ago

blendergeek 4mo ago
https://archive.ph/z7xCk https://archive.ph/z7xCk
Ajedi32 4mo ago
Headline is misleading. The launch is happening tomorrow weather permitting, and the delays that already happened are most likely unrelated to the accident that killed the worker. There's also no evidence that accident rates at Starbase are higher than at any other US construction site.
- sublinear 4mo ago
  > no evidence that accident rates at Starbase are higher than at any other US construction site I was actually just about to comment that it's surprising how few accidents we've heard about from a facility like that. Either they're doing an amazing job, or they have a great lid on it despite all that want to see them fail.
- tekla 4mo ago
  Are you accusing the media of misleading news about SpaceX, amazing bait for HN???? Yes, they are.
- codingdave 4mo ago
  You're joking, right? Starbase is notorious for high accident rates.
  - drob518 4mo ago
    Data?
    - codingdave 4mo ago
      Start here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates-at-starbase-outpace-industry-rivals/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates... Drill down into the links from there. Or do a search. Or ask an LLM. I have a hard time finding any data that doesn't think they have high rates.
      - ajross 4mo ago
        That article's lede says that Starbase is more dangerous than other SpaceX facilities, not that SpaceX is dangerous per se? Also there's a sample size problem with numbers like that. Is SpaceX more dangerous than heavy industry in general, or some more related subset like aviation manufacturing? As to your second line, I submit that commenting on HN that "Starbase is notorious for high accident rates" carries with it an implicit offer to provide said notes and not just punt to Google when challenged.
        Veserv 4mo ago
        What a inane comment. They gave you a link that literally spoonfeeds the data and you complain because you can not be bothered to read until what is literally the second sentence in the article before accusing them of making statements in bad faith without supporting data. > Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing site that recently incorporated as its own Texas city, logged injury rates that were almost 6x higher than the average for comparable space vehicle-manufacturing outfits and nearly 3x higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole in 2024, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data released in May. Literally the second sentence which answers all of the questions you just posed and invalidates your accusations in the second paragraph. Geez.
        NamTaf 4mo ago
        This is trivially easy to check if you actually wanted to. Hell, I'll bring the receipts on your behalf. These numbers are all total injury frequency rates per 100 employees or 200k hours (equivalent measures, assuming 50x 40-hour weeks) Assuming the TC article that cites 4.27 at Starbase is accurate, it's well in excess of anything I'm used to seeing. Have a flick through here for industry-wide equivalents: https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.... Alternatively, here's some of the big players in various engineering, construction, mining, etc. heavy industries, taken directly from their websites/sustainability reports: ExxonMobil: 0.1-0.2 https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/publications/metrics-and-data https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/publications/metrics-and-da... Chevron: 0.24 (p23) https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/media/publications/corporate-sustainability-report https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/media/publications/corporat... Glencore: 2.14 (p15) https://www.glencore.com/.rest/api/v1/documents/static/9b103e11-72e7-40bf-ae7c-eabe57361522/GLEN-2025-Annual-Report.pdf https://www.glencore.com/.rest/api/v1/documents/static/9b103... Jiangxi Copper: 1.5 (p132, NB: per million hours so /5) https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2025/0327/2025032702747.pdf https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2025/0327/... Fluor: 0.31 (p10) https://a.fluor.com/f/1014770/x/1d656014e2/2024-sustainability-disclosures.pdf https://a.fluor.com/f/1014770/x/1d656014e2/2024-sustainabili... Jacobs: 0.17 (p61) https://s205.q4cdn.com/384284279/files/doc_downloads/2024/ESG/FY24-Sustainability-Report_FINAL.pdf https://s205.q4cdn.com/384284279/files/doc_downloads/2024/ES... Union Pacific: 0.9 (p8) https://www.up.com/content/dam/upcom/strategy-sustainability/documents/Sustainability%20Metrics%202024%20Final.pdf https://www.up.com/content/dam/upcom/strategy-sustainability... PG&E: 1.87 (p45) https://www.pgecorp.com/assets/pgecorp/csr/csr_2025/assets/pge-csr-2025.pdf https://www.pgecorp.com/assets/pgecorp/csr/csr_2025/assets/p... Baowu: 1.8 (p19, listed per 1000 employees so *10) https://res.baowugroup.com/attach/2025/09/18/4751f22bbb3348479b7afbfc627bbb9a.pdf https://res.baowugroup.com/attach/2025/09/18/4751f22bbb33484... Parsons: 0.16 (p29) https://www.parsons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FY24-CARE.pdf https://www.parsons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FY24-CARE... Vale: 1.58 (p66) https://www.vale.com/documents/44618/430705/2025_Annual+Report+EN.pdf/1a40d1ff-c65a-5c46-cc2a-78c4294bd08f?version=1.3&t=1776265104853&download=false https://www.vale.com/documents/44618/430705/2025_Annual+Repo...
  - Ajedi32 4mo ago
    Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/number-and-rate-of-fatal-work-injuries-by-industry.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...)
    - bryanlarsen 4mo ago
      Fatality rate is hard to compare because of the low divisor problem. Injury rate is 4.27 per 100. Which is under half the average value for active construction sites and 3x the average value for aerospace manufacturing facilities. Choose your comparator based on whether you want to praise or bash SpaceX.
      - Ajedi32 4mo ago
        Yes. Starbase is an active construction site right now, so that's why I chose that as a point of comparison. But obviously there's also a lot of aerospace manufacturing happening at the same time, so it makes sense the number would be somewhere between those two industries.
      - russdill 4mo ago
        The fatality occurred at a construction site, not an aerospace manufacturing facility.
      - NamTaf 4mo ago
        Where are you getting construction as double that? This BLS site states that total recordable injuries is 2.2 per 100 employees. https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.... Remember, this is reportable injuries. not LTIs, not fatalities. As an aside, as someone who works on major engineering construction projects, 4.27 per 100 people is huge. I'm used to sub-1.0, and something like 4.x would be stop-the-project-safety-intervention significant.
    - deleted 4mo ago
- Veserv 4mo ago
  What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022 [1]. Furthermore, you have gotten the burden of proof backwards. The default presumption is non-safety. The burden of proof is on insiders (who have all the access) to robustly demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are safe, not on outsiders (who only have limited access) to demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are dangerous. So, please present your evidence that their injury or fatality rate is normal. Absence of evidence defaults to your claim it is safe being unsupported. edit: codingdave comment has a more recent link that also determines 2023 and 2024 also had injury rates multiple times higher than industry average. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214074 [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
  - dolphinscorpion 4mo ago
    >> What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022 That's a sacrifice Elon is willing to make
  - NetMageSCW 4mo ago
    What industry is being compared, and how does that compare to what SpaceX is actually doing?
    - NamTaf 4mo ago
      Here you go: https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.... Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction: 1.2 Coal mining: 3.1 Heavy and civil engineering construction: 1.8 Animal slaughtering and processing: 3.2 Wood product manufacturing (inc. sawmills): 4.2 Foundries: 5.1 Aerospace product and parts manufacturing: 1.6 Rail transportation: 3.4 Judging solely by the aforementioned linked data, at 4.8, Brownsville should be shut down by management to do a safety intervention. McGregor and Hawthorne should be under the limelight, too. Redmond and CC seem good.
- plugger 4mo ago
  3x higher than other rocket builders. Comparing a rocket factory to a construction site it borderline laughable.
NetMageSCW 4mo ago
Sad to see what Scientific American has become.
ChrisArchitect 4mo ago
Related: Starship's Twelfth Flight Test https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214558
indoordin0saur 4mo ago
Wow, read the article and it's just clickbait. Reads like AI was heavily used as well. Did this publication get bought out? I seem to remember it being a good source in the past.

