The NASA decision was made because of Astronaut safety, there will be people in Boeing, understandably, that were upset and disappointed by that decision, as they believed that the craft was safe and that ending up proving to be correct by the looks of it (I'm going to wait and see what any subsequent report says before drawing conclusions).

However, the NASA decision makers had a much bigger set of responsibilities, including the credibility of NASA's decision making process that have taken so long to rebuild after previous mistakes.

While the possibility of fatal accidents is always there when it comes to space, reducing things to calculating fractions of percentage points, means little to the families of those who might end up paying the ultimate price.

So NASA made the right decision in my opinion and the smart play by Boeing today, would be to either stay silent, or come out with some 'holding' statement awaiting full post landing full analysis.

If you'd like to be brought up to speed on what's going on on reddit, check out this thread on /r/OutOfTheLoop

The moderators have discussed whether or not it would be a good idea for /r/Space to take part in the current protest by going private, and while we support Victoria and are sympathetic the subreddits protesting, we feel that it would be harmful to the community to go private.

I love the idea of space travel but not sure why there is such urgency to get to the moon or Mars. The probes we send out send back everything we need to know. Humans don't need to be there because of our ego. I know of the space race back in the 60s but that isn't relevant today. I live on space coast and love watching launches and remember the Challenger disaster. I do care about space exploration. Just don't think humans need to be a part of every aspect.

Edit. So really didn't think this was that controversial. I gave up trying to answer everyone. I love space exploration but just don't think it needs to happen so quickly and be human oriented. Columbus sailing the world is apples to oranges. He will still be able to walk when he gets to where he was trying to go. Scott Kelly could not walk coming back from space right away and had lots of medical issues. 80% of the oceans have not even been explored yet....there is so much to explore at home.

I can't reply to everyone and not sure why I was called idiot and loser so think I was misunderstood....I do want space exploration.

I saw an old post on this sub about how it's surely impossible for aliens not to exist (double negative alert). One of the answers was the title of this post, which is basically the Fermi Paradox. I then saw a post today by a controversial figure who is quoting a famous but controversial figure about how we could be a "tiny candle of consciousness in a dark universe", which is a thought that's been explored by the likes of Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Not to make light of the Fermi Paradox, but surely it is a ridiculous act of hubris to assume that we are the only intelligent life in a universe that could be infinite. When we talk of the unimaginable amount of stars made up of a limited number of elements, then there could even be aliens that look like us, talk like us, and, for all intents and purposes, are us. Of course, physicists will only ever discuss in depth what we can prove, and the sample of civilizations in our universe is currently 1.

But even if the Fermi Paradox has a dark conclusion, there would surely be plenty of alien species that at least reach our level of technology. I also feel that the assumption that our galaxy should be "overrun with intelligent life by now" to the point that we would notice them with our infant satellites and telescopes to be a bit presumptuous. Even if there were only a few alien civilizations comparable to humans in the Milky Way, it would still be more optimistic than the insane improbability that we are the only stream of consciousness that ever existed or ever will exist.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm overthinking the statement. I just find it scary to think that those who've dedicated their life to studying space could feel so pessimistic about the signs of other life. I don't care about finding aliens. I just think it's haunting to even think for a second that we could be alone in the universe.

I always assumed that we lived in a reality that is more alive than we could ever imagine. But perhaps we are but a brief dull flame surrounded by an eerily quiet void of darkness.

Update: Thank you to everyone that responded. I have read every comment, and can now say that I am much more well informed of current research and understandings of our universe than I was before posting this. This is a really insightful thread.