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mkl654321
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August 14th, 2010 at 3:23:18 AM permalink
From today's news (true story):

A man just died four days after donating part of his liver to his brother. His brother had a diseased liver and was in serious condition (and is currently doing well after the transplant).

The focus of the story is on the donor's unselfishness, but also on the viability of the procedure as the donor is the fourth person in a decade to die after such a procedure (donation).

What made me acquire a different take on this story was reading further, and discovering that the dead man left a wife, and three children ages 6, 4, and 1.

My question is, did the donor truly have the right to risk his life in this way, even to help his critically ill brother? His wife may have been able to give informed consent, but his children couldn't. Isn't it irresponsible to risk your life, even in a noble cause, if your life is important to more than just yourself, and your family depends on you?

Should a man with six kids jump in front of a bus to save a little old lady? (I realize that I've changed the parameters for this question, but I'm merely reframing the basic question--do you, in fact, have the right to risk your life if your being killed will profoundly affect your family?)
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AZDuffman
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August 14th, 2010 at 4:48:27 AM permalink
Quote: mkl654321

From today's news (true story):

A man just died four days after donating part of his liver to his brother. His brother had a diseased liver and was in serious condition (and is currently doing well after the transplant).

The focus of the story is on the donor's unselfishness, but also on the viability of the procedure as the donor is the fourth person in a decade to die after such a procedure (donation).



I think he did the right thing. 4 deaths in 2 years seems a cvery low rate even without knowing how many operations were performed to get a death rate. What I find more concerning is that an article would take a stance that just because of a few deaths the operation must be dangerous. Osama Bin Laden has one thing right--that so many in the USA have no stomach for *any* fatalities.

Space Shuttle blew up in 1986 (again in 2005?) and thus we need to end the program as "too dangerous." Any casualties in Iraq/Afghanistan/Somalia/insert any mission and 40% of the USA wants to pull out. Road here in Pittsburgh is one of those "reversing" HOV lanes and in 1989 after *ONE* fatal head-on crash people called to close the whole thing. There were a very few infants drowned in those 5-gallon buckets because their parents weren't watching so the government considered requireing them to "leak" and not hold liquid (no kidding, John Stossell reported that one.) The list goes on but the theme is "oned death, lets regulate away any sort of risk no matter the benefit."

Could be the sign that after 235 years the USA Society is no longer "youthful" but reaching "middle age" from a societal development standpoint. Sad to me.l
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odiousgambit
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August 14th, 2010 at 5:31:07 AM permalink
"certain death" from the procedure not possible, or both would die; thus both must have had fair chances or the Docs wouldn't want to do it, either.

But we have little information here.

I suspect he did the right thing, but the question almost should be, did the Doctors do the right thing? no vote
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Nareed
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August 14th, 2010 at 5:57:50 AM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

Space Shuttle blew up in 1986 (again in 2005?) and thus we need to end the program as "too dangerous."



Not at all.

While there were some people who wanted to end the program after each Shuttle accident, the reason the program ended is that it was too expensive and the fleet too old to keep flying.

BTW Challenger blew up on launch in 86, while Columbia broke up on re-entry in 2003. Both accidents were emminently preventible, and in fact NASA employees did try to prevent them.
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August 14th, 2010 at 8:01:01 AM permalink
In my opinion you have to look at the value of both lives and the probability the transplant will kill the donor. That probability is quite low, otherwise organ transplants would not be as routine as they are. So I say the donor did the right thing, and his family should be proud of him.
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow." -- Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV)
weaselman
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August 14th, 2010 at 8:14:12 AM permalink
The kids and wife will collect life insurance, SSI, etc., and, more importantly, will hopefully be taken care of by the surviving brother. They'll be all right.
It's tough to have to grow up without a father as a kid, but I'd say, it's still better than growing up with a guy, who could have saved his brother, and did not for a father instead.

