"But it seems like ultimately someone is going to be pretty directly responsible." Or many people, or no one directly. Space missions come with calculated risk

"But it seems like ultimately someone is going to be pretty directly responsible." Or many people, or no one directly. Space missions come with calculated risk. So someone calculates the risk that this critical part brakes is 0.5% and then someone higher up says, that is acceptable and all move on - and then this part indeed brakes and people die. Who is to blame, when the calculation was indeed correct, but 0.5% chances still can happen (and itnwould be a lot)? And economic pressures are real, like the limits of physic? See Murpheys Law, "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." (Eventually, if done again and again) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy's_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy's_law Astronauts know, there is a risk with every mission, so do the engeneers, so does management. Still, I cannot imagine why anyone thought it was an acceptable risk, to use a 100% oxygen atmosphere with Apollo 1, where 3 Astronauts died in a fire. But that incident indeed changed a lot regarding safety procedures and thinking about safety. Still, some risk remain and you have to live with that. I am quite happy though, that in my line of work, the worst that can happen is a browser crash.