Richard Feynmann was a member of the commission investigating the Challenger disaster. According to Feynmann NASA did all it could to keep him from interviewing the engineers and technicians themselves. NASA wanted him confined to administrators. Feynmann was the one to zero in on the O-ring when Thiokol did not want any attention focussed there and upon their culpability. He had to sneak into facilities in order to talk with the folks who knew what was going on. NASA was complicit in the attempt at a cover-up.

Next we have foam flying off the rockets and the Columbia disaster. We, the public, learn foam can do a lot of damage when it flies off the rockets at launch. Something NASA has known for a long time. OK, lose a Shuttle, lose some people, learn a lesson.

Right?

Wrong. The Shuttle is still flying with shit flying off the rockets damaging the thermal protection.

On the surface it seems absolutely, completely inescusable that the Shuttle is flying with people in it. The Shuttle was essentially junk from the start, and never has performed it's mission - cheap, fast and reliable access to LEO. Not once, not ever, has it performed it's mission of inexpensive access to LEO.

And at the very, very best, viewing it all in the best possible light, NASA is one fucked-up agency. We don't have any other option, and we can't trust them with human life. We need to get the hell out of manned space exploration until unmanned flight has matured the technology. Not only is it unsafe but it costs too much and drains from science.

I've always waffled on this before. Experience with man in space is important, but not of any immediate importance, and not at the expense of knowledge, science and the ultimate furtherance of mankind.

At the very, very least - let the Russians, Europeans and Chinese spend their money and lives on it. I'll bet they don't build a Shuttle.

Arf