As I look over the NASA site, which is vast by the way, I found myself thinking of fictional space flight. How in Science Fiction and some Fantasy space travel is commonplace. We writers are free to make accidents and tragedies a part of the past.
For the most part, not many SF worlds have rockets or space ships that actually take off from ground. Most of them are docked in space and travelers and cargo are taken there by shuttle craft. Few ever crash or fail or have accidents.
That may be a good thing. It leads the reader into the belief that someday it will all be safe and fail-proof. That space travel is within reach. That people can get on board a shuttle craft and take off from the ground, going out into space to board a craft that can take them across the galaxy. Getting on board a shuttle craft is just as boring and allegedly simple as boarding an airplane today.
Commercial space flights are sooner than we thought. Passengers won’t go anywhere, just up and back down. But thousands, including myself, would pay a lot of money just for that. As we became civilized, our industrial lights blocked out more and more of the stars. I want to see them, without the artificial lighting. I want to see what our ancestors saw.
Sometimes a novel will have some poor fellow who is making their first flight. They almost always get sick. Or get headaches.