[Porsche-O-Phile]

Very sad. I feel for those who lost their lives in this. I'm certain the program will recover but it will likely be set back many years...

The notion that a government-run is somehow better or safer is sheer idiocy and has no basis in fact. Government experimentation and development in aerospace has a mighty high body count and some spectacular failures too. Ever hear of Apollo 1? How about the Challenger disaster? Columbia? How many rockets blew up on takeoff in the early 1960s? Answer: "a lot". How many test pilots have been killed in the development of aircraft? Again, "a lot".

The point is that when anyone - government or private - plays around in the realm of aerospace it is inherently dangerous and there are going to be failures and people are going to die. It's the nature of human beings doing anything involving technology to survive in a realm where we're not naturally adapted to exist in. The same thing happens in extreme climates (mountaineering, sea exploration, etc.)

All of the technologies we enjoy and take for granted today are built on the backs of risks taken by others in the past. Many of those who pioneered those technologies died in their development too. Part of the price of human progress. Obviously we try to minimize risk and anticipate problems as technologies are developed but it does happen sometimes. We are hardly infallible.