This memo was not sent to the administration, it was sent to the management of Morton Thiokol, who could reasonably be expected to understand basic engineering phrases like "loss of human life."
It's a real PITA to engineer safe systems (see e.g. IEC 61508 and ISO 13849 in industrial automation), but it saves lives, and if you're in a position where Sales, Production, etc. is trying to get you to rush the Engineering work so they can make deadline, you've got to find the backbone to say "no," even if it hurts you professionally.
You'd think so, but they probably saw "loss of human life" and went "hysterical. ignore.".
It's actually really hard to warn people. Warn them loudly and strongly and they think you're scaremongering and being unnecessarily negative. Warn them quietly, and nobody listens. Warn them just right, and they'll take it under consideration, but go ahead anyway.
When of course the inevitable happens, as the guy who predicted doom, you'll be blamed, because "it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made a self fulfilling prophecy".
It's a real PITA to engineer safe systems (see e.g. IEC 61508 and ISO 13849 in industrial automation), but it saves lives, and if you're in a position where Sales, Production, etc. is trying to get you to rush the Engineering work so they can make deadline, you've got to find the backbone to say "no," even if it hurts you professionally.