This tradition was not developing out of animus or envy towards the astronaut corp. It was developing as a matter of practicality, efficiency, mission requirements, and a natural bias among engineers in favor of the machine.
Actually, it was duelling traditions: conventional engineering practice (i.e., 1950s automation of payload delivery systems which gave us ICBMs) was counter to the JFK dictum to land men on the moon. As soon as people noticed, this was justified IIRC by touting astronauts as in-orbit repair-people. They just put on their space suits and do a space walk to fix the problem.
Considering they had no way to fix tiles in space, and second, and additional weight of spacewalk equipment degraded their ability to do their chartered mission, there would have been little point to a spacewalk and considerable downside negative publicity of finding and confirming a problem out there that could not be addressed.
[SteveH]Considering they had no way to fix tiles in space, and second, and additional weight of spacewalk equipment degraded their ability to do their chartered mission, there would have been little point to a spacewalk and considerable downside negative publicity of finding and confirming a problem out there that could not be addressed.
You seem informed, are you involved in the space program? I ask because this last paragraph of yours is an excellent example of a very dangerous culture within NASA.
The inability to repair tile damage weighs not at all in the question. If it did, then there was no point in doing any of the engineering analysis -- for there was NOTHING to be done... which is what you state in your closing words. But, of course, NASA never has suggested that there was NO OPTION to the fatal re-entry option, for there were some known options -- and perhaps others may have come to someone's imagination had NASA been aware of significant damage to the thermal protection system.
As for the weight of the EVA equipment degrading any mission... this is arsy varsy reasoning. The mission is suited to the capability of the machine and crew requirements. The payload capacity is calculated after the weight of the shuttle is calculated, so the weight of the EVA equipment ought always to be part of the calculation that LIMITS payload, not the other way around.
Lastly, ask the asronauts whether they would like to know the actual status of their spacecraft. I have, and to a man they have said they want to know -- even if that knowledge is knowledge of impending doom. And, to a man, they have reiterated one thing -- when push comes to shove the imagination is a tremendously powerful tool, unthought-of options come flowing from an enlivened imagination. We saw this in small ways during Apollo 13.
Your reply was much appreciated -- I think it pointed in spades to a problem that needs fixing before we fly again.
Kindest Regards