Most horryfying?

[Vincent]

Somewhat ironically...they pulled the MMU off the shuttle because they felt that having an astronaut untethered from an orbiter was just to large of a risk.

...they could've used it though to go around and inspect the spacecraft...or if not in this situation, a future one...

[Boomerang]

Well as for having docking ability on all future missions that shouldnt be a problem. the other 3 orbiters can carry very heavy payloads to the iss without roblems. Columbia on the other hand was just to heavy. It wouldnt have been able to carry anywhere near the payload it was carrying and still dock. Between space hab and the pallet full of extra life support equipment to keep it up their for 16 days docking wasnt an option thats not even mentioning it wasnt carrying a docking mechanism. As for the MMU's they might have been able to do the inspection with one of them but then what. As 3 of the last 4 Gemini missions proved its near impossible to do any kind of physical work outside the space craft without some type of foothold or other restraint. And again we get back to the whole lack of a repair kit. For those of you unfamiliar with my Gemini referance i was referring to the problems the space walkers on Gemini's 9, 10, and 11 had doing simple tasks such as just turning nuts and bolts or tightning valves. They were working themselves almost literaly to death trying to do simple tasks. Till Aldrin helped develop many of the restraints and rtools still used today. The underside of the shuttle has no hand holds or foot restrains or restraints of any kind which would make a repair job verry difficult. Maybe with a station docking the stations arm could be used in that capacity like the shuttle arm has been used on some flights but thats yet to be seen and i'm not sure if the arms location would allow for it anyway.