By examining the tissues of the crew, they hoped to be able to deduce what conditions had been like inside the shuttle cabin in the minutes before its final disintegration: whether the astronauts had been killed almost instantly by an explosive high-altitude depressurization; if the skin of the compartment had been ruptured, admitting toxic hypergolic propellant from the spacecraft’s Orbital Maneuvering System; or if a slow leak of the cabin atmosphere had rendered them slowly unconscious in their seats as the wreckage fell back toward the Earth.