Having said this, jumping in front of the bus is a very different question. I don't know what I'd do in the heat of the moment, but right now, thinking about it calmly, I am inclined to say I'd, probably, not risk my life to save that little lady. Three reasons for the difference are (in order of importance to me) - I don't know her, she is not my family; unlike the transplant situation, the risk to lose my life, or, even worse, become permanently disabled is very real here; nobody will know I had the opportunity, and let it pass.
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boymimbo
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August 14th, 2010 at 8:47:28 AM permalink
That's a tough one, but I would have declined. The risk of death or complications are very small indeed, but there is a risk there nonetheless, and when you are married with small children who definitely need you in their life, you as a parent shouldn't take ANY unnecessary risk.

According to experts, the risk of dying is about 0.1 to 1.0 percent depending on the part of the liver donated, and in the United States it was 3/4,126 (since 1989) at the time of surgery. A 2008 study in Gastroenterology reported the following:

Quote: Gastroenterology

Results: Of 405 donors accepted for donation, 393 underwent donation, and 12 procedures were aborted. There were 245 donors (62%) who did not experience complications; 82 (21%) had 1 complication, and 66 (17%) had 2 or more. Complications were scored as grade 1 (minor; n = 106, 27%), grade 2 (potentially life threatening; n = 103, 26%), grade 3 (life threatening; n = 8, 2%), and grade 4 (leading to death; n = 3, 0.8%). Common complications included biliary leaks beyond postoperative day 7 (n = 36, 9%), bacterial infections (n = 49, 12%), incisional hernia (n = 22, 6%), pleural effusion requiring intervention (n = 21, 5%), neuropraxia (n = 16, 4%), reexploration (n = 12, 3%), wound infections (n = 12, 3%), and intraabdominal abscess (n = 9, 2%). Two donors developed portal vein thrombosis, and 1 had inferior vena caval thrombosis. Fifty-one (13%) donors required hospital readmission, and 14 (4%) required 2 to 5 readmissions. Conclusions: Adult living liver donation was associated with significant donor complications. Although most complications were of low-grade severity, a significant proportion were severe or life threatening. Quantification of complication risk may improve the informed consent process, perioperative planning, and donor care.



Even with a 1/1,000 chance of dying from surgery, with a wife and three young children, I would not take that risk, even for my brother. It's great that the brother is being hailed as a hero, but to me, taking a 0.1 percent chance to ruin four lives close and dear to your heart supercedes the 80 percent chance in saving the brother's. Sorry, bro.
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weaselman
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August 14th, 2010 at 9:17:44 AM permalink
Quote: boymimbo


Even with a 1/1,000 chance of dying from surgery, with a wife and three young children, I would not take that risk, even for my brother.



If the numbers on this page are correct (I don't know if they are, but just for the sake of the argument...), then following your logic, you should be a lot more cautious about taking any kind of transportation, than saving your brother's life.

http://www.funny2.com/odds.htm

A chance to be killed within a year in a transportation accident is one in 77. Are you willing to always walk for your family? :) If you can't always walk, an alternative is driving, because the chance of dying in a car accident is only 1 in 18,585 (higher in other sources - up to about 1 in 6000). I don't have the numbers, but I would think, the chance is increased significantly by driving (only slightly) above the speed limit, or after one beer. Would you never do that?
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Wizard
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August 14th, 2010 at 9:23:39 AM permalink
Quote: weaselman


A chance to be killed within a year in a transportation accident is one in 77.



How do you define "transportation"?

Quote: weaselman

The kids and wife will collect life insurance, SSI, etc., and, more importantly, will hopefully be taken care of by the surviving brother.



SSI is a means-based (welfare) program that they likely would not qualify for if the father had life insurance. However, you should put Social Security survivors benefits on the list, which are not subject to a means test.
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow." -- Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV)
weaselman
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August 14th, 2010 at 9:28:44 AM permalink
Well, I don't :) It's just what that page said. I would assume, transportation is means to take somebody or something from one place or another.
By this definition, walking is a kind of transportation, but I take it as an obvious fact, that the chance of being killed by walking is much less than using other means of transportation :)

Quote: Wizard


SSI is a means-based (welfare) program that they likely would not qualify for if the father had life insurance. However, you should put Social Security survivors benefits on the list, which are not subject to a means test.



