Let's not forget that NASA is a particular form of Govt. bureaucracy that takes its lead from directives from the Executive Branch but gets the actual means to do so from the Legislative. All snarkiness aside, Feynman was spot on during the 51-L investigation. He didn't "play nice" like some commissioners, and called it like he saw it.
I will always give the Shuttle program its due: it is/was a magnificent machine designed under the most schitzophrenic critera of any major engineering project ever. However, the levels of complacency that (IMO) will always exist among cloistered groups of engineers, managers and technicians when they work inside "the only game in town". It took someone like Feynman to call "Bullshit!" on the intellectual lethargy that grows around such stagnant systems.
