I see your point financially, however you’re just undervaluing the cost of highly-public deaths then. If a couple missions in a row for any manned program resulted in astronauts being incinerated, it costs the full future value of whole program, because astronauts won’t go on it anymore and the public will also demand its end.
Right, that's a PR issue. It's ultimately because the space program is not actually producing much of tangible value, but rather a perception of value. A program that is producing airy PR is vulnerable to bad PR.
The government has no problem with programs producing tangible value that also cost lives. Consider the military, police, search and rescue, and really any activity where people do anything with nonzero risk. The lives lost are part of the cost.
[−]true_religion · 2026-11-15 Sun 18:13 UTC ·
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Right. If the space shuttle was crucial to national security or even financial success, politicians would spare no expense in telling the public that blood needed be shed to protect the ongoing accumulation of wealth en infinitum.
But since it's a science project more akin to basic research than anything with a ROI formula attached, then even one death is one death too many.
One death isn't too many. It's a matter of too high a probability of general random catastrophe.
Example: Astronaut Tim goes on an EVA to perform an emergency repair after a micrometeorite damaged the space station. A malfunction of his space suit kills him. Everyone agrees that Tim died a hero doing a high-risk activity that needed to be done, and almost no one would say it means we can't do spacewalks or can't send astronauts to space anymore.
Compare to Challenger or Columbia: The whole crew dies randomly on the way up or down during a routine mission. A program which became known for having like, a 10% chance of that happening would be horrifying (in my opinion).
The government has no problem with programs producing tangible value that also cost lives. Consider the military, police, search and rescue, and really any activity where people do anything with nonzero risk. The lives lost are part of the cost.
But since it's a science project more akin to basic research than anything with a ROI formula attached, then even one death is one death too many.
Example: Astronaut Tim goes on an EVA to perform an emergency repair after a micrometeorite damaged the space station. A malfunction of his space suit kills him. Everyone agrees that Tim died a hero doing a high-risk activity that needed to be done, and almost no one would say it means we can't do spacewalks or can't send astronauts to space anymore.
Compare to Challenger or Columbia: The whole crew dies randomly on the way up or down during a routine mission. A program which became known for having like, a 10% chance of that happening would be horrifying (in my opinion).