Costing millions of dollars to operate per each operation of the Space Shuttle we have discovered much in the 20 plus years of operation. As every person knows there are inherient dangers in everday life, we all take calculated risks even in the smallest task. Reaching for an alarm clock, you can fall out of bed and hit your head on the floor killing you, but you still turn it off each morning. So too do scientist and explorers to each day, as they have since our human existance. It is risk that gets us farther, it is risk that drive innovation.
When we do not "have" to accomplish something, we believe the risk of something may be too great to even try. Had we not been threatened by the Soviet Union, we may have had a long delay in space flight. It is easy to see disaster and say "we should have never done that," but then too, we would have lost wisdom, expertise, and countless devices. Far too often we see danger and run from it, not allowing our minds to say "what if" we can get past that danger. Here, with space flight, we can learn much about a myriad of "what ifs." Is it costly? Of course. Should we do it, most probably. Lives are priceless and we should not use them as barganing chips with innovation. Many things can go wrong. This is a truth many believe, yet we still bargan on a much greater scale than the loss of single lives with the loss of millions of lives and even our existance.
More people are killed in a single day by accidental gun shots than have ever been killed in space flight. There are more suicides in a year than we have lost in Iraq. Over 17,000 people were killed by drunk drivers in 2000 ( click here ), yet we are scared to expore space and its options? A bit odd.
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