You Don't Want To Be An Astronaut

I received the following annonymous response to my last post that I found intriuging...

You don't want to be an astronaut because of the no negativism allowed group think in NASA. The primary reason they have had so many failures is that dissent isn't allowed. You have to be really positive in that organization. Thus, when it was pointed out that a mostly oxygen atmosphere in the Apollo capsule was a fire hazard, it was ignored, until they barbecued three astronauts. Thus, they wouldn't believe that a major test of the Hubble mirror was important, until it's myopia blurred the stars. They wouldn't believe that independent systems integration was necessary until the Mars lander tried to fly below the surface, because it didn't occur to them to use a consistent system of measurement units (meters vs. feet). They couldn't believe that foam fragments flying off the shuttle tank could be a problem until they scattered Columbia all over Texas.