So here’s something I learned yesterday. You know how astronaut transmissions traditionally start with “Houston…”? Houston is CAPCOM’s radio call sign. NASA’s idea was that CAPCOM would be the only node of communication between mission control and the spacecraft. And CAPCOM wasn’t an engineer, he was an astronaut, usually one of the backup crew.

So here’s something I learned a few weeks ago. There was an official government report on Columbia’s final mission. Among the reports was that there were multiple individuals and teams on the ground who noticed the foam strike on the heat tiles and agitated very strongly about it. However, it was never brought up in any transmission because NASA concluded there was nothing that could be done about it.