> It's the same doctrine that's behind ballistic missile submarines equipped with nuclear warheads.
Did you see the article "Unsug hero of the nuclear age" a couple of days ago (yesterday?) on HN. That would probably shake your confidence in human reliability when facing the choice to launch or not to launch a warhead. Please have a look.
> The second is less morbid-- the colonization of other planets.
We can send humans in space, but the technology part that is lacking is still there: we don't have the "know-how" to colonize other planets, and before sending people in space there's a lot of work to be done in that field.
> And sending people into space is how we're getting that know-how.
No, not at all. There's a bunch of other things we need to develop BEFORE sending people in space. That's my point. Putting people in a rocket is easy, but having them live, on their own, on a different planet is something else altogether.
Did you see the article "Unsug hero of the nuclear age" a couple of days ago (yesterday?) on HN. That would probably shake your confidence in human reliability when facing the choice to launch or not to launch a warhead. Please have a look.
> The second is less morbid-- the colonization of other planets.
We can send humans in space, but the technology part that is lacking is still there: we don't have the "know-how" to colonize other planets, and before sending people in space there's a lot of work to be done in that field.