An Unreasonable Standard
Why is it that when there’s a tragic death in space travel and exploration, it’s considered a huge black eye and a major setback for the entire endeavor, but not with anything else?
There are tens of thousands of deaths in automobiles each year; why isn’t that a setback for the car industry?
There is a very high death rate for serious mountain climbers; Mt. Blanc along accounts for about a hundred deaths a year. Why is not each new death a setback for the sport?
In fact, insurance companies regularly estimate the number of deaths in any particular industry over certain projects or periods of time.
So why is it that, apparently, only in space flight, is a death rate seen as unacceptable? Did anyone really expect that such an endeavor would never expect an accidental death?