[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.

[Mamzelle]

re: 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. )))

If the possible damage was known from the start of the mission, we have "eyes" that'd given us pictures of that possible damage, so sharp you could count the pores. The Pentagon could've done it, if asked. That would have given us almost a month to mount a rescue, if indeed the damage was the problem. But they didn't look, apparently, so we can't know.