Man-Rated rockets are the minimum-wage of rocketry.

Allow me to explain. Human spacecraft development programs (commercial or otherwise) are constantly beleaguered by the decree that the booster which must loft them into orbit be “man-rated” before any humans are allowed on-board. This accepted fallacy has led to an endless cycle of white paper studies and analyses of systems that must be made triply redundant, cross-coupled, and even heterogenic. Unshockingly, the costs associated with these changes are then deemed too exorbitant to justify investment and the booster’s prospects for carrying passengers becomes a non-starter and white paper studies are destined to begin again at some unknown future date.

However, whom decided this substance as to what man-rating consists of? Is not man-rating a booster simply to define a level of safety sufficient such that someone is willing to ride on it? Isn’t this level of safety driven by the market and not by a public aerospace servant? Why not find out what the willing passengers are willing to bear in terms of risk? And if we can’t find any willing passengers, then maybe those that strap themselves on top of launch vehicles at present need to question whether or not they truly possess the boldness that is required in being a pioneer.

Hence the minimum wage comparison. Minimum wage should be the minimum amount that people are willing to charge for their labor. But it isn’t. It’s the amount that the government decided is the minimum satisfactory amount. And man-rating should be the minimum amount of safety that customers are willing to accept to ride a rocket. But it isn’t. It’s a level of over-engineering decided by the government which is the minimum satisfactory level.

The Atlas V has had 20 out of 21 launch successes, and even the failed launch reached a safe (albeit lower) orbit. It is not “man-rated”. But it is “James-rated”; even without further modification- I would hop on it at the earliest opportunity.