Go read what caused the explosion on board Apollo 13. Go read about the loss of three heroes on the pad in Apollo 1. Neither of those mistakes were 'The Right Stuff.'
NASA made grave mistakes then, and they make them now. Whenever you have to make literally millions of decisions, one or two will be wrong. Unfortunately, when that one decision is wrong, people often die. That is the nature of Space Flight.
Yes, because it is in fact ROCKET SCIENCE.
I do not agree with the notion all must be completely safe before a mission goes. The same people who seem to intimate such a thing get in a car and drive down a road every day.
One thing I would point out, though, was that the "PR" aspects of the Challenger's fateful last flight were a glaring indication to me that NASA was setting itself up for a disaster.
The whole notion of space travel had turned into little more than a theatrical PR display -- as evidenced by the focus on putting as many women and minorities on these flights as possible (think of the crew members of the Challenger, including two women, a black guy and a Hawaiian guy). It was almost as if NASA -- and this country in general -- didn't consider a shuttle flight any more risky (or noteworthy) than a ride in a Greyhound bus.
All the major contractors had a phone conference or tele-conference with NASA right before th launch to give the greed or red light.
In this meeting, the Morton-Thiokol engineers said NO GO. Mute was hit and the engineers were told to take off their engineer hats and put on their manager hats.
Sound was turned back on and the GO from the booster company was given. Then the explosion.
That was not just one of millions of decisions. That was to GO/NO GO decision.
CEO’s etc don’t get paid to design the diameter of the o-ring but they do get paid to make the big decisions right. In this case they screwed up. badly.