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That is a utilitarian argument!

It is an implicit agreement that some quantity of available assets will be subjected to a certain level of risk in order to insure that one man is not left behind. The implicit agreement is not made because it is sustainable in an environment when a large number of marines require a sacrifice of multiples of their number to be rescued, but because of the number of marines who are at risk of being left behind and the quantity of assets that are available to insure that does not happen.

When considering what risk will be undertaken, you have to appreciate that limits to what assets are even defined as available are imposed by what has been certified as battle ready, which is essentially a risk assessment about a unit's likelihood of survival in an engagement with the types of enemies it is designed for. Or, to consider extremes, we don't field child soldiers, and wouldn't even if it were the only way to make the difference between rescuing a marine behind enemy lines or not.

Perhaps tens, or even hundreds of millions, of dollars per astronaut life does not yet venture into the exotic territory where commonplace statements about "sparing no cost" are meaningless, but it is unrealistic to assert that no cost is so great that you would ever choose to compromise your norms instead.




You're ignoring that the military's job is to the defeat the enemy. If a marine is down, then the operation to rescue him/her by necessity involves defeating or inflicting a severe blow to the enemy.

The same is arguably true of a shuttle rescue mission for that matter: having never been done, the thinking and technological requirements of such a thing, and the grand experiment of seeing if it all works, would be worth the effort.

As noted, since the Colombia disaster NASA took to prepping "launch on necessity" shuttle missions.


I guess it is; but you made it. I say, people need to know they have backup; then they will exert themselves to the utmost.




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