Sorry...I forget what I am doing every time I scroll pass that photo of Ann Coulter at the top of this thread...
I was going to mention that the shuttle folks could take a lesson from the Atlas people. Look at all the cameras they have on board which would telemeter to the ground anything malfunctioning.
The shuttle is in the dark ages in this area. They should have those "cube cameras" all over the vehicle, and in the aft compartment as well.
You wouldn't want to put any additional penetrations on the lower surface of the wing or fuselage of the orbiter.
On the other hand, creating such penetrations on the ET might be worthwhile to monitor the performance of the orbiter to ET sep.