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You are entitled to your opinion but I disagree.

You Said:
"The point is this: if the crew were faced with the choice of remaining in space until they die from lack of life support, or give reentry a try, they would have given reentry a try."

You cannot make that statement, IMHO. None of us can know what Shuttle Commander Husband would have done.

It is not outside the realm of possibility that they could have pushed to a higher orbit and been rescued by another shuttle or even a soyuz. Who Knows. We never will, nor will we know what you are inferring, that of a decision that was never made.

Under your assumption, do you think the families would have liked one more opportunity to say their goodbyes?

You are making an assumption of an event that never occured.

The only ones that know what decision would have been made, and the ones who should have been given the option to make that decision perished in the Columbia.

And by NASA protocal, the fact remains tha all aborts after launch are decided by the flight crew, not the ground crew.

And that decision belongs to Shuttle Commander Husband.

Regards,
Joe

Well, then we agree to disagree.

The facts are that it would take at least a month at the very earliest to get another shuttle up there - and that would be putting that shuttle at great risk. Soyuz was also out of the question. The fact remains that if Commander Husband was faced with a 100% certainty of death by remaining in orbit, and an unknown certainty of reentry, reentry would still have been the only choice. They may have remained in orbit 4 more days until their life support started running low, and then gave reentry a try but either way their death warrants were signed 81 seconds into the launch.

Sure, they would have gotten to say goodbye and we would have had a world wide drama and horror played out over multiple days that would have been much more painful. I don't know, if I was faced with the choice of knowing 4 days before I die that I was going to die, or not know, I'd choose not know. Also I think you assume too much that the families would like to have had that extra time. Again, if it was me I wouldn't have wanted that extra time. I couldn't handle the drama and emotion, it'd just make the inevitable worse.