Craig Fink wrote:" Not the right letter, but Privatizing Earth to LEO
might be."

Gee craig, not the right thread, as the original post was pertaining to
an astronauts statements,

http://www.stpns.net/view_article.ht...43251064362304

Gutierrez said the fault lies in two words - engineering arrogance.

"NASA engineers were confident that they did everything right,"
Gutierrez said. "They were so sure everything would work as planned
they didn't think an escape system was necessary. The fact is, if
there had been an escape system on Columbia and Challenger, the crews
could have survived."

Actually the design shortcomings of the shuttle system had been known
for along time before the challenger tragedy, (ie no crew escape system
for more than a small percentage of the crew if in place, and only
usable for a small percentage of the flight) and therefore it is the
responsibility of managers and engineers to operate the space shuttle
system safely within it's known parameters, (ie launching on jan 28
1986 was a managerial decision to launch in the coldest wheather
despite engineers recommendations not to launch, and inspite of
evidence of srb "o-ring" burnthrough on the previous launch
sts-61c).

tom