"Disaster in space , Robin McKie and Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont Sunday February 2, 2003 The Observer ...Nasa issued warnings not to handle any of the material because of fears of radiation contamination [a plutonium battery?]. ... However, as the country mourned, it emerged last night that Bush and senior officials were warned that Nasa was facing an unprecedented crisis over its safety management and was in danger of a 'catastrophic disaster' during a shuttle mission. In a series of public interventions, senators, aerospace experts, the US government's own general audit office and even former Nasa engineers have warned over the past two years that budget problems at Nasa had made safety improvements 'optional'. ..."

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,887231,00.html

Further reading will reveal that Congress routinely shortchanged NASA's budgets at least as early as 1995, and that the safety situation became critical no later than 2001. The Administration was plainly warned, and did nothing.

What I don't understand is the lack of... elasticity in mission profiles, and the resulting lack of options. I understand that they can't have a stack of extra tiles and a glue gun in the back of the payload bay, but surely--given our current technologies--a teleoperated robot with a camera to crawl along the outside of the spacecraft to see what's what is not beyond our capabilities or our budget, and surely extra fuel to boost the shuttle up to the ISS to wait for a rescue mission if something goes wrong should be a routine option...

I don't think there is anything that could be done at that point in the return. Press accounts mention that, by the time sensors were showing problems with rising heat, the shuttle was already down to 40 miles elevation and, more critically, something like 12 miles/second velocity. Orbital velocity is about 17 miles/second - it would probably take a LOT of fuel (useless for any other purpose) to get back into orbit. And I suspect the shuttle's engines, which are designed only for turning the craft, are incapable of providing that much thrust in any case.

In hindsight, it seems likely that there should have been more concern about possible damage to the left wing tiles on lift-off. I'm guessing here, but it might have been possible to leave the crew at the space station and attempt to bring Columbia back without a crew.

Wait...

That's 12,000 miles/hour and 17,000 miles/hour, respectively.

It was early, and I was tired.

Professor DeLong states "What I don't understand is the lack of... elasticity in mission profiles, and the resulting lack of options."

Relentless cost-cutting over many years has taken its toll. As is being pointed out, scientists and engineers have been leaving NASA, morale was low, outsourcing fragmented communications, urgent safety concerns were dismissed by the president and the Congress.

As I understand it, both a robot arm and a camera to monitor the suspect section of tiles were not included because of cost considerations.

The story of relentless cost-cutting leading to disaster has been repeated again and again. Gung-ho managers salute and say "Yes, sir!" because the power relationships in employment are so badly distorted. I don't doubt that we will read of dozens of sub-catastrophic incidents occurred. Or, well, hm. This is the Bush Administration. I suppose I should doubt we'll read about them.

Ummmm, the ISS is somewhere around 60% over budget and climbing. Much of the NASA budget crunch comes from funding for other projects that got sucked into the ISS black hole.

The shuttle was a bad design that never should have flown in the first place, and we definitely shouldn't have funded a fourth orbiter after Challenger blew up.

The odds of catastrophic failure are somewhere between 1/20 and 1/200, and the design is so complex that the shuttle can't be made safer.