It doesn't fly with me either. They should never have launched a shuttle with no possible positive outcome to tiles damaged at launch. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. This type of operational mistake is not part of that "acceptable risk" associated with space flight.
And Columbus shouldn't have sailed off to the new world without a contigency plan for falling off the edge of the earth - not to mention a complete set of navigational charts, a map of the world and a GPS for good measure.
Hell, by your standards, we shouldn't even have come down out of the trees in the first place. This ground has WAAAY to many predators - and it's just not safe!!!