NASA Discounted Damage to Tiles - Wired News

I’ve been wondering why they didn’t check the underside of the shuttle for damaged tiles in orbit. A quick a space walk to check if everything was ok. So I asked a friend who does work at the JPL. The doomed flight was carrying the science module to do experiments. In this configuration they don’t have access to an air lock, nor do they have the CanadaArm wich might have been used to look under the shuttle. So they had to rely on the judgment of the engineers on the ground.

-Peace