Many experts have posted here that the Shuttle can never be made to be
safe. Therefore it must be flown as is, in its dangerous configuration.
This is actually an acceptable approach perfectly consistent with
contemporary ethics. There is because there is no substitute lift vehicle
available for the ISS components and the job must get done, no matter what.

There is no need to spend zillions in an exercise in futility to make
something safe when it can't be done. The machine will have to be flown
knowing that each has a number and will sooner or later self-destruct and
take out its crew at the same time. Every astronaut knows that every
blast-off could literally be one.

There is no moral dilema here. Simply placard the hatchway with "Fly at
your own risk" and any astronaut brave enough to ride does so knowing the
eternal consequences. Actually, it doesn't make much difference anyways;
we are all on a one way trip to oblivion. It just takes some of us three
score and ten and others a five minute reentry.

It is puzzling to me why men still want to risk their necks for Earth
orbit. The shuttle is just going to go 'round and 'round, just like Yuri
did way back when. Everybody remembers the first guy: Yuri Gargarin and
Neil Armstrong (poor guy flubbed his 11 words but he's still okay in my
book), but who of you out there can tell me, without a Google search, the
THIRD man to walk the Moon?