The analogy breaks down because an island isn’t space. Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. Your default state in space is dead.
A closer analogy is a plane in flight. It takes energy and effort to keep everyone alive. Externally-assisted recovery from peril, in that situation, is a rescue. Even if it’s convenient.
Nobody claimed as much. A jet liner is safer than the ISS. The analogy is conservative.
> Saying 'the default state in space is dead' when historically basically nobody has died in space
Our default state at cruising altitude is dead.
Note: I’m not suggesting anyone would have died. Just that they were in a perilous place where things were going wrong. Being relieved from that position is a rescue.
Maybe not if the jet is a Boeing though?
And I'd rather be with the Starliner at 400 km up than without the Starliner at 400 km up.
But neither seem to be of comparable safety to the other options available.
It is likewise as foolish to try decoupling the peril of space and the peril of orbit and deorbit.
I'm guessing you spend most of your life indoors?
On Earth, outside of the carefully regulated homes we've built as a society, the default state is dead and it takes tremendous work and constant vigilence to avoid that fate, only ever temporarily.
If you see a news headline "man rescues child" you expect a direct threat like something like from a burning house.
> if somebody finds a child wandering in the park alone, we say that the man rescued the child. Exactly as SpaceX is doing in this situation.
Plus, saying astronauts, professionals who signed up for the job knowing what it entails and went through years of training are like children wandering in the park, to paint SpaceX as their savior, is... wow.
And the moon is still the Earth system - we've never really left our own yard.