Those abort options didn't cover the entire launch trajectory. For example, there were no abort options after the Space Shuttle cleared the launch tower unless you were able to ditch the solid rocket boosters.

Man-rating by NASA requires abort options every step of the way from the ground all the way up to space.

Burn through of the sort that destroyed Challenger is detectable before everything goes boom. And liquid fueled means you don't have to go as far to survive the heating from the resulting fireball.

And one can make a similar argument for the court that issues that warrant. They're issuing warrants on the basis of what facts the NSA gives them. It's easy to rationalize. But not so easy to bring any of them to justice when every aspect of the above process is secret.

I already gave the example of NSA tapping all internet traffic. And business can't pull the sort of frivolous rent seeking and jack booting that comes naturally to government such as creation of a tart cherry oligopoly. We also have the militarization of law enforcement (and not just in the US).

The Challenger accident. It would have been difficult to exploit an LAS with the normal Shuttle configuration. But if instead the Shuttle had been on top of the central oxygen tank rather than piggybacking, then an LAS would have been quite feasible - especially if NASA was using liquid fuel booster engines instead of solid fuel ones.

No offense, but that's nonsense. All the investment group would have to do is bribe someone. Then they're in the loop. I'm leaning towards the interpretation that this was meant to hide it from the public. I don't at a glance see much that particularly dangerous aside from the US trying to force other countries to accept data processing outside their borders:

It's a whole lot easier to attack financial information when the data is in a place where you can get away with the attack.

By that reasoning, they both suffered from catastrophic design choices. It just took some time for the consequences to show. Thus, neither were vehicle operation failures at all.

I think it's reasonable instead to classify the failure by where it manifests even if the trigger events happen earlier. Among other things, it fits with any remedies that one could attempt. For example, launch aborts might have saved the Challenger crew, but wouldn't have done a thing for the Columbia crew.

It demonstrates that the Shuttle can't meet the only man-rating standard NASA has issued.

Here, you go (from here:

No, it wasn't. Man-rated would mean, for example, having abort options at every stage of launch from the ground to orbit. Shuttle couldn't do that.

It appears that a country has to be more or less third world (2001-2002 data for the most part) in order to have 35% tariff rates (under the WTO scheme). Most of the countries in the current negotiation already have tariff rates near or under 5% including the US, the EU, Australia, Japan, and probably South Korea and Switzerland. In the link above, China had tariffs a bit over 5% on most goods aside from a few entries (it may be better now since the report is ten years old). The worst at 40% was ethanol (good "220710" in the "Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System"). Looks like China has 35% tariffs on water heaters too (841911 and 841919) and 30% on mufflers and exhaust pipes (870892).

At a glance, I'd say the countries with the highest tariffs are probably Costa Rica and China. But maybe there's some high tariffs between individual members of the group in addition to the above list.

There are dozens of posters on Slashdot who have cognitive dissonance on political issues of the day to the degree that it probably causes them harm and hence, might be classifiable in its own right as a mental illness. Even among this motley, proud crew, you stand out.

Here, you're advocating an outrageously pro-corporate position, protectionism on the dubious theory that it'll somehow protect peoples' homes. One merely needs to look at developed world agricultural policies to see the end game for this. For example, the US has single-handedly driven up global food prices with its ethanol subsidies for corn. But it's great for ADM, which is what matters, amirite?

They are obeying the law. They're charging for shipping just as the unprofessional law in question requires them to do.

I haven't been so asked. But since you mentioned it, widespread contempt for the law is something that should be scourged from government at any level.

Sure, that's an abstract observation. But I don't see the need for anything more. Government routinely oversteps the bounds we attempt to put on it.

As to point b), that is a rather obvious argument. Notice that no corporation gets to protect its secrecy like that (unless of course, they're contractors for the US military or intelligence and can protect their inner workings with these secrecy laws).

Either the sky is green or it is purple. False dichotomy is false.

My view is that there is in the current situation some freedom to be gained from making business and the private world more powerful with respect to the federal government. I consider it an informal balance of power, much like the official ones between states and federal government or between the branches of the federal government.

Sure, I can see situations where increasing business power beyond a certain extent causes a decrease in personal freedom. But I think it's foolish to think we're in that sort of situation now.

Also, the NSA problem is notable because it gives lie to the common claim that the federal government is being run by corporate powers. Well, the supposedly obedient servant just cost its masters a lot of money (once again, I might add) and is likely to continue to do so for many years to come.

a) is irrelevant (and even if it weren't, you just need someone with some basic legal knowledge, not "instinctive" knowledge of each and every corporation's paperwork). And b) congresspeople can do a lot more than just have hearings. They have a lot of media and political contacts for starters. They can pass laws. It's not that hard for them to affect the bottom line.

The US was doing globalization since before there was a US.

And what is the connection between your alleged cause and your alleged effect? This doesn't explain the US's incompetent and expensive social programs, their intrusive spying, or humongous military-industrial complex. Other countries do globalization without those things.

Well, yea. But that stuff came from supernovae many billion years ago. We don't need space now to have semiconductors since that stuff, particular silicon won't go anywhere.

I suspect however that you are thinking that the US space program is responsible for semiconductors. That is nonsense. We would have them anyway even in the absence of contributions from any agency of the US including the Department of Defense (who was a far bigger contributor to IC R&D than NASA was by at least an order of magnitude). And the incentives to develop integrated circuits and CPUs would have resulted in pretty much what we have now, perhaps even further along since so the careers of so many intelligence,educated people were squandered on various white elephants between NASA and the US military.