[r9etb]

Quite a coincidence! One should never underestimate the incompetence of bureaucrats, but that coincidence does suggest we should be thinking of sabotage in addition to incompetence.

You're being silly.

I've seen many instances where chains of odd coincidences have contributed to problems, and hindered the solution to them. It's not bureaucrats, and it's not sabotage. It just happens. There are so many people in the chain, the odds are that something is going to happen that is, in retrospect, important to something else that happened.

[bvw]

When did Dr. Kervorkian become NASA director? You should, we should all, have higher standards -- it would be a cheaper space expolration if we just handed the astronauts a 10 shot revolver with nine empty chambers, and a good personal telescope and camera. That'd be better safety than NASCAR too, I guess. And about the same science results.

As my friend anarcho-libertarian "Wild Bill" says ... "Hey if it [the shuttle] was military, I'd be 100% for it." He's right, such risks might be acceptable to acheive a military goal, in in the framework of a (theoretically) higher military accountability. Practically the shuttle is not only lousy for science, not only "jams the channel" for space-enterprise both public and private, but would be a ultra-lousy military platform too.

NASA has NO institutional common sense to even continue with it. You'll notice the military has run away from it, some years back. Thankfully!