so... where's the photo of the flash?
Not one outfit has it???
NASA has the camera, and the photograph and it hasn't been released.
http://www.yfiles.com/shuttle/index.htm
Ionized Contrail Lightning Rod
With the shuttle flying through the ionosphere we must also remember that the contrail it leaves is not a normal contrail but an ionized contrail (24).
As the space shuttle streaks through the upper atmosphere, it leaves a wake in the air just as a boat leaves a wake behind it in the water. The shuttle's wake becomes electrified. Lyons says some scientists are speculating that its electrified wake acted as an antenna and drew a blue jet to the Columbia.
It may have well been a Blue Jet with a corkscrew pattern due to the Vortex from the airflow over the Double Delta wings. The concern is that most Blue Jets come from the tops of thunder storms, none of which were present in the California area at the time. However, given that a rare shockwave hit the Earth's atmosphere at this time I would suspect the catalyst was the input of energy into the ionosphere from the solar wind, no thundercloud was necessary which would mean this anomaly has never been seen before.