I'm not sure how astronauts would like being called "staff".. unless you're suggesting the test flights should be done by the engineers, which might be, um, motivational?

At the risk of being naive, shouldn't they continue with unmanned flights until the heat shield is shown to work properly?

Is there some official standard size for beach balls?

They do it to us, so... [shrug]

What makes you think they "missed" it?

Aw, paw widdwe me, I got downmodded by some cowards. Good to see that Slashdot has a healthy contingent of MAGAtards around... [eyeroll]

Huh? Isn't it A, C, T, G and U? Where guanine is used in DNA and uracil is used in RNA?

Someone's never seen Battlestar Galactica...

Why the hell would we import cane sugar all the way from Queensland? It does exist in North America you know, even right here in the States.

It's cute that you think that matters in this Administration, where the right hand very often doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or that the boss cares about anything other than who gives him gold-plated Towelie cum-rags as gifts.

"There is no way this steel we melted into this part could possibly ever melt again!"...?

...I'm sure they'll make some "donations" to the right people and be pardoned in no time.

Check out the operational and safety record of Soyuz.

Erm... pretty sure Russia already knows how to build rockets.

...and by vehicle weight - to raise funds to maintain the roads. And then they should keep the fuel tax, to capture the economic costs of carbon pollution. And we should do the same, here in the US.