The Shuttle Atlantis was almost lost in 1988

The link below is to a fascinating story about the second shuttle launch after the Challenger disaster and how the same type of damage that would bring down Columbia, almost took down Atlantis years earlier.

Legendary Commander Tells Story of Shuttle's Close Call

"I will never forget, we hung the (robot) arm over the right wing, we panned it to the (damage) location and took a look and I said to myself, 'we are going to die,'" recalled legendary shuttle commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson. "There was so much damage. I looked at that stuff and I said, 'oh, holy smokes, this looks horrible, this looks awful.'"

He was seeing the worst tile damage any shuttle had ever experienced.

Check it out.