Yes, I misspoke. I meant Social Security, not SSI.
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DJTeddyBear
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August 14th, 2010 at 10:35:57 AM permalink
Quote: mkl654321

...do you, in fact, have the right to risk your life if your being killed will profoundly affect your family?

Isn't his brother family? Isn't he worth what was, in reality, a small risk that turned bad?
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boymimbo
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August 14th, 2010 at 10:53:18 AM permalink
Of course, with three kids, you would have a minivan, and I'd be getting one with the five star crash ratings. I'd be driving close to the speed limit. I wouldn't have time to drink and drive.

As for walking and driving, according to the 2001 National Household travel survey (see link here)

The death rate for walkers is 4.74 / 10 million hours walked.
The death rate for drivers is 2.90 / 10 million hours driven.

So even if I walked an hour every day and drove two hours to and from work each day for ten years, the odds of me dying are:

4.74 / 10,000,000 * 3,650 = 0.00173
2.90 / 10,000,000 * 7,330 = 0.00213

Total = 0.00386 which is about the same chance of dying for having a living liver transplant.

Interestingly enough the walking deaths increase to about 10.3/10,000,000 in the 35-49 male age group while the driving risk does not change. I guess my point is that I think it's far more important to be available to raise your kids than to participate in a risky activity to lose your life.

By the way, the mortality rate per 10,000,000 hours of FLIGHT time is 40.3 for airlines and 107.4 for commuter planes. So for those folks who tell you that flying is safer than driving are wrong.
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AZDuffman
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August 14th, 2010 at 10:57:05 AM permalink
Quote: Nareed

Not at all.

While there were some people who wanted to end the program after each Shuttle accident, the reason the program ended is that it was too expensive and the fleet too old to keep flying.

BTW Challenger blew up on launch in 86, while Columbia broke up on re-entry in 2003. Both accidents were emminently preventible, and in fact NASA employees did try to prevent them.



Wasn't saying that was why they ended (though I did miss the date on Columbia) but rather all the call to end the program as "unsafe" among many people. Yes, both accidents were preventable but lots of things are preventable. 1986 was set to be a huge year for NASA and the cold weather was causing the very real possibility the whole year would fall apart. In the Columbia accident the better foam was not used because it contained CFCs and was replaced by a more "envrionmentally friendly" product. In any case it proves a point that most accidents can be prevented but at a cost. It is just that in the USA people keep demanding safety at any price, the cost being in both dollars and enjoyment of life.

For another example consider all those episode of "Modern Marvels" where they show construction workers building great things like the St Louis Arch. Today most would not be built.
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Nareed
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August 14th, 2010 at 11:08:22 AM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

Wasn't saying that was why they ended (though I did miss the date on Columbia) but rather all the call to end the program as "unsafe" among many people.



No, it was a dead-end, expensive launch vehicle that failed to meet expectations (of course, who knows what they were smoking at NASA when they hyped up expectations). It should have been canceled a lot earlier.

Columbia died early in 2003. Again NASA took over a year to make "improvements", but the program's been operating since. Had they shut it down for safety, they'd have done so earlier.


Quote:

Yes, both accidents were preventable but lots of things are preventable. 1986 was set to be a huge year for NASA and the cold weather was causing the very real possibility the whole year would fall apart.



Yeah, but there were tons of warnings about the seals in the boosters and cold weather. NASA didn't even look into the matter. The foam was a concern for years, but again nothing was done about it. For Columbia's last flight, NASA personnel knew the foam had struck the shuttle, and many wanted to inspect the damage. The top brass didn't, so the craft stayed in orbit with a gaping hole on the leading edge of a wing for nearly two weeks. That's unbelievable.

Nothing is or can be absolutely safe all the time. If people die everyday in traffic accidents, and every few months in airplane accidents, you have to expect they'll die every few years in space accidents.
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weaselman
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August 14th, 2010 at 11:29:12 AM permalink
Quote: boymimbo



By the way, the mortality rate per 10,000,000 hours of FLIGHT time is 40.3 for airlines and 107.4 for commuter planes. So for those folks who tell you that flying is safer than driving are wrong.



