Space Shuttle Discovery

The window seen below is the only window on that space shuttle besides those that are in the flight deck.

 

Sadly, 13 years ago yesterday the space shuttle Columbia had broken up on re-entry to earth. The cause being a piece of foam insulation that broke off during the initial climb out from the space centre to outer space, it had damaged the leading edge on one of the orbiters delta wings.

 

Now the reason I mentioned the window is, though they knew afterwards that a piece of insulation foam broke off from the external tank and likely hit the shuttle, they didn't know what or if the damaged it had caused, and sadly this window didn't give a view of that wing, not allowing them to know the graveness of the potential damage.

 

Had they known, there could have been possible rescue plans of the crew from another shuttle, though the possibility of a rescue mission itself would have been dangerous to pull off.

 

Could they safely ready the next shuttle to launch in time? as well would they current crew of Columbia's mission have had enough living supplies to wait out this rescue mission?

 

But sadly not knowing of the damage, the Columbia flight crew set up to return to earth like any other re-entry they would have trained for.

 

Thus we know breaking up upon re-entry due to this hole in the leading edge of the wing that compromised its structure.

Done