You don't have to look any further than recent military actions in Iraq to see countless examples of great courage. There are also plenty of people who, in nonmilitary situations, show great courage. Dr. Thor Heyerdahl and his like come to mind, as do the pilots at Scaled Composites.

I think part of the problem with risk adversion comes from bureaucracies rather than individuals. In my studies of military history, one of my favorite people was General Kenney, commander of the 5th Air Force in WWII. The 5th AF served in the Pacific Theater at a time when the ETO got all of the priorities. Kenney had to operate a rag-tag operation across vast distances with limited supplies against a strong and determined enemy. He recognized talent and let his people innovate with field modifications such as the ones developed by Greg "Pappy" Gunn*. Kenney showed great leadership under very trying conditions. Today, the aircraft development bureaucracy would go nuts if a pilot tried to do 1/100th of the things that Gunn did back then. Kenney wasn't one to tolerate the bureaucracy.

NASA as an organization has to walk a fine line. They were soundly (and justly) criticized for having "Go Fever", leading to the Apollo 1 fire and 3 deaths. Every now and then, they fall victim to it again, such as the events leading to the Challenger explosion. Being dependent on federal spending for its existance, NASA has to try to live up to the public's expectation of daring while at the same time being risk adverse.

More than anything, something seems to have changed in our society where we've grown so risk adverse as to be cowards. There are several possible explainations, such as the explosion of lawsuits, but those may be more symptoms rather than causes. In my more cynical moments, I believe we've become a nation of children** unwilling to accept responsibility for our own actions. When we (the collective we) do something that results in injury, it must be someone else's fault instead of our own. It seems so many people want to be able to do anything they want but refuse to accept the consequences of their actions. The root of this is selfishness. When nothing is as important as one's own self interests, then anything that threatens those interests must be opposed.

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

*After the war, General Kenney wrote a biography of Pappy Gunn. I read it in 1990. This book was the first time a general had ever written a subordinate's biography. It's titled "The
Saga of Pappy Gunn" and is a good book, long out of print. I'd love to have a copy.

** If I ever write a book of social criticism, it'll be titled "A Nation of Children." One of the biggest distinguishing characterists between adults and children is the acceptance of personal responsibility for one's acts. Both legally and morally, a child isn't held accountable for his acts because he lacks the maturity to know right from wrong. An adult accepts responsibility. This is hardly a new concept, being the heart of the Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies.