Has NASA Become Paranoid In It's Old Age?

NASA isn't taking any chances with mid air collisions ... of any kind. In fact, NASA has set up a "road kill posse" to quickly clear as many carcasses as possible from the 6,000-acre site, in hopes of encouraging the local vulture population to relocate by cutting off the food supply. When space shuttle Discovery launched in July of last year, the first flight since the 2003 Columbia accident, it struck a vulture shortly after liftoff and although there was no damage, members of NASA are concerned that future collisions may jeopardize vital components of the shuttle such as the heat shield. So, let me get this straight ... we design a 1.7 billion dollar vehicle that is capable of overcoming the force of gravity, can survive the vacuum of space, is armored enough to not be damaged by small space junk traveling at thousands of MPH, can orbit the Earth and sustain human life for weeks at a time, can perform a wide variety of tasks from satellite repair to scientific experiments in a zero gravity environment hundreds of miles above the Earth, and can safely reenter the atmosphere experiencing temperatures of 3000 degrees Fahrenheit ... but can be critically wounded by a collision with a vulture during liftoff?