[HighWheeler]

Your simple post should have also provided a set of benefits as part of a cost-benefit analysis.

I have met many so-called "professional" engineers who have only a vestigial concept of risk analysis, risk abatement, hazard probability, and cost-benefit tradeoff analysis.

Lurking, sometimes you don't need to just lob a simple word to make a bad point. For instance, you didn't include the monetary price of the design, assembly, etc. of the shields. For some reason, the Apollo designers were willing to put a full shield over the entire leading face of the command module, despite the significant monetary cost, the added weight of fuel to lift it into space, and the risk that it might not deploy when commanded.

I'll bet that the shields tradeoff was made in the late '70s, and will be part of this investigation. Under "cost", it will list far more reasons than just "weight".

[Lurking2Long]

So many (senseless) words to respond to my one word.

The payloads for Apollo were not nearly as heavy as those for the shuttle, so "weight" is still the answer, despite your rantings to the contrary...