Space Shuttle

I cant belive how stupid it was that they couldnt actually dock with the space station and hide out there for rescue...(by another shuttle or the Russians) With any errors it was always gonna be a one way trip. RIP

Th shuttle was not configured to dock with the space station. If they had known there was a major problem they could have sent up a rescue shuttle in a couple weeks perhaps but do you send up a rescue shuttle without first knowing what caused the previous one to fail? Perhaps someone in NASA did realize the gravity of the situation before re-entry but it was pointless to inform anyone on board since there was noting they could do anyway. Every day is a gift......

If it couldn't dock with the space station then at least they should have been able to pull up next to it and space walk over to it until they sent up either a shuttle to get them down or repair the one they had. Seems like NASA kind of blew off the fact that they may have had heat shield problems