Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2026 Poal.co

600

To lose a human life is a tragedy, and it costs a lot to train an astronaut. But it costs many times more to minimize each and every risk to the astronaut. If we were to simply train astronauts in larger classes and accept that, say, 20% of them will die progress could be made much more quickly. There would still be no shortage of applicants and in the larger scheme of things rapid progress in space science would save many more lives. So why wasn't that the approach of the space program?

To lose a human life is a tragedy, and it costs a lot to train an astronaut. But it costs many times more to minimize each and every risk to the astronaut. If we were to simply train astronauts in larger classes and accept that, say, 20% of them will die progress could be made much more quickly. There would still be no shortage of applicants and in the larger scheme of things rapid progress in space science would save many more lives. So why wasn't that the approach of the space program?

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (14).
[–] • 0 pt

In the early days ('60s) it was important not to have embarrassing failures that could be exploited by the commies in propaganda. The commies were more secretive and we didn't learn of their fatalities until much later. Also, space pioneers were seen as heroes, so losing them would upset people and perhaps undermine support for the space program, which at the time was an important part of the cold war.

We should perhaps make it into more of a "pioneering" presentation and begin preparing people for the fact that pioneers are risking their lives and that more of the them will probably die.