Neil DeGrasse Tyson was on NPR's Science Friday today, talking about the future of manned exploration of the solar system. He made some powerful arguements, in sociological terms. I recommend the podcast. There are going to be a LOT of astronaut deaths during the next few generations of space exploration. It's part of the process and statistically, probably can't be helped. Remember that the men and women who volunteer for space exploration know all too well what the risks are. "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it", as the saying goes. They know. We owe them, they are made of better stuff than we. Just like our military who face mortal danger so the rest of us can live our lives in freedom. Of course we owe it to those brave pioneers to give them the best chance of survival that we can, but accidents happen, the unforseen always rears it's ugly head, and sh!t happens. We can't let fear and Ralph Nader rule our exploratory nature and need to expand and grow as a species. Manned exploration of space is a huge task, not something that's going to happen quickly. It will span generations- in the SHORT term. We need to stop thinking about it in terms of the next ten or twenty years. It's something that is going to take millenia, and cost many, many human lives and untold treasure to accomplish. We are good at reproduction, face it. There will be no shortage of eager volunteers to take us bravely into the future. It's going to take not just a national will, but the will of the entire species. Failure means that we become just another thin layer in the geological strata. Science-fiction has ruined our thinking, in practical terms. Manned exploration and colonization of space is something that will take so long, that our descendents who live the future we dream of, may even be further along the biological evolutionary scale than we are. I'm OK with that, and kind of proud of it. It doesn't all have to happen in the short time-span of a single human life. Or ten human lives. But it HAS to happen for our descendants to survive. We need to change the way we think, as a species, and stop being so divisive and fearful. Otherwise Malthus is correct, and we are doomed to starve to death, largely by own own actions (or, more precisely, inactions.)