[Amerigomag]

Post crash analysis will determine that the flight was doomed when it left the atmosphere.

The saftey panel will further determine that the only survivable course would have been seperation of Columbia from it's supplemental fuel tank just after the tile damage occured. This mission abort process would have allowed Columbia to return to earth in a controlled fashion without the excessive heat of reentry.

But alas this same board will also conclude that not enough information is avaliable at that stage of the flight to warrant such an economically expensive decision and therefore the accident was unavoidable without a complete redesign of the mission vehicles.

[Prov1322]

Interesting point, Amerigomag.

Does anyone know 1) how the "escape" portion of the shuttle works and 2) under what conditions will it work successfully!?

[WoofDog123]

"But alas this same board will also conclude that not enough information is avaliable at that stage of the flight to warrant such an economically expensive decision and therefore the accident was unavoidable without a complete redesign of the mission vehicles."

My interest is in what the board will say about the decision to change to a non-freon based foam insulation, which from the beginning demonstrated a tendency to break off and hit the vehicle, and why this decision was not reversed. If the primary motives in not reversing the foam change were ideological/political/economic, hopefully it will become public.