A agree that having such a comittee is essential. But (at least in hindsight) the risk assessment for the space shuttle seems very strange. The only rocket ever built that requires human pilots is also the least safe human-carrying rocket ever built, both in track record and design (no launch escape system, no abort possible for large parts of the ascend).
In a comittee maybe you can justify the human deaths as nessesary risk, after all people die in traffic all the time. But that ignores the political dimension. The Challenger Disaster was a giant blow to the entire shuttle program: The space shuttle was only funded because of support by the military. With the entire fleet grounded for 2 years and much needed performance improvements canceled that support vanished (see for example: the last DoD shuttle mission was in '92).
In a comittee maybe you can justify the human deaths as nessesary risk, after all people die in traffic all the time. But that ignores the political dimension. The Challenger Disaster was a giant blow to the entire shuttle program: The space shuttle was only funded because of support by the military. With the entire fleet grounded for 2 years and much needed performance improvements canceled that support vanished (see for example: the last DoD shuttle mission was in '92).