It's an unfair comparison to look at hours. Should be looking at per mile traveled rate, not per hour.
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cclub79
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August 14th, 2010 at 11:46:47 AM permalink
Quote: weaselman

It's an unfair comparison to look at hours. Should be looking at per mile traveled rate, not per hour.



I've always had a lot of problems with these comparisons as well. More because if you look at fatalies on a plane, about .1% might have something to do with your ability as a passenger (I'm not looking at ones where you are the pilot). Whereas in a car, you have a lot of controls to lower your fatality rate. Of course you can never eliminate the possibility, but if you don't drive drunk, recklessly, distractedly, or otherwise illegally, you will greatly reduce your personal fatality rate. Again, I don't think there is much you can do to lower your fatality rate on a commercial airliner, or a private plane for that matter.
Garnabby
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August 14th, 2010 at 11:59:39 AM permalink
Quote: Wizard

In my opinion you have to look at the value of both lives and the probability the transplant will kill the donor. That probability is quite low, otherwise organ transplants would not be as routine as they are. So I say the donor did the right thing, and his family should be proud of him.




Are live-organ transplants "routine"? Dr. Treleaven, a nephrologist at St Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton where apparently they do about 40 live-donor kidney transplants a year, told me a month ago, "5% of donated kidneys will encounter immediate problems, of which 4 of those percents can be overcome, leaving 1% to fail. And though "they can do wonders these days", even some of the donors over the years have developed serious domino-effect complications... such as ultimately contracting antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria." (I'm moving through a fairly-long and dreary screening process, after having been told of the match to my wife... or more-importanly, of the non-interaction(s) when our samples were crossed.)

I remarked that that 1% sounds a bit high, because at "the tables", that sort of event is not that uncommon. To which he assured me that that isn't the only, or necessarily the proper or best, way to look at it. Dialysis eg, for the recipient (and his/her family,) and the medical system, remains a costly-endeavor in more ways than one.

When you're in that position, the probabilities, etc, tend to mean very little as to a decision one way or the other. Some could be told there's virtually-zero risk, but still decline out of eg, primitive fears of surgery of any sort. It's not really a matter of "unselfishness".

In any case, i prefer to believe (and hope) that such screening processes are in place everywhere, and being followed to all the considerations involved.
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mkl654321
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August 14th, 2010 at 2:54:57 PM permalink
Quote: Garnabby


In any case, i prefer to believe (and hope) that such screening processes are in place everywhere, and being followed to all the considerations involved.



It all comes down to quantifying the risk of death, which in turn involves quantifying the value of an individual life. We consider this to be abhorrent, but the fact of the matter is that we make such calculations ALL THE TIME. Warfare is such a calculation--we sacrifice X number of young lives to prevent greater loss of life. Triage--treat the person most likely to survive (and therefore, more "valuable"). Pollution--allow some cancer, etc. deaths as a price for greater productivity, well-being, etc. of the population.

By "quantifying the risk of death", I mean not in an actuarial sense, but in the sense of the overall effect of a given person's death. The quantifiable RoD of an inmate on death row would be very low (and in a perhaps dystopian world, we might offer such a person a modest sum in order to be a transplant donor); the quantifiable RoD of a father with three small children might be so large as for society to forbid him to be a transplant donor at all.

Thus, such a sober calculation would involve multiplying the actuarial RoD (1%, let's say, in the case of a transplant donor) by the value of the qualitative RoD (how many lives would be affected by this person's death?). Raise the actuarial RoD to, say, ten percent, and we would probably start to get very nervous about a father and husband undertaking such a risk, informed or not. However, we would have no qualms about the death row inmate being given a check for $10,000; we would say, "go for it", even if the actuarial RoD was more like 50%.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.---George Bernard Shaw
Wizard
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August 14th, 2010 at 3:30:12 PM permalink
I admit I'm not an expert, by any means, of the success rates of transplants. It is also easier to say that you would volunteer to be a donor as a hypothetical question than if the situation actually occurs. Such was the thrust of a whole season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. All I have to say is that if you consider the probabilities and lives affected, if donating results in more overall expected happiness to all people involved, then donating is the right thing to do.

