I find it hard to think of someone who "enthusiastically participates in the system" in order to go to space as being morally culpable for everything that the system has done.
It's not quite a matter of choosing between participating in the system or being punished by the system. It's possible to live an inconspicuous life with only mild risk of suffering the consequences of no enthusiastic participation. But this is incompatible with accomplishing something noteworthy.
I can admire someone who has the ambition of going to space, but denies that ambition on moral grounds because it would support a political faction. However, I think a moral framework that demands this is unreasonably strict.
I'm not holding the astronaut responsible for anything. It's the reverse: because the astronaut had to work within the system to succeed, his success is not his personal success, it's the system's success. Saying "it doesn't matter which astronaut won" is saying "it doesn't matter which system won". When one system starved up to 7.5 million people to death and another didn't, which system won is not a petty issue.
(You could, however, argue that "first man on Mars" and "second man on Mars" are very similar achievem...
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: