After the launch pad camera failures at Kennedy, Hale and Rocha knew that they had to get reconnaisance imagery.

Ham was not familiar with the problems, and did what any good manager would do, contacted some people she knew and trusted about it.

Unfortunately, their competence with this specialized system was limited, but Ham acted on her reading of their advice.

Anyone could have done the same thing.

That said, it looks to me like Ham needs to get some more space engineering training before she works on manned flight again. Just my opinion, but...

It also appears that the faom strike came at the nomex joint. I don't know if any of the camera systems could have picked up the initial damage; the possibility of detcahment is still being worked, so perhaps Maui may have shown it, maybe not.

Once this is refined further, whatever the outcome, I think that what NASA needs to do is put everyone back in their seats, and run a full up 20+ day exercise assuming that the damge was detectd.
The goal of the exercise would be to save Columiba and/or its crew; full structural engineering simulation runs will have to be made, in the time period given - say just over 20 days; a full STS crew will also have to be in a simulator, taking on the Columiba crew roles.

ON the confidentiality issue, the Congress has the full authority is this case to demand whatever it considers it needs to manage the public's business, but perhaps it may want to preserve some confidentiality as well, particularly in regards to reconaissance systems.

My assumption is that despite the desires of some, this will not be handled in a confrontational way, but rather through quite discussion, with public testimony given for the record to replace testimony which may best remain confidential.

The Congressional committee members of course must have the private access to the testimony which they need to conduct the nations business.

The important testimony here is going to be from Hale and Rocha, and their judgements are going to be pretty much final. The e-mails from and between Ham, Readdy, and Dittemore are also going to be essential.

Finally, I think that OKeefe's earlier call, from before Columbia, for the OSP is exactly the right decision. It is now time to get on with this as rapidly as possible.

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