I think it's a mistake to look at past errors this way, as if it was obvious and easy. The reality is that, in foresight, the risk is uncertain, it's hard to get other people to face with unseen risks, and that all applies to yourself too.

And all that makes it very hard to get yourself to stand up to social pressure and assert a risk that is uncertain and unseen to you. If you are wrong - or even if you are right, but it's a 50-50 chance of disaster (or 25-75 or 10-90, all much too dangerous) and the dice roll is fortunate - you look like a fool. If you are right, you rarely get credit in a situation like that - you've just made everyone else look bad.

The way to look at something like Starfish Prime is to ask: given the human dynamics described above, how do we set up systems to prevent such outcomes? How could I handle it effectively, even in the absence of such systems?