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Atlantis was already scheduled for launch 41 days after Columbia. Columbia had ~30 days of air. NASA believed that Atlantis prep could have been accelerated and launched in time to attempt a rescue.

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That's from a study that was done after the accident. As far as I'm aware NASA never even considered a rescue mission while Columbia was in orbit. They simply assumed that if the tiles were damaged there was nothing that could be done. It also seems that that assumption was what lead to the decision not to make efforts to assess the damage such as a space walk or the use of DoD spy satellites.

And could have had the same problem as Columbia. There was no quick fix to ensure Atlantis didn't meet the same fate.

Judging by previous flights, the chance of a Columbia problem occurring on any given flight (like that of Atlantis) was around 1/200. Would you take a 1/200 chance of losing your life to save someone else's? Many people would.

What if both foams were from the same batch?

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