"Then suddenly you get the Discovery (Challenger?) disaster or the Twin Towers because we become so used to minimizing the more far fetched risks, we don't recognize when they become real and present.

You can excuse absolutely anything with that remark, Strick, if you put your mind to it.

I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but not with the same "Well that's just the way it is" kind of complacency.
It is relevant, however, that the 'systemic flaws' the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found, prior to the STS-107 accident, were not which".. one would expect to see [in] an organization if it were trying to change its culture./i>".

If nothing was learned from the Challenger, it was the fault of those people whose responsibility it was to learn those kind of lessons. Where was the hindsight, then?

Columbia could have been prevented, 9/11 could have been prevented, and sharp border guards are always an asset.

Jim