fitzomania

Do you personally support challenge trials to speed COVID vaccine development?

To me, it seems that with healthy, young, willing volunteers, there will be very few fatalities and each one will compare to thousands of deaths prevented by faster vaccine rollout. The choice seems obvious to me, although it's still generating a lot of controversy. We ask firefighters to enter burning buildings, soldiers to go on patrols, and policemen to raid drug dens, how is this form of willing endangerment any more ethically dubious?

I think you're right that financial desperation muddies the waters, but I don't think the #metoo comparison really sticks. These volunteers aren't being cornered by producers in a hotel room and choosing between a movie career or obscurity, they're providing a life-saving service to humanity as a whole and being compensated for the risk. Would they make the same potential sacrifice without economic need? Maybe not, but I don't really think it matters in the face of this global calamity. Those who die, die as heroes so that tens of thousands can live

I have always loved space, I am nearly finished with my mechanical engineering degree and I just had an internship at NASA Langley last fall. My dream job is designing spacecraft such as the ISS or Mars Landers, do you have any advice for an aspiring engineer who wants almost exactly your old job?