Everything hinged on making the momentous decision on January 23, following the decision to conserve the air scrubbers on the fourth day of the mission. And remember that the request for intelligence imagery surfaced on January 22. Even if the request had been approved at that point, we wouldn’t have had the pictures in time to make an informed decision. Furthermore, the reduction of the crew’s normal activities to conserve consumables would have made a space walk unfeasible in the first place. It had been already too late for a rescue.
