A far greater danger than infection, IMHO, is that Humankind shrivels up under the threat of fear-mongers and never ventures out of the womb.

This is an excellent point. Large-scale space travel will be essential for our long-term survival. Over centuries, the risk to our species of NOT moving out into space will be much greater that the intermittent risks we may undertake by doing it.

This is similar to the case made for industrial civilization, which points out that the overall risks of living in poverty are far greater than the intermittent risks (from pollution, etc.) of living in an industrial civilization.