sjb (07/05/82)
The Columbia returned to Earth in such good shape today that James Abrahamson, director of space transportation systems for NASA, said that STS-5, not scheduled for 11 November, could come up to 4 weeks early, depending on whether or not the two companies that are to have satellites aboard will be ready by then. He also said that NASA has decided to go ahead and recover as much as they can of one of the two SRB's that sank. They hope that tape recorders on the booster will help decide what caused their parachutes to fail and subsequently them to hit the surface of the ocean at over 300 mph. He said that one theory was that the lightening that accompanied the prelaunch storm may have damaged the boosters.
sjb (07/05/82)
Whoops! I meant now scheduled for 11 November!