This trait isn't unique and your understanding of how that list of diseases "seem" isn't realistic. Rabies is the only one with a pretty universal outcome: it's basically 100 percent deadly once it's got a decent foothold in you. The others on your list have a wide spread of outcomes and experiences. The flu kills about 150 people per 100,000 infections. By comparison covid has been killing between 100 and 5,000 per 100,000 infections. Some people with the flu shrug it off, others are permanently injured by it's effects or are killed.

Because human space flight looks powerful but is actually super weak. The chemical reactions we use are dangerously powerful of course but compared to the physics of gravity, required reaction mass etc, they're barely enough to get us off the planet. Those Saturn moon rockets were the most crazy impressive things we'd ever made but NASA couldn't get us to and from the moon until they did things like remove the seats from the lunar module. That's how close it was.

And the amount of money being spent similarly is a lot yet is also barely enough. The US briefly hit 4% of GDP on the moon program, a massive effort for something other than a world war. It only happened because the space program was essentially a military operation that was an extension of WW2. Space mostly still is today.

In short, we can just barely do space stuff. Every gram and every dollar is tight.

You are not mistaken in the idea. It's doable and preferable for biosecurity etc.

This was a great question thank you. I've learned a heap from this thread. Hey maybe also look at the basic air flows and resulting ocean behaviour for another peice of the puzzle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye45DGkqUkE

NZ has awesome examples the glaciers vs erosion. Some of the coast is dominated by old glacial action and other parts formed by eroded volanoes.

So Crowded House were right?