Actually, they probably did, if by processing you mean making a launch decision in inappropriate weather, and if by manufacturing you mean building external tanks that shed foam during ascent. In any event, my point stands. Shuttle was not man rated. “Man rated” is a meaningless term, and confuses more than clarifies. We need to design things to be reasonably safe. Both SpaceX and ULA are capable of doing so, and NASA has no unique expertise in that regard.

Shuttle was not man rated. Shuttle killed fourteen astronauts. So if true, this doesn’t make me sanguine about the safety of Ares.

Ares I-X, Ares 2-X, Ares I-Y are all test flights planned. Each of which progresses and tests the operational design progressively.

It’s not all about the design of the rocket that makes it man rated. It’s the operations, the quality of manufacturing, repetitiveness of manufacturing… There is SO much more to it than just the design. The same practices used to build shuttle are being applied to Ares. That is a huge benefit to any rocket build. These practices are also as difficult to get right, if not more, than the engineering design due to human error repetitiveness.