A New York Times story indicated that documents leaked to the paper show that NASA is having problems meeting the standards laid out by the space shuttle accident board and that they are looking for ways to loosen up some of the standards to get the shuttle into space faster.
Bad move.
NASA really ought to delay launching any shuttles for a year and fix the problems. What's it going to take to really change the culture at NASA? Another destroyed shuttle? Another seven bodies? People on the ground getting killed by another Columbia-style break-up? A seven-ton piece of the shuttle crashing into a school?
Perhaps it is time to retire the current shuttle fleet in favor of a stronger design that is more resistant to penetration by debris. If NASA can't operate it's equipment with minimal actual risk and has to play with rules to get the shuttles off the ground, it is not acceptable.
The other part of this is that there are risks to space flight. Those risks have to be dealt with as things happen. Softening the rules increases those risks unnecessarily.
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