[brian]

Certainly the acceptance of risk is a key issue. Unfortunately, I don't think it's simply a case of acceptance of potential loss of human life, as much as very much the financial risks.

After all, the shuttle fleet has always been a very expensive project. And with Columbia gone and the fleet grounded, it's hit the US manned space program quite directly - which is especially embarrassing considering the still quite unfinished state of the ISS.

The problem is that we really need a reason to actually face that risk in the first place.

During the Cold War, the risks - financial and human - of putting men on the moon, for example, was always worth achieving - a way of expounding the ideology supremacy of one over the other, and military prowress to boot.

Now we're very much lacking that sense of drive. What we need to be able to do is find a way to be comfortable with it, even in peace time.