(1) NASA went to great lengths to cover-up the disposition of the crew. They consistantly lied about the accident. The alternative would have been to graciously decline to answer the more personal questions, but make the data available to engineers in the redesign of the vehicle.
(2) The Soviet Union had a pure-oxgen environment accident several years before Apollo 1. They covered it up. If we hade known about the accident, we would have been able to avoid the disaster that killed three astronauts on the pad.
(3) The fact that the fuel in the Challenger accident erupted as a hypergolic burn suggests that the G-forces on the crew compartment were lower than first thought. In fact, they were so low that they apparently did not buckle the deck. The crew compartment broke up on impact with the water. This suggests that even in the worst case scenario (main tank "explosion") an ejectable, controlable crew capsule could have saved them. In fact, in the early design of the shuttle, that idea was considered considered, but the chances of that type of accident were too remote to justify the cost.
(4) Progress sometimes means learning from mistakes. The greatest tragedy would be to ignore the facts and repeat the mistake.
NASA needs to learn from its mistakes. Mistakes in engineering. Mistakes in design and construction. Mistakes in risk assessment. And mistakes in public relations.
Freaking.
Deal.
Regardless of the reasoning behind this, there was, in fact, no reason whatsoever to justify making the prolonged demise of the Challenger astronauts public. And you cannot even justify it yourself.
Perhaps you have seen my comments about K-Mart raid last year here in Houston. You may also have noticed the amount of people who have come in solely to take me to task on my position.
Thus far, the only one who has disagreed with me here is you. I do not expect anymore to do so.