re: #7 Kragar
NASA knew Columbia crew could die but chose not to tell them
I was sorely disappointed that they apparently did not have a solid contingency plan to deal with something like that. That the heat shield tiles could get damaged in some way should be obvious - micrometeorite, collision, etc. So you would think there would be some idea of being able to do an EVA and effect some sort of temporary repair that at a minimum would increase the changes of the shuttle being able to survive re-entry.