Normalization of deviance happened because there was so much deviance!
The number of Criticality 1 issues on STS was incredible--literally thousands. Booster seal--yup, they knew about that; foam strikes? check; also turbine blade cracks, reaction control short-circuits, and hundreds of other problems.
They couldn't fix them because (a) the design was locked--they weren't building more orbiters, and (b) Congress controlled the budget and the Shuttle was not a priority.
The point of Starship is to build enough ships and fly enough missions that problems get fixed. And since losing a ship costs the company money, they have a strong incentive to fix the problems. That's exactly what they've done with Falcon 9, and the result speaks for itself.
It's more egregious than just knowing there were flaws. After Morton Thiokol engineers, the manufacturer of the boosters that failed in the Challenger disaster gave a no-go for the flight, because the temperature was too low, NASA administrators cold called a bunch of Morton Thiokol employees that weren't qualified to give go/no-go decisions, and most of them declined, until they found one that gave into pressure and gave a 'go' for launch.
They actively forced deviance.
For more details, check out Truth, Lies, and O-Rings by Allan J. McDonald, James R. Hansen, and Jonathan Yen
The number of Criticality 1 issues on STS was incredible--literally thousands. Booster seal--yup, they knew about that; foam strikes? check; also turbine blade cracks, reaction control short-circuits, and hundreds of other problems.
They couldn't fix them because (a) the design was locked--they weren't building more orbiters, and (b) Congress controlled the budget and the Shuttle was not a priority.
The point of Starship is to build enough ships and fly enough missions that problems get fixed. And since losing a ship costs the company money, they have a strong incentive to fix the problems. That's exactly what they've done with Falcon 9, and the result speaks for itself.
They actively forced deviance.
For more details, check out Truth, Lies, and O-Rings by Allan J. McDonald, James R. Hansen, and Jonathan Yen