[Almondjoy]

First off their supplies would of run out well before another shuttle could of been sent up to meet them. Two.. I don't recall two shuttles ever meeting up in space. Three, only two of them were qualifed to spacewalk.. I'm not expert but if it's something you have to be qualifed in.. I'm sure it's not all that easy. Four, what happens with the shuttle if, when, and how it comes back down the earth. It still would of burned up but it could of landed in a major city.

On your 2nd point. Let's assume they examined all those options and concluded there was no way to get them down. Why would they inform them that they think they are all going to die??? Wouldn't it be better to let them try and bring it down.. nothing is 100% certain. Maybe they wanted them to just make it through. People under pressure make all kinds of mistakes. Better to let them just ride it out.

[P-Marlowe]

People under pressure make all kinds of mistakes.

Yeah, like they did in getting Apollo 13 back, right? Sorry, but people, especially the type they send into space, do their best work when they are under pressure. Its when the pressure's off that they screw up.

If anyone in authority had any second thoughts about the safety of bringing the Shuttle back into the atmosphere, they had a duty to do everything they could to make sure that what happened didn't happen. If that meant getting another shuttle ready in a week then they should have done it. They knew of the problem on liftoff. They had more than a week to get Atlantis ready with a crew of 2 experienced pilots. They could have done an up close visual inspection and if it didn't look good they could have loaded everyone into Atlantis.

Just because nobody had ever done a rescue in space does not mean that it shouldn't be tried. Indeed I bet the next few shuttle flights will be strictly rescue training exercises. Wanna take that bet?