I have posted this before on FR:
I, too, worked on the Shuttle program. The whole story on Columbia has not been aired.
I still have my meeting notes and my report to my colleagues in Downey from my visit to JSC.
We told JSC that the RCC on the leading edge of Columbia’s wings MUST be replaced. Where the shock wave from the nose impacted the RCC very high heating rates were causing oxygen atoms to enter the RCC and “de-densify” it. In other words, the RCC was losing carbon atoms as CO and outgassing.
We were told by the JSC rep, “There’s no money in the budget to replace the RCC”.
You could poke your finger through an RCC panel it was so weakened.
That’s the point where the foam off the ET hit the wing leading edge.
I wrote a letter to the accident investigators telling them what I knew. Never got a reply. To this day, I do not know if they replaced the RCC.
As far as I know they never did. The whole thing was an odd happening. From what I remember of the investigation, I believe it took over 400 shots until they finally got the velocity and angles right to punch a hole in the test RCC leading edge they had set up. So things must have been just right (actually wrong) the day of lift off. During the post launch film reviews we could clearly see the foam impact the wing but there was absolutely no way to check for damage without DOD’s help which we didn’t get. Like I said, even if the damage was known, there was no way to do anything about it so.............do you tell the crew or not? I feel, myself, that they should have at least been told that there may have been damage at lift off. I still remember watching the guys in mission control and them watching the sensors in the left MLG drop out one by one. No booms, no landing, no orbiter. I forwarded the link of the video somebody in the Reno area had of the “puff” in the contrail as she headed east to the investigaiton team but like you, never got any response from “above”. Still the most rewarding job I ever had. Heck, looking back, I spent over half my life working on the program. (Well, over half so far!)