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But I, like many others, are frustrated by the "We couldn't fix it so why bother" attitude. These are guys that could do pre-natal heart surgery on a goat in orbit around Saturn, fer cryin out loud. They routinely do significant, complex repairs on HST

You captured my sentiment better than I could articulate...thank you.

The question isn't whether safety is important in the shuttle program. Of course it is important. The money spent on saftey considerations is staggering. But space travel is inherently very risky and dangerous, and there are humbling technological limitations to how much of the risk and danger can be designed out. At some point, so much money can be allocated to safety considerations that you no longer have a viable space program. You just shut it down.

When the shuttle program was first designed, it was estimated that we would lose one shuttle for every 50 launches. We're still ahead of that figure. I wish we were still far, far ahead of that figure. But it is important to keep these initial risk evaluations in mind to keep the tragedies in perspective.

For that matter, look over the history of our space program and add up the deaths of all NASA employees, contractors, and associated personnel from program and work-related accidents of all kinds. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the shuttle crew component is a smaller or at least an unremarkable fraction of the total. We don't get excited about those other deaths, however, because they are not highlighted and displayed in the same spectacular fashion as the deaths of the shuttle crewmembers--as tragic as those deaths are.

For that matter, compute the space-travel mortality rate of all astronauts who have flown into space and compare it to the assassination mortality rate of all US presidents, or the accident mortality rate of all NASCAR drivers. Which are the riskier occupations? I don't know the actual figures, but common sense tells me the differences will not be that dramatic.

Now it may very well turn out that the shuttle disaster could have been readily and resposibly avoided had one of these safety experts been listened to. If so, the parties responsible should suffer stiff consequences. But knee-jerking ourselves to a conclusion at this early stage that the shuttles were made and maintained in a decrepit junkyard by devil-may-care teenagers and delinquents whose last consideration was safety is counterproductive and foolish.

One of the most gripping stories I've heard involved the first Apollo mission to the moon in 1969. NASA actually had a contingency plan in place in the event the lunar module couldn't get off the surface of the moon -- they would have brought the command module back alone and left the two astronauts on the surface. And they would have cut off all contact with them so that nobody could have any conversation with them once it was determined that they could not be saved.

Not only that, but President Nixon's staff had prepared a "contingency" speech that he would have given if the crew were lost during the mission.

I know it's hard to accept, but when it comes to something like space travel there are often "points of no return" that come into play.