Risk and Space

March 21, 2004

Last week NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe wrote an Op-Ed in the NY Times, Advancing Both Science and Safety, defending a risk-averse approach to space policy.

Two letters to the editor point out the folly of such a poliicy: "It is clear that the astronaut corps would not hesitate to assume the risk. Instead, the bureaucratic fear of a shuttle program failure is the main factor in NASA's reluctance to support a Hubble mission."

The fear of failure has come to dominate policy decisions instead of the hope for success. Exploration is always a high-risk endeavor. It is impossible to try to both explore space and mitigate all risk.

See Lonely Planet: Mars and Red Planet