Nobody denied anybody anything. Nobody knew they wouldn't come down! But--
Compare the Columbia to the Challenger. That's what he was implying, I think. I had thought it myself--at least they got to make their flight. The seven people on the Challenger didn't even make it into space--died 80 seconds after take-off. The Columbia crew got to do what they had always wanted to do. They died "on top of the world."
Don't you imagine they had said some good-byes before they got on the shuttle to ride a rocket into space?
Do you realize that of the 27 people who have been lost in the space program, until now the ones who died on the ground out-numbered those who had died in a space flight? Now in flight out-numbers on ground 14-13.