CAIB Issues Preliminary Recommendation Three: On-Orbit/On-Station TPS Inspection and Repair Capability

On 30 Jun 2003 14:36:37 -0400, jeff findley
wrote:

"Brian Gaff" writes:

Also, the somewhat vague reference to the inability to do anything being why
nobody wanted to actually know what Columbia had wrong with it sounds a bit
odd to me. Are we saying here that people, probably even the crew, were just
crossing their fingers because they knew there was nothing that could be
done?

It seems the crew was told that there wasn't a problem:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=9654

This is nothing new. They told us early on that the crew was notified by email
and that a video clip had been sent up as well, all telling them "hey we saw
something but it's no big deal."