You forgot to mention "Junk electronic games".

I am no clairvoyant but I knew launch the Challenger in freezing weather was a really bad idea I didn't predict the Columbia disaster. I knew there was lots of reasons why Shuttle take-offs and landings were done in warm climate locations. I knew that "winterizing" equipment in Georgia and Florida is considered a waste of money. We in Atlanta don't stock pile millions of tons of road melting salt and chemicals like Chicago has to. We in Atlanta get crippling snow/ice just once every few years. We don't have thousands of snowplows because we don't get snow that often. We in Atlanta know when equipment is not properly "winterized" and you use it in freezing and damp weather really bad things happen. We saw it all of the time. Boisjoly had a very strong case in that at below 50F that the O-rings won't fill the gap. What Kilminster forgot is that an engineer should NEVER take off his engineering hat and put on a manager hat. Engineers have public responsibilities that managers often don't.

"Well, adjusted for man-hours of work we kill fewer people than other agencies."

Didn't the Russian say that about their Nuclear Electricity Generating plant before Chenobyl?

This was not the case in Challenger. It would be like a car mechanic telling you that gasoline is spewing all over the engine and if you drive it it will burst into flames and you will die; then you decide to drive the car anyway and died in a fire as a result.

Also just because we can't hold a 100% safety standard in space means we do not try??? We don't try to fix glaring problems that can result in death?? It would be one thing if the O-rings were tested for cold weather and worked and then the Challenger blew up because the O-rings didn't seal as tested. That would've been more acceptable. That would've been a learning moment for operations because we couldn't have known about it. What if someone walking in space gets hit with some tiny space debris and dies, which is a foreseeable risk. We accept that risk. The Challenge disaster doesn't fit that. The engineers who built the o-rings, not some crackpot or outsider, said they would fail when they did. They knew the Space Shuttle was not to be launched below 50F. This is one of the reasons the Shuttle launches in Florida and not in Newport News, VA, both of which are considered "Southern" Cities.

From my perspective the race to launch the Challenger in freezing weather was indeed "go fever". It was strange that the flight was being delayed over and over again due to relatively minor technological and meteorological reasons and yet when an unusually strong cold front hit Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, that is when the guys at NASA said go, even though the Space Shuttles were not designed to launch in freezing weather. Mechanical device operate differently in such cold weather. Even in Atlanta I had trouble starting and keeping my car running that morning when it was less than 10F. I thought the launch would be delayed yet again since this was a more serious problem than a faulty sensor or a cloudy day.

Remember that when the ambient temperature is around 30F that water seeps into cracks and then ice forms and expands potentially damaging equipment that is not winterized. I know that having outside equipment not winterized is unthinkable in the Northern US but the cost of winterizing equipment that is not to be used in freezing temperature in much of the Southern US is considered a big fat waste of money. It would be like buying snow tires in Miami, a place that rarely gets snow. Also rubber and some soft plastic equipment when exposed to 30F can become stiff and more breakable depending on its composition. If you depend on this equipment being flexible and it is not at cold temperature and then you try to use it bad things can happen.

The Challenger disaster felt different to me than the Columbia disaster. On the surface the Columbia disaster seemed to be the same thing but I don't think it was a disaster that the average person would've predicted. I remember someone telling me that the Challenger blew up and I said distinctly "It wasn't supposed to launch today, it was too cold to launch". I can't say the same for the Columbia disaster. The Challenger disaster felt more like "go fever" than the Columbia disaster.

Correct on both counts.

But really most programmer coding looks like C to me nowadays.

...since neither seems to know the other exists.

Left hand meet the right hand...Right hand meet the the left hand.

The reason we will no longer go to the Moon now, and probably not in my lifetime, is not a technological problem anymore, it is a political problem. We could restart the Apollo program at a fraction of the cost in 1960's dollars but we just don't have the political will to do so.

The way corporations are buying our politicians we will NEVER have the political will to go back to the moon because there is no immediate profit in it. To extract a profit from the return to the moon it will take Billions of Dollars and over 10 years of operation just to break even. Many companies no longer care about projects that last a paltry 3 months, let alone 10 years. American business seems to be becoming about getting rich quickly, not about investment.

Imagine a Congress doing their job. Imagine a President who can lead. Imagine a Supreme Court that will not limit the Constitutional rights of its citizens, not corporations, without a very, very good reason to do it.

But do you agree that we don't need Aircraft Carrier #12 or do you advocate having a set number of addition Aircraft Carriers that we can ill afford to build now?