he likened the risk to the innovation of the industry as a whole and that if the Wright Brothers had fallen during their flight, at least the industry would have known flying was possible and would have continued on and learned from it

There’s a Twitter discussion about the Wright Brothers innovating for safety. Basically, the Wright Brothers realized that innovating on control and safety were more important than innovating on power when it comes to developing powered flight. Once you have a controllable glider, putting on a motor was the easy part.