The Price of Progress

I never would have thought that my school work would be what I would stay up late thinking about, but alas, I was wrong. Below is a paper for one of my engineering classes that has been modified for this blog.

On May 6, 1937, a zeppelin called the Hindenburg blew up and crashed in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people perished. It was the most state-of-the-art, fastest, and most luxurious way to travel overseas at the time. It made 10 successful sea crossings the year before, but on this day, something went wrong. The hydrogen used to keep the craft afloat ignited and sent the ship down in a massive fireball. Fifty-six people managed to escape with their lives.

            Although helium had been known to be safer than hydrogen, the latter was chosen because it allowed the ship to maneuver easier. However, this choice ended up being the wrong one. The engineering community realized that hydrogen-filled airships were no longer the safest way to travel – even a small gas leak can lead to disaster. Thus, airship travel quickly dissipated.

            This failure has already shaped the present – there are currently no airships in service that are made for passenger transport. This is partly because airplanes are now more efficient. Also, society regards hydrogen with a lot more caution. Every time I think of the element, I think of the Hindenburg disaster. This is interesting because it shows a bit of human psychology. Why didn’t engineers just replace the hydrogen with helium and just sacrifice the mobility? People still ride on cruise liner ships on the ocean after the Titanic disaster. Why didn’t engineers think passengers wouldn’t ride on safer helium airships? Was it because the Titanic accident was clearly avoidable while the Hindenburg failure was unforeseen and unpredictable? The fear factor may have a big role in this case – fire is apparently scarier than water, falling is apparently scarier than drowning.

            It is worth noting at this point that airship advances were not completely abandoned. Regardless of what disaster happens, society goes back and fixes the problem and continues with the project. Humanity is a race of risk-takers. We all advance knowing that loss of life is possible. We all advance knowing that failure may happen. Even when it does happen, we recover, fix the problem, learn from the mistakes made, and continue on. This makes me wonder – what price do we actually put on a human life when we consider carrying out our projects for progress? This aspect of humanity leads us to think that we are willing to die to advance our technology and make life easier. It’s sort of an ironic existence.