Correct me if I am wrong, but currently neither the FAA nor NASA does any of the data gathering of space accident investigations, relying instead on the operator to provide all the data. In the few cases that I have examined the operator also provides a lot of the engineering analysis, so the agency role is mostly one of reviewing the investigation, not conducting it. Contrast this with marine investigations which are conducted by the Coast Guard, with the results being audited by the NTSB. In the case of space incidents there is an argument to be made that NTSB doing the investigations would be an improvement in reduced likelihood of bias.

However, the argument that the space industry is immature and official investigation is therefore premature makes a lot of sense to me. The value of NTSB’s contribution to air saftey came decades after commercial air travel was literally an everyday activity. That day may be approaching for space travel, but it is still some way off.

I believe the current term for the females of the breed are known as “Karens”

They’d tell us, that we (the great unwashed) should be grateful that they deign to put their superior intellect and knowledge to work in such a fashion.

On the other hand, Winston Churchill had a story about a functionary at the Foreign Office whose sole job was to predict if a major war would occur that year. He had been appointed in the Edwardian Era and retired when Elizabeth II was on the throne. At his retirement dinner it was announced he had consistently predicted in the negative for his entire term of office and, admirably, he had “only been wrong twice” in thar entire period – 1914 and 1939