[PopePompus]

There were a number of things they could have tried. No one of the alternatives (except launching a rescue shuttle) could possibly have turned out worse than the course they chose. Instead of an Apollo-13 style "Failure is not an option" effort, Jon Harpold, then the director of Mission Operations, is reported to have said

"You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the thermal protection system. If it has been damaged it's probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/01/columbia-space...

[Endy]

In my life up until now, I'd always believed the best of people and doubly so of NASA. Seeing that, and knowing it's true, makes me believe that there is evil in this world. And that man is part of it. Whoever and whatever forces allowed him to get where he was with opinions like that, needlessly sacrificing the lives of seven people and being satisfied that he'd made the right decision needs to be brought to account, publicly and with no means of secrecy.

[philwelch]

It's not evil, not per se. Evil would be murdering people deliberately. This is incompetence, complacency, and apathy. It's negligence. But it's exactly what we should expect from an agency that knowingly ran an unsurvivable death trap of a launch vehicle for thirty years.

During the early stages of a shuttle launch, prior to SRB separation, the only abort mode available was RTLS--"return to launch site". Unlike Apollo, Soyuz, Dragon, or any other capsule-based spacecraft, which had a launch escape system that could immediately separate the crew capsule from the rest of the launch vehicle and place it in a safe vector to parachute back to the surface, the Shuttle was expected to pitch end-over-end, with the external fuel tank still attached, in an attempt to return to a runway near the launch pad. John Young, the pilot of the first Space Shuttle mission, declined the suggestion to perform a manned test of the RTLS abort mode, stating, "let's not practice Russian roulette." He also noted, "RTLS requires continuous miracles interspersed with acts of God to be successful".

It's not as though a LES would have necessarily saved Challenger, mind you. The explosion was too fast. But if the craft were mounted vertically with the booster stage rather than tandem, and if the abort mode didn't require having a fully intact orbiter and external fuel tank that could perform aerobatic maneuvers at the edge of possibility, there would have at least been a chance. Likewise, such a vertical-stacked design would have completely eliminated the risk of anything like the Columbia disaster.

This isn't to minimize the real, compounding negligence in how the program was executed over the years. But the program was damned to begin with.

[scott_s]

> "After showing the astronauts in orbit a video of the foam strike and discussing with them what they thought they knew, mission managers concluded that it was a non-issue and posed no threat to the crew's safe return.

> ...

> "Although the circumstances of the tragedy have been well documented, and Hale insists there was "never any debate about what to tell the crew", his revelation brings new insight to the mindset of some Nasa employees at the time."

The crew knew.

[PopePompus]

Here is what NASA emailed to the crew about the foam strike:

--- begin quote ---

You guys are doing a fantastic job staying on the timeline and accomplishing great science. Keep up the good work and let us know if there is anything that we can do better from an MCC/POCC standpoint.

There is one item that I would like to make you aware of for the upcoming PAO event on Blue FD 10 and for future PAO events later in the mission. This item is not even worth mentioning other than wanting to make sure that you are not surprised by it in a question from a reporter.

During ascent at approximately 80 seconds, photo analysis shows that some debris from the area of the -Y ET Bipod Attach Point came loose and subsequently impacted the orbiter left wing, in the area of transition from Chine to Main Wing, creating a shower of smaller particles. The impact appears to be totally on the lower surface and no particles are seen to traverse over the upper surface of the wing. Experts have reviewed the high speed photography and there is no concern for RCC or tile damage. We have seen this same phenomenon on several other flights and there is absolutely no concern for entry.

That is all for now. It's a pleasure working with you every day.

--- end quote ---

Now does it sound to you like the crew was fully informed, or like NASA was minimizing the issue?

https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030630emails/

[ApolloFortyNine]

Actually there was a similar situation during Apollo 13 having to do with possible damage to the heat shield. They had no way to know if the heat shield had been damaged or not by the explosion, and even if they did find out they couldn't have fixed it.

My readings of the Colombia disaster have yielded similar results, unless someone can tell me of a way to repair the tiles on the shuttle. Launching Atlantis early was, as far as I know, determined to be possible only afterwards. At the time they had no idea it could be done, and honestly it sounds like a chance to risk 14 lives instead of 7. Or at least 8, I'm not aware of how many people were actually required to fly the shuttle.

[js2]

If he actually said that, it’s fucking unconscionable. It’s not his decision to make (or shouldn’t be), it’s the crews’.

What kind of morality underlies such thinking?

[depressed]

Honestly, I could understand that line of thinking if he were talking about ordinary members of the public who are utterly unprepared for a life and death situation. (Not saying I agree with it, just that I understand it.)

But when we're talking about a crew of professionals who literally spend years training to deal with disasters, and who knew exactly what they signed up for when they got in that rocket, I have to squarely side with you. They at least deserved a chance to go down fighting.