[Check6]

The accident investigation will conclude that the probably cause is tile loss secondary to impact of ice or insulation, whatever it was. Question is, with film of the launch like this available, why didn't they do a walk to check the condition of the wing? Answer: wishful thinking on the part of mission control folks.

They would have had two weeks plus to mount a rescue mission of some sort. Obviously, lots of work to be done to plug the safety holes in our Space Transportation System.

[FReepaholic]

>>... why didn't they do a walk to check the condition of the wing...<<

No hand-holds under there. No robot arm on this mission either. They sometimes use the arm with it's camera to check tiles.

I'm not even sure there was an EVA suit onboard for this mission.

[XBob]

34 - "The accident investigation will conclude that the probably cause is tile loss secondary to impact of ice or insulation, whatever it was. Question is, with film of the launch like this available, why didn't they do a walk to check the condition of the wing? Answer: wishful thinking on the part of mission control folks.

They would have had two weeks plus to mount a rescue mission of some sort. Obviously, lots of work to be done to plug the safety holes in our Space Transportation System."

---

I agree, or at least use our 'fancy' telescopes to check the condition of the tiles.

Were they equipped to do space walks? Did they do them? I don't know.

[eno_]

"why didn't they do a walk to check the condition of the wing?"

There are no handholds outside the cargo bay. The robot arm might have been able to "look" back there, but it was not on this mission. Their options for diagnosing tile issues were ground-based telescopes or a flyby of the ISS, and they may not have had the maneuvering fuel to get to the same orbit as the ISS.

[DoughtyOne]

A space walk was mentioned yesterday during the press conference. There is no capacity for the crew to execute a space walk outside the payload bay according to the NASA official. In the design phase they determined that tile failure would be catastophic and unable to be repaired in space.

I kid you not, this was the logic presented. My jaw dropped when I heard it.

This was the policy for the Columbia. I do not know if it was the same for the others. The Columbia didn't have a cargo arm in the back.

I didn't see the debris hit the wing. What could have happened, is the debris broke the seal of some tiles from the wing, but they didn't fall off. They were dislodged from the surface of the wing, but stayed in place perhaps held on by each other. Upon reentry this section of dislodged tiles fell off in unison leaving an exposed section of wing and failure resulted.