Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
I'm not saying it's not; I'm just kind of frustrated by the media's increasing coverage of every little error on Space Shuttle launches, I guess. How many launch cancellations did we NOT hear about before Columbia was destroyed? How many do we hear about after the fact?

But is that due to the media or NASA's increased paranoia? I'd say it's the latter. Ever since Columbia and the additional cameras, NASA's realizing that foam was coming off and damaging the shuttle all this time, they just didn't know it. Look at all the paranoia around returning the last shuttle to Earth. They ended up having almost no choice but to take the chance and hope it all held together, which it did. Still, it's been happening for how long and they're just now realizing it because they have cameras on there now.

We know that flying into space is dangerous. MeBeJedi is right. The public needs to face this fact and realize that while the loss of life is horrible, they know the risks and are doing it to further science. If we stop exploring space because we can't gaurantee that the astronauts will come back safely, we won't get anywhere.