Issue Punitive responses to failure hold back Korea's extreme R&D in space, deep sea and polar regions

Summary

The essay defines extreme R&D as high-risk research in space, underwater and polar environments, where failure and even fatal accidents are always possible. The problem lies in how society and government respond: in Korea, accidents usually lead to tighter regulation, cancelled programmes or excessive blame on researchers, and such regulation rises in proportion to risk. Research conducted under this pressure looks stable in the short term but may stifle innovation over the long run. NASA completed many missions after the Apollo 1 accident, and SpaceX openly publishes footage of its repeated failures on YouTube, treating failure as something to manage and accumulate rather than a reason to stop. The author concludes that Korea's reactive approach fundamentally conflicts with the nature of extreme R&D and that it is time to build a foundation that does not fear failure.