NY Times: Critics Question NASA on Safety of the Shuttles
February 7, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/science/07nasa.html?ei=5094&en=4f4d4de22ee94611&hp=&ex=1107838800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

As NASA prepares to return the space shuttle to orbit this spring, a debate over whether the fleet is as safe as it should be has been building inside and outside the space agency.

There is widespread agreement that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, prodded by a searing report from the expert panel that investigated the loss of the Columbia two years ago, has made the fleet safer, and the agency is moving full speed toward launching as early as May. But critics, citing internal agency documents and NASA's own acknowledgment that it has not made all the improvements it committed to, contend that the agency is rushing back to the unforgiving environment of space with too much of the job left undone.