[Mamzelle]

re: 3. There are no shuttles close to ready in the VAB. It takes about a month to prep one - minimum, 24 hours to get it from the VAB to either launch pad and then, it has to sit there for at least a week - I don't remember precisely why. That's SOP in the NASA world. We're not talking about a 747.)))

Could the Russians have helped?

[Desdemona]

Could the Russians have helped?

I don't know. But, given the prep time for any launch, the fact that Columbia didn't dock, the amount of time and precision of needed calculations, I doubt it. It would have been really rushed. The last time NASA rushed something just watching the clock, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died.

If there was damage to the tiles, and it's WAY too early to know, there was no way to know for sure, without a close-up inspection, what was going to happen. In over 40 years and over a hundred flights, of an extraordiarily dangerous group of projects this is accident 4 involving human life and 3 involving loss of life. That's still a damn good track record.