(x-posted from the other submission marked dupe) It's fun imagining this attitude applied to the Space Race. >So we go to space. >That can be bad if they say

(x-posted from the other submission marked dupe) It's fun imagining this attitude applied to the Space Race. >So we go to space. >That can be bad if they say accidents happen. Maybe three of our guys die on the launchpad. Maybe a spacecraft is lost on recovery. >And we still go to space. >The ugly truth is that we believe in going to space so deeply that anything that allows us to go to space more is de facto good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned. >That's why all the work we do in space-going is justified. All the pure oxygen environments. All the hatch designs that can only be opened from the outside. All the ad hoc procedures and cheap wiring. The work we will likely have to do on the Moon some day. All of it.