The most dangerous crewed space mission ever was Apollo 8, with Borman, Lovell, and Anders orbiting the moon 10 times, and transmitting that iconic Earthrise photo from moon orbit -- the only way such a visage can be seen is from moon orbit, since the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth. Without orbit, the Earth does not rise from the Moon.

The thing is that Apollo 8 had more than one go/no-go decisions before they achieved lunar orbit. But once they got the final "Go" the burn happened on the far side of the Moon, when Apollo 8 was out of Earth contact. If that burn went badly, Apollo 8 could have either crashed into the Moon, or spun off into space.

Then, once they were in successful lunar orbit they had to make a similar burn, again from the far side, to put them on a trajectory back to Earth. If that burn fails, their dead bodies would still be orbiting the Moon in the Apollo 8 capsule.

NASA took some really big chances on Apollo 8. Everything had to work just right on the very first time that they tried any of it together.

After the Challenger disaster, one pundit remarked: "The history of aviation has been written with smoking holes in the ground."

Aviation continued, and spaceflight continued - after the Apollo 1 fire, the near disasters of Apollo 11, Apollo 13, or the actual disasters of Challenger and Columbia.

It's a fun read. "Oh god, please don't let me screw the pooch and auger in."

Film is very good, too. (Except the characterization of Gus Grissom.)

it would devastate the metal markets on earth - People would be driving around in platinum cars. She naively talks about comparing the present value market of platinum to a "What if" scenario. Bringing tons of any metal - gold, silver or even diamonds - to earth is never going to happen - the powers to be won't let it happen.

Nay-sayers have been proven wrong - again and again.

If they can sniff some dollars out of it then we would likely see private investment sky rocket and fund the space industry properly for once.

Also Nina needs to chat with Andrea Boyd(from my home town), try and follow in her steps and she will get an ESA job. http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/adelaideborn-engineer-is-the-aussie-voice-of-europe-for-the-international-space-station/news-story/c9fa075ff1d46ce9537754a7d5e5afdf

I know NASA restricts to citizens only.