[coloradan]

No kidding. On one of the original Starfire threads, I calculated that the spatial resolution of that telescope should reveal details to about 3" on the shuttle - about the size of a single tile.

[eno_]

So this opens a can of worms:

Did NASA ask the Starfire people for pictures?

Did NASA down-rate the images made publicly available?

I suspect this all eventually leads to two conclusions:

1. NASA knew things could be pretty bad.

2. NASA, for various reasons, chose the most optimistic interpretation of information they had.