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That suspicion would be wrong. Spaceflight isn't something that you can wing, even if you are completely callous as to human life. Missions over long distances
by troutwine 11y ago
That suspicion would be wrong. Spaceflight isn't something that you can wing, even if you are completely callous as to human life. Missions over long distances with very low margin for error imply an attention to detail that doesn't have an analog in early aviation. Even more, each human you kill in spaceflight is the loss of a highly-trained, highly-skilled engineering / pilot. They aren't just goofs along for a rocket trip.
Similar story in modern aviation. Some things are just too expensive to get wrong. Some things are too specific to get wrong. Spaceflight is both.
- mcguire 11y agoYou're probably right. A closer analogy would probably be sea voyages in the "age of discovery", but in that case you didn't need skilled people; you didn't even need willing people. On the other hand, all of the test pilots killed by the Cutlass (and most killed by aviation since Thomas Selfridge) were highly-skilled people.
- troutwine 11y agoQuite so. I guess it depends on where you draw the line at "modern". I was implicitly lumping anything past the jet age in as "modern".