Mary Pegg wrote in
:

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

or for the crew to power down and try to hold out until Atlantis
could be launched to rescue them (which was perhaps just barely
possible, but would have involved risking a second orbiter and crew
to the same problem that doomed the first).

We've all read enough about Columbia, but this point always seems to
go unchallenged. Knowledge of a new failure mode doesn't suddenly
make it more likely. However you slice the data the chances of
Atlantis suffering the same problem were very slim,

That requires the assumption that all the bipod-ramp foam incidents shared
a common root cause.

Remember, prior to STS-112, the previous incident of bipod-ramp foam
shedding that NASA knew about was on STS-50, over ten years previous. NASA
had thought they'd licked that problem.

Then STS-112 shed bipod ramp foam, then STS-107. Two out of three flights
in quick succession. Without a firm link between the root causes of the
current and previous incidents, NASA had *no* engineering rationale for
saying that the odds of bipod foam shedding would be any *less* than 67%
for a rescue flight.

and I'm quite sure
that there would have been no shortage of volunteers willing to bet
against it.

Agreed there.

And whatever system you're using, every launch and every
re-entry carries some risk.

As has been pointed out, the far greater risk to Atlanta would have
been from rushing the job.

Still wouldn't have happened tho.

Agreed there, too.


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JRF

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