More On The Shuttle, From One Who Knows Far More Than I

I posted earlier on my misgivings about this latest shuttle flight...AJStrata, who's in a far better position to know about this things, has an excellent post up that I highly recommend. You should read it all, but I'll highlight this:

...This foam incident is a real conundrum for NASA - and it has nothing to do about 'rushing' back. It has to do with the shuttle design, and dealing with core design elements that are so expensive to correct you might as well start building the replacement system...now we have a PR expectations challenge. And we will ground the flights until NASA figures out how to deal with this mixed bag of low probability risk and a public perception it is actually an a unavoidable disaster waiting to happen...

As I said before, I'm no expert, and I certainly hope I'm being a bit of a hysteric here. AJ points out the tremendous vibrations of a launch, and the near(?) impossibility of avoiding debris, a thought that has occurred to me...in any event, I appreciate the post, and now that AJ has framed the issue better, I agree it wasn't a 'rush' that caused the foam incident. Thanks for the info!...