Now, hopefully nobody will quote this back to me if one of my brothers ask for a kidney :-).
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mkl654321
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August 14th, 2010 at 4:47:54 PM permalink
Quote: Wizard

I admit I'm not an expert, by any means, of the success rates of transplants. It is also easier to say that you would volunteer to be a donor as a hypothetical question than if the situation actually occurs. Such was the thrust of a whole season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. All I have to say is that if you consider the probabilities and lives affected, if donating results in more overall expected happiness to all people involved, then donating is the right thing to do.

Now, hopefully nobody will quote this back to me if one of my brothers ask for a kidney :-).



Well, if you were a conservative Christian, who took the Bible literally, you should factor in how appealing or unappealing his wife is, since if he died, you would be obligated to marry her.

I suppose the equation should look like this: EV(donation)= (value of successful donation x .99)- (negative value of failed donation x .01). Of course, if the donor dies from complications, but the recipient lives, is that a failed donation, or a successful one?? Whichever way you argue it, there is probably positive EV if the probability of failure is indeed something like .01, and that +EV would shrink rather quickly as that probability went up.

I would also be highly suspicious of the 1% number being that low. It would be highly unlikely if you could actually decrease the kidney function of even a healthy individual by 50% without inflicting some long-term health consequences.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.---George Bernard Shaw
Garnabby
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August 15th, 2010 at 7:03:32 AM permalink
Quote: mkl654321

I would also be highly suspicious of the 1% number being that low. It would be highly unlikely if you could actually decrease the kidney function of even a healthy individual by 50% without inflicting some long-term health consequences.




I don't know as much more about the liver-transplantation, except that a donor's will eventually grow back to its original size.

Other interesting points about kidney-transplantation, which i forgot to include earlier, or which seemed less-consequential then:

1. Removal from a donor's back-side is more surgically-difficult than re-attaching it inside the front of the recipient;

2. The donor is left with 70% original kidney-capacity. Fine, unless the donor "gets stabbed" in his other one, since we need not even the whole function of one of our kidneys to well sustain us throughout our lives;

3. Recipient carries also the bulk of minor risks (, up to the point of a "disaster" or failure when the donor-organ fails to re-start,) including the strictly-timed anti-rejection "cocktail" for the life of the kidney. Donor's base blood-pressure may increase; he/she may have difficulty qualifying for life/travel -insurance, may experience other forms of discrimation; etc.
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mkl654321
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August 15th, 2010 at 11:48:44 AM permalink
Quote: Garnabby


2. The donor is left with 70% original kidney-capacity. Fine, unless the donor "gets stabbed" in his other one, since we need not even the whole function of one of our kidneys to well sustain us throughout our lives;



I'm a bit confused here. Obviously, the donor has only half the CAPACITY he had, as well as half the function--but if the capacity of an intact kidney system (two) is 140% of what is actually used, then I could see how that diminished capacity could now serve 70% of the donor's needs. However, two things would bother me: one, the remaining kidney is now running "full-throttle", not at 5/7 of its actual capacity, as it was when it had a teammate. Two, 70% is not 100%. I would expect the donor to have some blood toxicity issues, and almost certainly, blood pressure problems.

The other major issue would be simple physical danger, which is why, I believe, doctors discourage donors from participating in hazardous/contact sports. There's a reason we have two kidneys. A transplant donor would be like a twin-engine aircraft with one failed engine---the aircraft can still stay aloft, but only by running the remaining engine at full power, and the plane will fly more slowly and be less maneuverable.
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AZDuffman
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August 15th, 2010 at 12:10:58 PM permalink
Quote: Nareed

For Columbia's last flight, NASA personnel knew the foam had struck the shuttle, and many wanted to inspect the damage. The top brass didn't, so the craft stayed in orbit with a gaping hole on the leading edge of a wing for nearly two weeks. That's unbelievable.

Nothing is or can be absolutely safe all the time. If people die everyday in traffic accidents, and every few months in airplane accidents, you have to expect they'll die every few years in space accidents.



