[battlecry]

We have a winner! Quite a lot survived the Columbia crash. That is on their minds. Bad guys may precisely track reentry and dig up what they can.

[Justa]

It takes real genius to make a multi-billion dollar satellite then not even be able to get it into its operational orbit. WTG Lockheed. One wonders how many other systems under-perform or are offline on the spy satellites which do make it to orbit.

There should be a 20% rule for multi-billion dollar defense contracts. For every catastrophic program failure 20% of upper management should be cashiered. That'd fix it -guaranteed.

[DGHoodini]

Not really applicable to the shuttle accident, which was under controlled flight for most of it’s descent. It was no accident that the debris was in Texas, as that was the state the shuttle was attempting to land. It was well into it’s decent when the heat shield failed. In an uncontrolled descent, without heat shielding, those satellite fuel tanks will blow at a much higher altitude.