> Flight controllers were convinced from the grainy images that the damage was not severe and that the crew were mistakenly seeing damage in conditions of poor lighting.
I can't help but wonder if they had to say that because there was no real way to either fix the shuttle or retrieve the astronauts.
> If the heat shield was damaged, it could spell disaster during the fiery return to Earth and Gibson’s was instructed to use RMS cameras to acquire imagery.
Why wasn't this SOP until after we lost another shuttle crew?
Supposedly (I can't find a reliable source), Neil Armstrong was once asked what he would have done with his final hours on the moon if the ascent engine had failed and they had been stranded. His response was that he'd have spent his final hours trying to fix the engine.
The point is that there's always something to try, even if it's improbable. Pilots are told to fly as far into the crash as possible, because it never helps to give up, and there might still be something you can do.
It's possible that they chose to say that because they thought there was no way to save the astronauts, but they definitely did not have to. And if that's really how it was, they definitely shouldn't have.
Supposedly NASA was aware of the tile damage to Columbia before re-entry in 2003, but purposefully didn't tell the astronauts because they believed there was indeed no way to fix it; the Shuttle's TPS tiles are right on the bleeding edge of being capable of protecting the craft, just barely thick enough to do their job (thin to save weight) and completely unable to resist impacts. Supposedly the philosophy was such that NASA management would rather the astronauts be completely oblivious to the impending failure during re-entry, carry out a successful mission, and thus experience only a short period of pure horror during re-entry, as opposed to informing them there was nothing to be done and that re-entry would kill them.
I have never understood NASA management. It's been responsible for both Shuttle disasters (pushing Challenger to launch despite unsuitable weather). NASA demonstrated what I think is humanity's finest engineering-your-way-out-of-a-problem with Apollo 13, which couldn't benefit from satellite imaging, robot arms or other inventions since, but they seem pretty complacent after that.
> Flight controllers were convinced from the grainy images that the damage was not severe and that the crew were mistakenly seeing damage in conditions of poor lighting.
I can't help but wonder if they had to say that because there was no real way to either fix the shuttle or retrieve the astronauts.
> If the heat shield was damaged, it could spell disaster during the fiery return to Earth and Gibson’s was instructed to use RMS cameras to acquire imagery.
Why wasn't this SOP until after we lost another shuttle crew?