Comment by pjc50
Even the Soviet space programme, in the decades after losing something like twenty million lives in a war that everyone would rather have avoided, was not reckless with the lives of its astronauts. Because the astronauts and their training are themselves a valuable asset.
There's probably a lot to be written about the precise moral boundary, but Western culture is very against missions which are definitely suicidal while OK with those that merely have a very high chance of getting you killed.
>Because the astronauts and their training are themselves a valuable asset.
Magellan, Hudson, Cook and a litany of others were certainly not cheap cannon fodder. Yet they were allowed to take on immense personal risk and risk to their crews, above and beyond the standards of the time because it was deemed worth it.
There is a fine line between reckless and acceptable risk. The cost of such endeavors absolutely pales in comparison to the long term potential for wealth creation for the rest of humanity by making the resources of other planets reachable. I think that we as a society should be slightly more willing to let people take upon serious risk of death in the pursuit of societal progress.