“So let me get this straight, NASA. You’re telling me that the greatest adventure in the history of the human species — the most awesome voyage ever embarked upon by humankind — you’re saying that that’s dangerous?

Well gosh, NASA, isn’t that what we signed up for?

NASA says that the radiation levels on a single 500-day trip to Mars exceed their lifetime limits for astronauts. All told, the trip would entail about a 3-percentage-point increase in terminal cancer risk.

Here’s another safety tip: If you set sail from Europe under Magellan, Cartier or Jones, your odds of dying of scurvy were probably no better than a coin flip.

Here’s another: If you picked up the flag of the United States of America and carried it into battle in 1941, you had a 1 in 50 chance of not ever having children. Of not ever growing old.

But it gets worse: If you stepped onboard a Space Shuttle in the 1980s, your odds of losing consciousness in a massive inferno of solid rocket fuel and jagged metal, and then crashing into the Atlantic Ocean were about 1 in 24. If you were a school teacher, your odds of death were 100 percent.”