Letting your mind wander into the future is not a defense of cowardly politicians and PR bullshit artists being allowed to cripple a technical and engineering program so we lose wonderful heroes like this crew.
Your comment caused my thoughts to go back to the Challenger tragedy. I told my family at the time it was a media-political calamity, and I still believe that.
Shuttle launches in those days were big news. As I recall there had been two previous launch delays for repairs. The delays were accompanied by a rising media howl suggesting that NASA, like everything else they despised in the Reagan Administration, was incompetent. Even before that fateful morning I had been concerned that NASA officials would let PR, not solid technical judgment, influence the launch.
When I turned on the TV and saw them knocking icicles off the equipment I began to get a very bad feeling. It increased as it became clear that NASA was going for launch in temperatures and conditions never before experienced. I knew nothing about 0-rings or other technical stuff -- I only had a certainty in the pit of my stomach this was not a good time to worry about media intimidation. I don't know if I'd have had the job-security and peer-pressure courage to call the launch off that morning even though Thiokol engineers themselves were recommending it -- there's something very powerful about knowing you're appearing on multi-millions of TV screens around the world. But it's terrible that someone didn't have the authority and political protection to tell the media to go push a rope.
Of course NASA was itself responsible for the particularly intense media attention with its decision to showboat by sending a teacher into space. This was a pure PR move to convince Congress more money was needed to broaden NASA's mission.
Those of us that wander into the future cannot be constrained by the thieves and or politicians. You well know if we did that, all would be lost. Exploration is not a defense of anyone or any system. God made man to wonder, if not for that we would still be living as savages in Africa.
Losses??? There is always a price to be paid, in life and in treasure. The explorer does the best he can, with what he has, leaving the nay sayers behind.
Without risk there is no reward.
There may be some valid reasons for ending the Space Shuttle program, but mere danger should not be one of them.