From the point of view of the Space Agency even though his ‘spot’ performance meets the grade he’s still an unacceptable risk as an astronaut - he might die during a mission potentially harming others - and if so all the resources spent on that mission and training would have been wasted.

In a sense it’s the external political struggle of whether a society allocates resources to everyone to maximise their personal potential, or focuses resources on a subset of talented individuals likely to give the best overall return.