38 points by mywacaday 4mo ago

https://archive.ph/z7xCk https://archive.ph/z7xCk

Headline is misleading. The launch is happening tomorrow weather permitting, and the delays that already happened are most likely unrelated to the accident that killed the worker. There's also no evidence that accident rates at Starbase are higher than at any other US construction site.

sublinear 4mo ago
> no evidence that accident rates at Starbase are higher than at any other US construction site I was actually just about to comment that it's surprising how few accidents we've heard about from a facility like that. Either they're doing an amazing job, or they have a great lid on it despite all that want to see them fail.
tekla 4mo ago
Are you accusing the media of misleading news about SpaceX, amazing bait for HN???? Yes, they are.
codingdave 4mo ago
You're joking, right? Starbase is notorious for high accident rates.
- drob518 4mo ago
  Data?
  - codingdave 4mo ago
    Start here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates-at-starbase-outpace-industry-rivals/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates... Drill down into the links from there. Or do a search. Or ask an LLM. I have a hard time finding any data that doesn't think they have high rates.
    - ajross 4mo ago
      That article's lede says that Starbase is more dangerous than other SpaceX facilities, not that SpaceX is dangerous per se? Also there's a sample size problem with numbers like that. Is SpaceX more dangerous than heavy industry in general, or some more related subset like aviation manufacturing? As to your second line, I submit that commenting on HN that "Starbase is notorious for high accident rates" carries with it an implicit offer to provide said notes and not just punt to Google when challenged.
      - Veserv 4mo ago
        What a inane comment. They gave you a link that literally spoonfeeds the data and you complain because you can not be bothered to read until what is literally the second sentence in the article before accusing them of making statements in bad faith without supporting data. > Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing site that recently incorporated as its own Texas city, logged injury rates that were almost 6x higher than the average for comparable space vehicle-manufacturing outfits and nearly 3x higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole in 2024, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data released in May. Literally the second sentence which answers all of the questions you just posed and invalidates your accusations in the second paragraph. Geez.
      - NamTaf 4mo ago
        This is trivially easy to check if you actually wanted to. Hell, I'll bring the receipts on your behalf. These numbers are all total injury frequency rates per 100 employees or 200k hours (equivalent measures, assuming 50x 40-hour weeks) Assuming the TC article that cites 4.27 at Starbase is accurate, it's well in excess of anything I'm used to seeing. Have a flick through here for industry-wide equivalents: https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.... Alternatively, here's some of the big players in various engineering, construction, mining, etc. heavy industries, taken directly from their websites/sustainability reports: ExxonMobil: 0.1-0.2 https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/publications/metrics-and-data https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/publications/metrics-and-da... Chevron: 0.24 (p23) https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/media/publications/corporate-sustainability-report https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/media/publications/corporat... Glencore: 2.14 (p15) https://www.glencore.com/.rest/api/v1/documents/static/9b103e11-72e7-40bf-ae7c-eabe57361522/GLEN-2025-Annual-Report.pdf https://www.glencore.com/.rest/api/v1/documents/static/9b103... Jiangxi Copper: 1.5 (p132, NB: per million hours so /5) https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2025/0327/2025032702747.pdf https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2025/0327/... Fluor: 0.31 (p10) https://a.fluor.com/f/1014770/x/1d656014e2/2024-sustainability-disclosures.pdf https://a.fluor.com/f/1014770/x/1d656014e2/2024-sustainabili... Jacobs: 0.17 (p61) https://s205.q4cdn.com/384284279/files/doc_downloads/2024/ESG/FY24-Sustainability-Report_FINAL.pdf https://s205.q4cdn.com/384284279/files/doc_downloads/2024/ES... Union Pacific: 0.9 (p8) https://www.up.com/content/dam/upcom/strategy-sustainability/documents/Sustainability%20Metrics%202024%20Final.pdf https://www.up.com/content/dam/upcom/strategy-sustainability... PG&E: 1.87 (p45) https://www.pgecorp.com/assets/pgecorp/csr/csr_2025/assets/pge-csr-2025.pdf https://www.pgecorp.com/assets/pgecorp/csr/csr_2025/assets/p... Baowu: 1.8 (p19, listed per 1000 employees so *10) https://res.baowugroup.com/attach/2025/09/18/4751f22bbb3348479b7afbfc627bbb9a.pdf https://res.baowugroup.com/attach/2025/09/18/4751f22bbb33484... Parsons: 0.16 (p29) https://www.parsons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FY24-CARE.pdf https://www.parsons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FY24-CARE... Vale: 1.58 (p66) https://www.vale.com/documents/44618/430705/2025_Annual+Report+EN.pdf/1a40d1ff-c65a-5c46-cc2a-78c4294bd08f?version=1.3&t=1776265104853&download=false https://www.vale.com/documents/44618/430705/2025_Annual+Repo...
- Ajedi32 4mo ago
  Compared to what? US average fatal accident rate for construction is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers per year. In oil and gas extraction it's 13.8. In agriculture it's 20.9. In manufacturing it's 2.4. What's Starbase's rate? (Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/number-and-rate-of-fatal-work-injuries-by-industry.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...)
  - bryanlarsen 4mo ago
    Fatality rate is hard to compare because of the low divisor problem. Injury rate is 4.27 per 100. Which is under half the average value for active construction sites and 3x the average value for aerospace manufacturing facilities. Choose your comparator based on whether you want to praise or bash SpaceX.
    - Ajedi32 4mo ago
      Yes. Starbase is an active construction site right now, so that's why I chose that as a point of comparison. But obviously there's also a lot of aerospace manufacturing happening at the same time, so it makes sense the number would be somewhere between those two industries.
    - russdill 4mo ago
      The fatality occurred at a construction site, not an aerospace manufacturing facility.
    - NamTaf 4mo ago
      Where are you getting construction as double that? This BLS site states that total recordable injuries is 2.2 per 100 employees. https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.... Remember, this is reportable injuries. not LTIs, not fatalities. As an aside, as someone who works on major engineering construction projects, 4.27 per 100 people is huge. I'm used to sub-1.0, and something like 4.x would be stop-the-project-safety-intervention significant.
  - deleted 4mo ago
Veserv 4mo ago
What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022 [1]. Furthermore, you have gotten the burden of proof backwards. The default presumption is non-safety. The burden of proof is on insiders (who have all the access) to robustly demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are safe, not on outsiders (who only have limited access) to demonstrate in a clear and convincing manner that things are dangerous. So, please present your evidence that their injury or fatality rate is normal. Absence of evidence defaults to your claim it is safe being unsupported. edit: codingdave comment has a more recent link that also determines 2023 and 2024 also had injury rates multiple times higher than industry average. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214074 [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
- dolphinscorpion 4mo ago
  >> What are you talking about? Injury rate at Starbase (Brownsville) was 6x higher than industry average in 2022 That's a sacrifice Elon is willing to make
- NetMageSCW 4mo ago
  What industry is being compared, and how does that compare to what SpaceX is actually doing?
  - NamTaf 4mo ago
    Here you go: https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/table-1-industry-rates-national.... Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction: 1.2 Coal mining: 3.1 Heavy and civil engineering construction: 1.8 Animal slaughtering and processing: 3.2 Wood product manufacturing (inc. sawmills): 4.2 Foundries: 5.1 Aerospace product and parts manufacturing: 1.6 Rail transportation: 3.4 Judging solely by the aforementioned linked data, at 4.8, Brownsville should be shut down by management to do a safety intervention. McGregor and Hawthorne should be under the limelight, too. Redmond and CC seem good.
plugger 4mo ago
3x higher than other rocket builders. Comparing a rocket factory to a construction site it borderline laughable.

NetMageSCW 4mo ago

Sad to see what Scientific American has become.

ChrisArchitect 4mo ago

Related: Starship's Twelfth Flight Test https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214558

indoordin0saur 4mo ago

Wow, read the article and it's just clickbait. Reads like AI was heavily used as well. Did this publication get bought out? I seem to remember it being a good source in the past.