3 ms·

We've also got a much lower appetite for risk.

• timdiggerm 11y ago
  Challenger _really_ screwed things up
  • ska 11y ago
    I don't think that's true, or rather it didn't help but it's not the problem. The program wasn't doing so many interesting things before Challenger, either. I think the "space race" was born with the seeds of its own doom. Wanting to beat the Russians to the moon provided the political and economic will to put a huge effort into the Apollo program - but after that was achieved the interest evaporated. If you are more interested in the pissing contest than the science and exploration, it isn't surprising that the latter gets short shrift in the long run.
• username223 11y ago
  Yes, death and pain used to be much cheaper. Just look at how they took out kidney stones before anesthesia.
• stcredzero 11y ago
  Maybe we need more gentleman adventurers willing to further the patriotic cause by living for a year and a half in a small sunless box, risking horrible death and scurvy? These guys went for years subsisting on mostly meat-like substances preserved with 19th century technology and structural biscuits. Actually, Robert Zubrin advocated such an approach for years. Mars One shows that there are plenty who would volunteer for such a thing. Hell, Mars One crew are essentially volunteering for semi-solitary exile unto death. I wonder if the Chinese or Russians are going to go the, "So it's risky? Screw It!" route?