[Stefan Stackhouse]

His answer was totally defensive. Between several of his responses, the "theme" was "Nothing could have been done to repair tile damage" - I don't believe that for a minute. Regardless, who cares if it couldn't have been repaired? That is NO justification for failing to fully investigate before re-entry.

Worst case, if a visual inspection had discovered damage that could lead to the type of catastrophic failure that happened today, the shuttle could have made it to the ISS, which could have served as their "lifeboat" until a rescue/repair mission was sent up. This would have required some imaginative improvising, no doubt, but no more so than what was done for Apollo 13. I guess that crew doesn't work at NASA any more, though. . .

[HairOfTheDog]

Do you guys honestly think you know better? - Have you sent NASA your resumes? I am sure they would love to have people on-hand that could immediately solve this problem. Think of how much money they would save on rocket scientists!