Even if they had inspected it, what could they have done? No way to fix it. No way to use a spare craft. Can't stay up there until one or the other of the formers is possible. IMHO, better to try to land it than tell a crew "you will all probably die."

The second part is true but you are missing my point. NASA didn't call to end things on "safety" concerns but rather so many people in the country at-large as well as the media. NASA has the more realistic approach that death, while we try to minimize it, will happen. It is just that part of the population that hears something is "unsafe" and wants it eliminated.
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Nareed
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August 15th, 2010 at 12:22:46 PM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

Even if they had inspected it, what could they have done?



They could have tried to do something.

Quote:

No way to fix it. No way to use a spare craft. Can't stay up there until one or the other of the formers is possible. IMHO, better to try to land it than tell a crew "you will all probably die."



The mission lasted nearly two weeks. That's time enough to come up with a solution, not to mention Columbia could have stayed up several days longer. Perhaps a makeshift repair kit could be sent in an unmanned rocket. Columbia lacked the fuel to reach the ISS, but perhaps something could be done about that, loft a booster, lower the ISS's orbit, even. Perhaps even launch one of the three other shuttles on a rescue mission. Not on a moment's notice, but in nearly 18-days notice.

Point is NASA's management just buried their heads in the sand and hoped nothing bad would happen.

BTW, foam is still coming off in shuttle launches.
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Garnabby
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August 15th, 2010 at 2:14:48 PM permalink
Quote: mkl654321

I'm a bit confused here. Obviously, the donor has only half the CAPACITY he had, as well as half the function--but if the capacity of an intact kidney system (two) is 140% of what is actually used, then I could see how that diminished capacity could now serve 70% of the donor's needs.




Good point, and explanation of which i hadn't thought. I suppose that is what differentiates the medical experts from the laymen as myself. If things go ahead as planned this winter, i will ask my surgeon beforehand about that.

Incidentally again... one surgeon removes it, and another inserts it.
Why bet at all, if you can be sure? Anyway, what constitutes a "good bet"? - The best slots-game in town; a sucker's edge; or some gray-area blackjack-stunts? (P.S. God doesn't even have to exist to be God.)
AZDuffman
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August 15th, 2010 at 3:03:00 PM permalink
Quote: Nareed

They could have tried to do something.



The mission lasted nearly two weeks. That's time enough to come up with a solution, not to mention Columbia could have stayed up several days longer. Perhaps a makeshift repair kit could be sent in an unmanned rocket. Columbia lacked the fuel to reach the ISS, but perhaps something could be done about that, loft a booster, lower the ISS's orbit, even. Perhaps even launch one of the three other shuttles on a rescue mission. Not on a moment's notice, but in nearly 18-days notice.

Point is NASA's management just buried their heads in the sand and hoped nothing bad would happen.

BTW, foam is still coming off in shuttle launches.




Maybe, maybe not. We seem to think anytime there is a problem we can solve it or at least try. Sometimes things just cannot be done. Then, too, there the cost/risk of doing nothing. A damaged craft in space is not going to get better the longer it stays up. Finally, while hindsight is 20/20; at the time it might not occour to look. Happens all the time after a disaster. People say, "Why didn't you look at 'x'?" Answer is "I had no reason to do so since 'x' was never a problewm before.:
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mkl654321
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August 15th, 2010 at 3:37:24 PM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

Maybe, maybe not. We seem to think anytime there is a problem we can solve it or at least try. Sometimes things just cannot be done. Then, too, there the cost/risk of doing nothing. A damaged craft in space is not going to get better the longer it stays up. Finally, while hindsight is 20/20; at the time it might not occour to look. Happens all the time after a disaster. People say, "Why didn't you look at 'x'?" Answer is "I had no reason to do so since 'x' was never a problewm before.:



Actually, given the unproved nature of the technology used in the space program in general, and the hostile, dangerous, and remote natures of the environments in which astronauts work, the total casualty count since the space program began is astonishingly low. In the case of the space shuttles, two of them having blown up/been destroyed is probably the "under" rather than the "over", given the long time most of them have been in service and the number of missions flown.

