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Though I'm sure the libs will happily try to blame this on Dubya, I think it likely that "repeated warnings" have been going on for quite some time and are inconsequential even in light of today's catastrophe. The fleet is aging, and no matter how careful NASA is there are going to be people who want the program shut down. Post-Challenger it was estimated that we'd lose a crew about every 75 flights, and there were people who heard that and went ape. They couldn't imagine taking that much risk, but if it were about absolute safety, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and , yes, the Shuttle, would never have been launched.

The new frontier will cost us lives. That is the nature of frontiers. But the only ship that is safe is the one that stays in harbor, and that ship accomplishes nothing.

BTW, I wonder how many of the folks who will scream their regrets at the age of the shuttles are the same people who can't see a reason that we need another $40 billion to fight a world war, or understand why we need to replace a KC-135 fleet that is about to hit 50 years of operation.

>>Post-Challenger it was estimated that we'd lose a crew about every 75 flights, and there were people who heard that and went ape. They couldn't imagine taking that much risk, but if it were about absolute safety, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and , yes, the Shuttle, would never have been launched<<

Don't confuse the absolute necessity of "high flight" with justification of the design and management of STS.

I agree that 1/75 is a probable failure rate.

The problem is that the managers have been ordered to design and operate a program that assumes a 1/100000 failure rate.

Using your number, after 300 flights we would have no more orbiters.

Where is the assembly line? What design work is going on for the replacement vehicles? What are the budget assumptions to support a program with a 1/75 failure rate? How are the flight test personnel being selected? Is the use of civilian mission specialists consistent with a failure rate of 1/75?

Nothing-absolutely nothing-about the shuttle program is consistent with a 1/75 failure rate. Except reality.