system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[ST:TNG] If the Enterprise is an exploration vessel with families and other civilians, why do they keep going into dangerous places?

I've never heard anyone say "Yeah, we shouldn't do that. There's kids and stuff." Does everyone not in Star Fleet understand there's a risk of death and danger or are they oblivious?
gpt
For one, even going from the surface of a planet to its nearest moon carries some risk. Just walking out your front door is a risk. A very small one, but there's always the slight chance of something catastrophic happening. 

A galaxy-class starship is MASSIVE. It's the crowning achievement of mid-24th century engineering, with every possible advancement shoved into its huge frame. On top of being a pinnacle exploration vessel with room for over a thousand crew and passengers, it's an interstellar battleship, with weapons and shields that only the most powerful foes and natural phenomena can defeat. These scientific and tactical systems don't negate all the risk a Galaxy-class may face, but they do make most known situations very managable. 

And finally, everyone who boards a deep-space exploration vessel knows what they're going into. (Roddenberry was crazy/visionary enough to probably assume that the children on board were smart enough to give legal consent as well. Aside from his big vision of this utopia future he had almost nothing but... bad ideas. But we're stuck with them.) They actively consent to the dangers, because the potential benefit FAR outweigh the risk. 

As Q said to Picard: "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid. "