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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're joking, right?
Starbase is notorious for high accident rates.
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-inju...)
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.
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.
Data?
Start here: 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.
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.
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
[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
>> 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
Are you accusing the media of misleading news about SpaceX, amazing bait for HN????
Yes, they are.
> 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.
https://archive.ph/z7xCk