There aren't many people left who've been that close to the moon. Lots of people would love to be on that list.

Because even in the worst case what we are really talking about is just much higher risk than the government is claiming, but its still far more likely to succeed than fail. Plenty of people would take a 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 chance of dying if it meant they could walk on the moon.

To be honest I don't know how close to non-fiction "The Right Stuff" (book or film) was but if you watch it you'd maybe gain an understanding for why astronauts do these things. At least that part is believable.

> why are the astronauts willing to risk their lives

There are a lot of funerals in chapter 1 of Tom Wolfe's book, "The Right Stuff".

I suggest that some choice of profession come with a higher life-risk tolerance than others. "Accountants willing to risk their lives for the job" would be news. Firefighters, less so. Test pilots or astronauts, not much at all.

This degree of lifespan-maximization is something you might have but others don’t necessarily share. E.g. old people went to Fukushima to sort it out. “Was it really better to risk death than to risk getting fired?”

Neither of these are major risks compared to never being what you want to be.

Some people go to war for the thrill of it, others do base jumping, free solo climbing and whole lot of other activities that eventually kill many of them. It is in their genes.