re: STS-27 was almost lost on re-entry.
That would have meant serious trouble for all the interplanetary missions that depended on the shuttle and the big observatories like the HST that also depended on it.
But I wonder...
At the time, would the shuttle have been cancelled ?
Perhaps the shuttle would have been replaced again and reinforced in such a way STS 107 would not have occured .
It is very difficult to imagine what the nation's state of mind would have been...Perhaps it would have strengthened the shuttle program more than ever (no country likes to be humiliated and that could have galvanized the space program)