The astronauts themselves realize this; in the final analysis, they are all test pilots. And test pilots die. It's the nature of the work. It's impossible to plan for every contingency, as you say. Sometimes the only way to detect a design flaw is to put in in the field, as it were, and observe when it causes a failure. The Challenger disaster was caused, in part, by the designers of the craft not bothering to plan for the contingency of a launch in Florida with the ambient temperature near freezing. But should they have done so, given their finite time and resources?
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Nareed
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August 15th, 2010 at 5:07:11 PM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

A damaged craft in space is not going to get better the longer it stays up.



No, but the longer it stays up, the longer you have to implement a solution.

Finally, while hindsight is 20/20; at the time it might not occour to look. Happens all the time after a disaster. People say, "Why didn't you look at 'x'?" Answer is "I had no reason to do so since 'x' was never a problewm before.:



Agreed, but that wasn't the case in either shuttle accident. Engineers in NASA knew about burn-throughs in the solid boosters in cold weather, and about damage by foam strikes during launch. This wasn't like the metal fatigue that brought down the Comet, or the volcanic ash that shut down a 747's four engines at the same time.
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AZDuffman
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August 15th, 2010 at 5:31:48 PM permalink
Quote: Nareed

No, but the longer it stays up, the longer you have to implement a solution.



But that is also more time for the craft to develop even more problems. In life you do not have an infinate amount of time to solve problems. You cannot have fail-safe's for fail-safe's for fail-safe's. And the more we discuss this the more you are making my point for me about people in the USA refusing to accept any level of risk.


Quote:

Agreed, but that wasn't the case in either shuttle accident. Engineers in NASA knew about burn-throughs in the solid boosters in cold weather, and about damage by foam strikes during launch. This wasn't like the metal fatigue that brought down the Comet, or the volcanic ash that shut down a 747's four engines at the same time.



Engineers know about all kinds of problems on all kinds of things. They are paid to think of them. They are also paid to make balance. Lets take the foam. One kind breaks off and an engineer is told it breaks off so they should use "Foam B" which does not break off as easily. But the engineer says, "The problem with that is that 'Foam B' does not disperse the heat as well as what we are currently using. This could cause the whole thing to overheat." So NASA keeps using the foam they were using.

I'm not saying this is exactly what happened or even what might have happened. What I am saying is after a disaster many people will try to say, "See I told you so!" when in fact deisions are a long process.

Back to the Shuttle. It was designed in the early 1970s and took flight in I believe 1981. Allowing for some rounding that is 30 years of flight. I say that is gd good for a spacecraft. Consider how weak computing power was back then. Consider anything that must last 30 years. Consider this--the Space Shuttle has been in use for over half of the time of the space race if you assume 1959 and Sputnik as the beginning. 1959-1979 = 20 years. 1980-2010 = 30 years. In 20 years we went from something the size of a baseball orbiting the earth and beeping a radio signal to a reusable spacecraft.

The Shuttle isn't and was never perfect--but science is about gathering data and experementation, perfection is rare in science.
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Nareed
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August 16th, 2010 at 6:58:43 AM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

Engineers know about all kinds of problems on all kinds of things. They are paid to think of them.



In aviation the most dangerous times of any normal flight are landing and takeoff. In rocketry it's launch and re-entry. Now, would you say that having superheated gasses escape from the boosters just inches away from a thin-skinned hydrogen tanks is dangerous? Would you say that having parts of the heat shield missing from the hottest areas durig re-entry is dangerous?

That's not hindsight, it's staring you in the face and the bureucrats ignore it.
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AZDuffman
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August 16th, 2010 at 4:42:57 PM permalink
Quote: Nareed

In aviation the most dangerous times of any normal flight are landing and takeoff. In rocketry it's launch and re-entry. Now, would you say that having superheated gasses escape from the boosters just inches away from a thin-skinned hydrogen tanks is dangerous? Would you say that having parts of the heat shield missing from the hottest areas durig re-entry is dangerous?

That's not hindsight, it's staring you in the face and the bureucrats ignore it.



