Yes I know some people think the shuttle stuff is getting old already but here's another good one, from Tony T.:

However, what's always amazed me most is that the only major incidents since then were Challenger in '86 and now Columbia. When the shuttles take off there are enormous forces at work and the booster rocket is really just a massive bomb waiting to go off. Then with re-entry they've got to withstand phenomenal temperatures. When you considering how many meteors burn up on entering our atmosphere it's obvious that if even the tiniest little thing goes wrong with the heat protection then it's curtains.
One need only look at the log of disasters that was the Russian space program to see how dangerous space travel can be. In the Russian case they even struggled to get off the ground.

posted by James Russell | 8:18 PM