re: Manned space exploration
You're forgetting something: since the beginning of manned spaceflight, there has been about 200 missions. All but 9 of these missions have been to LEO.
Of those 9 non-LEO missions, there were serious problems on several of them and near disaster on Apollo 13. We don't have enough non-LEO flights to compare accurately with the LEO missions, but since those missions first had to go through the dangerous liftoff phase before proceeding to add even more danger with the landings, EVAs, a much faster reentry, etc.