Sometimes the rocket fails but the astronaut makes it back (Apollo 13). Sometimes the goggles fail, and the soldier misjudges a drop and breaks his leg, or walks into a known blast radius and dies, or misidentifies and kills a civilian.

Either way, if this is worth doing -- and I agree with you that it's a big, big if -- it is worth doing right.

Astronauts surviving a failure is a once in a generation event that gets memorialized forever in movies and literature. Soldiers' equipment failing is a Tuesday.

Increased situational awareness has value, but it is a clear case of diminishing returns. Exactly what the cutoff ought to be is debatable, but that the cutoff exists is certain.

And this is an argument for investing less? Just because you are personally normalized to something doesn't make it acceptable.