Insane is a better word for it. Although to be fair there are a lot of aspects of the shuttle's design and operation that will be remembered that way. He even

Insane is a better word for it. Although to be fair there are a lot of aspects of the shuttle's design and operation that will be remembered that way. He even glosses over the SRB issue. Thanks to the SRB's, there were no abort modes for the shuttle during the first 123 seconds. Until they had expended themselves any abort would have required separating the SRB's while they were still firing at full thrust. They would have accelerated forward of the stack, their hot exhaust impinging directly on the external tank while it was still full of fuel. The RTLS was insane, but I don't think it comes close to the madness of STS-1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-1 That flight will go down in history as the only time anyone was dumb enough to put people on top of a rocket on its very first flight.