Replies

Could they have stayed up for any amount of time to get rescued?

I believe I asked this question in my post. But you chose to ignore it. Do you know how many DAYS it takes to move a rocket or shuttle into place for launch? And that would be if the rocket or shuttle was ready to be launched in the first place. Why don't you answer my question about whether it was feasible to be done before jumping all over my response? You almost sound like you live in a fantasy movie world not based on reality. Yes, they solved the Apollo 13 crisis but I didn't see them send up another rocket to get them. I also don't remember any part about sending the astronauts outside to replace part of the rocket. And if they hadn't solved it then those guys would have been just as dead as the crew of the shuttle.

NASA did state that there was two things they could have done to minimize the stress on the left wing if they had evidence it was damaged and posed a threat during re-entry.

1) Cold soak the left wing prior to re-entry. This involves rotating the shuttle so the left wing was not exposed to the sun while in orbit. This would lower the temperature of the left wing considerably prior to re-entry.

2) Bring the shuttle in at an angle that minimized the heating on the left wing during re-entry.

Neither of these would assure a positive outcome, but it would be better thatn doing nothing at all.

I believe I asked this question in my post. But you chose to ignore it.

I didn't ignore it, you ignored my answer.

Faced with the problem that would have been revealed by the spy satellite, ten thousand engineers and scientists and managers and others would have been thrown at the problem with nearly unlimited resources. Given the chance to exercise extreme creativity, they could have solved the problem. They could have rigged a docking or spacewalk to the space station. They could have tapped oxygen reserves otherwise intended for re-entry. They could have patched the damage. They could have supercooled the wing. They could have changed re-entry trajectory. They could have found little-known documents addressing precisely the situation, or related abort-mission solutions. Given the basic problem and the freedom & motivation to solve it, the crew could have been saved. If nothing else, all options could have been exhausted and the crew lost with all knowing "we did the best we could".

Yes, they could - possibly - have stayed up for long enough for a rescue. You don't know for absolute fact that they could not have. Your defeatist "dunno, so let 'em die in ignorance" attitude, shared by a certain Steve Stich & co., denied the astronauts and their support crew the opportunity to solve the problem.

Why don't you answer my question about whether it was feasible to be done before jumping all over my response?

BECAUSE NOBODY WAS GIVEN ADEQUATE OPPORTUNITY TO DETERMINE IF IT WAS FEASABLE. A million man-hours of expert creative analysis is, indeed, superior to ten seconds of ignorance.