On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, John Doe wrote:

BenignVanilla wrote:
the politically safe path, and not launching to the Hubble. The nation cried
foul when the second shuttle was lost, and NASA is responding in CYA
fashion

Did the nation really cry foul ?

Indeed. Foul NASA, listen to your engineers!!!!!
Twice now you didn't and twice now you've made a fool of yourselves.

At least you did admit to the loss of two Mars missions because (oh
blush) you overlooked contractor and NASA were using different units of
measurement.

If NASA can't fly the shuttle to Hubble for safety reasons, that it shouldn't
be flying it at all. Shuttle was designed for that type of mission, it isn't
as if you're asking it to be outfitted with additional SRBs that could send it
to the moon.

Safety is just an excuse to do what they want. For example it's against
the law to purchase prescription drugs from Canada, not because (as they
proclaim) USA made drugs in Canada are unsafe, but because the
prescription drug cartel demands US to pay their excessive price fixed
costs.