Excellent article by Charles Krauthammer.

The point is that the first 150 or so miles of space travel -- braving the gravitational well of Earth and shooting through the atmosphere -- is the most difficult and dangerous; the next million miles are comparatively easy. Yet going up and down that first 150 miles is the least glorious, least inspiring of all space adventures; it is the stuff beyond low-Earth orbit that speaks to our yearning as a restless, seeking species. Everyone notes how Columbia's flight was almost totally ignored until disaster struck, but it is hard to excite people about a space truck taking off every couple of months on service missions.



Here, then, is the heart of the problem: The shuttle does nothing but this most dangerous, yet most mundane, short-haul trip, over and over and over again -- until the odds catch up with it.

The risk of catastrophe for a commercial jet is 1 in 2 million. For a fighter jet, it is 1 in 20,000. NASA's best estimate for the shuttle was 1 in 240. Our experience now tells us that it is about 1 in 50.

That is a fantastic risk. It can be justified -- but only for fantastic journeys. The ultimate problem with the shuttle is not O-rings or loose tiles but a mission that makes no sense. The launches are magnificent and inspiring. But the mission is to endlessly traverse the most dangerous part of space -- the thin envelope of the atmosphere -- to get in and out of orbit without going anywhere beyond. Yet it is that very beyond -- the moon, the asteroids, Mars -- that is the whole point of leaving Earth in the first place.

We slip the bonds of Earth not to spend 20 years in orbit studying zero-gravity nausea, but to set foot on new worlds, learn their mysteries, establish our presence.



When he talks about how bad the odds are at 1:50, it makes me think of those bomber crews in the 8th Air Force during WWII (especially 1943 and the first half of 1944) where the chances of surviving 25 missions without being shot down was damn near zero. Even knowing the terrible odds, the crews kept going on those missions. They had the courage to face those odds. In the end, more men from the 8th Air Force alone were killed than all of the Marine Corps during the war. Tens of thousands more were captured and spent the rest of the war as POWs.