[DoughtyOne]

Jim I'm not even sure the wing was damaged. They seemed to have been somewhat concerned about it. Instead of going the extra mile, they seemed to have simply said "Oh, no problem". Now this. I'm not confortable with their dismissal of this problem out of hand.

Perhaps they were right. I just hope they were, because if they weren't, some people paid a high cost.

[Jim Noble]

>>I just hope they were, because if they weren't, some people paid a high cost<<

You are making the assumption that, if they knew the underside of the left wing had a fatal defect (probably not, the tiles were probably only loose and didn't come off until reentry)-that there were available tools to stage a rescue.

This is almost certainly not true.