Getting anywhere near a rocket is dangerous. So was a "flying machine" (Wright Bros) so was riding on top of explosive gasoline (Henry Ford) so was venuring into the ocean on a < 20ft ship with no idea how far it was to get where you were going (Columbus.)

These people didn't ignore it, they made a cost/benefit decision. But again you are making my point about so many folks in the USA saying "too dangerous" to pushing the envelope. I think I will now retire on this thread.
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Nareed
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August 16th, 2010 at 4:59:36 PM permalink
Quote: AZDuffman

These people didn't ignore it, they made a cost/benefit decision. But again you are making my point about so many folks in the USA saying "too dangerous" to pushing the envelope. I think I will now retire on this thread.



I don't think so.

There are dangers in normal operations that can't be foreseen nor prevented. Those are the ones you take into account in cost/benefit calcualtions, and you either live with them or find another line fo work. But leaking boosters and breaking heatshields are not normal operations.

Let me try an analogy: you know our car can, even with good maintenance, malfunction somewhat catastrofically. Say a fluid line to the power steering may break, leaving you without control; or a brake fluid line may leak, leaving you without brakes (that happend to me once, fortunately I was going very slowly at the time). If such thigns happen, there are thigns you can do with your experience as a driver to minimize negative effects, and safety features in the car which will also give you some protection.

Now suppose a design flaw on your car made a little fuel leak onto the hot engine every time you press on the gas pedal. Now further suppose in cold weather chances are 90% for the leak being big enough to blow up and set fire to the car. Would you still live with that cost/benefit calculation, or would you correct the design flaw?


There's risk, then there's being reckless with known risks.
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mkl654321
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August 16th, 2010 at 5:10:15 PM permalink
Horrible analogy. There have been literally billions of automobile trips. The dangers are well-known and quantified. The technology has been tested and re-tested, in the laboratory and the field, for over a hundred years. None of those things is true for the space shuttle.

To put it another way, your analogy would be correct if you were referring to 1896, when there were half a dozen cars in existence, and only a handful of people in the world even knew how to drive them.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.---George Bernard Shaw
Nareed
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August 16th, 2010 at 5:23:35 PM permalink
Quote: mkl654321

Horrible analogy.



Fine. Here's a better one:

Rockets work best if the fuel and oxidizer are hot. Alas, most fuels and oxidizers require ultra-low temperatures to stay liquid. One way fo dealing with this problem is to pipe the cryogenic fuel through the walls of the combustion chamber and exhaust cone, this also serves as the chamber's cooling system

Now, would you consider a leak in that cooling system to be dangerous? Because while it might blow up the entire engine assembly, then burn up through broken fuel lines, it would take time and possibly not reach the main tank right away. The leaking shuttle's boosters were sending superheated gasses ritgh at the main tank.

BTW, the shuttle used that cooling system for its engines. This tells you the main engines were amazingly good and well cared for, since they never had a leak in several uses.
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Garnabby
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July 1st, 2011 at 6:40:51 AM permalink
My left kidney was very-successfully transplanted to my wife on May 18. In fact, her young nephrologist jokingly(?) remarked that her restored kidney-function probably exceeded his own. Not a lot of pain for me, speaking for myself, which involved the harder procedure... the transplanted kidneys are placed in the front.

Just thought i'd update this thread, now that it's over... something real instead of the boatloads of garbage docked daily at virtually all of the internet sites, not to mention the gambling-related ones.

Upon further inspection, looks like mkl#'s is still merrily wasting away his hours, now pushing some sort of imaginery envelope with (the always biased mod's)... in my humble opinion of course, lol.

To answer his remaining question, my remaining kidney will grow about 30%... to bring its total function up to 70%; though i may persue the same activities as before, and expect to live as long.



Ciao, maybe in ten years i'll drop by again, to see what new "bragging rights" the Wiz, and others, have accrued... double lol.
Why bet at all, if you can be sure? Anyway, what constitutes a "good bet"? - The best slots-game in town; a sucker's edge; or some gray-area blackjack-stunts? (P.S. God doesn't even have to exist to be God.)
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