Now this is something I never expected NASA to do
After having a shuttle burn its wing off and disintegrate during reentry, killing another seven astronauts, you'd expect that NASA would attempt to tighten up their safety procedures so they wouldn't threepeat in the exploding spacecraft competition.
And just to put the icing on the cake, it's not just relaxing safety standards, it's reducing the safety standards on what's considered acceptable damage from the kind of debris that led to the disintegration of Columbia on its last trip.
The mind boggles about what would be considered relaxed safety standards here. "We're not putting tiles on the wings any more, but that's okay, we're only hiring Democrats as astronauts these days!" "No, no, we'll use prisoners from the New American Gulag as astronauts!"
(link via Canadian Cynic)
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Unfortunately, reading the article means I'd have to read stuff written by Gregg Easterbrook, and that's just not going to happen because my eyes and brain have made a suicide pact that if I ever attempt to read anything by that idiot again, they will simultaneously explode to avoid the horror.
I did read Feymann's report on the previous dead shuttle, and that was damning enough.
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Have you ever read this:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-fulltext.html
It's an article from 1980 by Gregg Easterbrook, who I pretty much think is a putz and a half, but I remember reading it after Columbia burned up, and was kind of creeped out by how prophetic it was.
When you get to the part about Columbia and the tiles, well, you'll know what I mean...