Saying we should "go back" to parachutes is misleading. The Apollo (and earlier) missions used parachutes, yes, but only at the very end of the return to Earth. At the stage where Columbia broke up, they used heat shields deliberately designed to burn off and help carry the enormous heat with them. It was effective, but not appropriate for a reusable launch vehicle.
If the "comparing the greatness" article is the one I'm thinking of, it's actually a spirited defense of Carl Sagan as a legitimate scientist. Sagan was most unjustly denied admission to the National Academy of Science, presumably because he was considered a mere popularizer rather than a true scientist (as if being a popularizer were somthing to be sneered at rather than praised in these willfully ignorant times.)
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Saying we should "go back" to parachutes is misleading. The Apollo (and earlier) missions used parachutes, yes, but only at the very end of the return to Earth. At the stage where Columbia broke up, they used heat shields deliberately designed to burn off and help carry the enormous heat with them. It was effective, but not appropriate for a reusable launch vehicle.
If the "comparing the greatness" article is the one I'm thinking of, it's actually a spirited defense of Carl Sagan as a legitimate scientist. Sagan was most unjustly denied admission to the National Academy of Science, presumably because he was considered a mere popularizer rather than a true scientist (as if being a popularizer were somthing to be sneered at rather than praised in these willfully ignorant times.)