That portion of the insulating foam which broke away from the space shuttle Discovery’s fuel tank last Tuesday morning came from a section of the tank called the protuberance air load ramp. NASA insiders call that ramp PAL for short.

Had the foam insulation ripped away a minute earlier, it would have caused another shuttle catastrophe. According to Paul A. Czysz, professor emeritus of aeronautical engineering at St. Louis University and a veteran consultant to NASA: “After two and a half years, they should have been able to fix the foam.”

Back n February, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated en route to a return to Cape Canaveral because foam insulation had fallen off of its PAL during lift off, struck the shuttle’s left wing and done damage that rendered the craft non-functional for a return.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that NASA engineers had been guilty of underestimating the dangers of foam debris falling off their shuttles and labeled the agency’s reigning culture as being one that incorporated a “normalization of deviance.”

In the best of all possible worlds, one would simply argue for and enforce more stringent safety investigations and precautions prior to a launch. However, given the expense of the space program and the needs of earthlings, it seems not unreasonable to question the productivity of the space program. Granted, the trips to the moon were fascinating, despite the sordid competition they involved with the former Soviet Union. But in an era when senior citizens are being made to pay more for the prescription medicines they need to survive well, does it make sense, is it humane to continue pumping money into an agency with a pathological track-record of not providing full safety for its astronauts?