Hello Paul,

 DW>>> Suppose they had done an inspection and found the tiles were
 DW>>> missing, what could they have done? The shuttle wasn't at the ISS.

 MvV>> But it could have gone there and dock couldn't it?

 PR> Nowhere close!

So I understand now.

 MvV>> If they couldn't have gone to the ISS to wait for the next
 MvV>> shuttle, when  aware of the problem, they could perhaps have
 MvV>> done something to increase their chances. Like dumping every
 MvV>> piece of mass not needed to land. Or land at a place nearer
 MvV>> to the equator so their entry velocity would be lower.

 PR> The only thing that might have worked was an immediate launch abort,
 PR> either back to the Cape or either of the European emergency strips,
 PR> but they weren't watching close enough.

I am not convinced that *nothing* could have been done once in orbit. As
long as we do not know what the problem  was, we can not rule out the
possibility of a solution.

As I understand, the investigators are now leaning towards the theory of
failure of the attitude control during decent.

Regards, Michiel

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