The shuttles can easily be made safe, people just need to not be idiots. In both cases of a vehicle loss there were clear warning signs well in advance and the disaster could have been forestalled if proper protocol was followed.
The problem in both cases was NASA culture and tremendous pressure to keep the shuttle flying.
While NASA culture and funding issues are one factor, it actually wasn't unsubstantiated when I said it is unsafe by default. As one of my senior colleagues said, the easiest thing for you to do is to nod and say yes at this point. But since I know how you are going to react to this, here goes:
There are some tiny little fundamental engineering things and also unfortunately physics at play here that should be somewhat obvious after reading the reports. Should I rob the fun of reading and thinking about it yourselves? No, not yet - a scientist should be interested of finding stuff out himself. Actually, I should ask why do you think it actually could be made safe, as that is how it is supposed to be done in space industry?
I've already read it - a few months ago. We gamed out the Challenger launch decision in college and the Columbia loss report was one of the documents I went through as research. If it's beyond you that someone might know as much as you and reach a separate conclusion, then as one of my senior colleagues said, you probably don't belong on the Internet or in the scientific establishment.
Space flight is fundamentally unsafe. It will never be made safe; the entire notion that the space industry is intended to make its vehicles safe is a good laugh, and I should've said 'could easily be made safer' rather than 'safe'. The intent is to make them
safer. The shuttle might be made safer, but the shuttle's engineered safety tolerances are, as far as I'm concerned, pretty good. Not perfect, but considering the environment, good. The lack of a crew escape option is one of the bigger flaws.
The CAIB itself said it pretty well in a passage I quoted in my own work:
These recommendations reflect both the Boardʼs strong support for return to flight at the earliest date consistent with the overriding objective of safety, and the Boardʼs conviction that operation of the Space Shuttle, and all human spaceflight, is a developmental activity with high inherent risks.
Now you can argue - with good basis - that the overcomplicated design of the shuttle renders it much more accident-prone than a more robust, simple design like those we'll probably move to next. There's nothing wrong with that argument, the infamous 'white butterfly bolted to a bullet' accusation, and it's probably true. But the will to create a new manned launch system hasn't existed for decades, let alone the money, and I think it's more important to have manned launch capability active and flying than to give up and sit in the gravity well (which is, let's face it, the probable alternative.) The shuttle could be safer for reasons tied into its fundamental design, but I think the benefits of flying it outweigh the benefits of not flying it even when potential crew and vehicle losses are factored in.
The early days of aeronautics were no different. We need to acknowledge that no matter how hard we try we are going to suffer deaths and vehicle losses. We also need to remember that both shuttle losses to date were caused by problems detected well in advance, and are therefore essentially human error rather than engineering failure.
EDIT: and remember (this can be confusing to those who haven't spent a long time discussing the topic) that most of the statements I've made about good condition and good engineering in this thread are about the orbiter. The SRB and tank designs have always been the weak points of the STS complex and you won't find me stepping up to defend them.
EDIT 2: reading back basically all my points are made in, and in concordance with, the CAIB intro
