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Well, I was talking about computer hacking into the flight computers.

But, sure a bomb would work. Either time or temperature initiated.

Temperature would be better, especially if you're trying to take the Shuttle out on re-entry. You'd never know ahead of time when the Shuttle was going to land. It might come back early due to other problems, or come back late (1 or more days or orbits) due to weather.

The interior of the wing would be much warmer on re-entry than any other time during the flight. This could be the trigger to set off the bomb. The only problem would be getting the bomb into the wing area.

It would have to be done by the 'close-out' guy for that particular panel/area. It would have to be placed onboard as the area was being closed up. Before this point, the areas are inspected repeatedly by different people for anything that doesn't belong.

I guess you could try to disguise it as something that did belong, but then it would have also perform that function so that it wouldn't be noticed.

Early this morning, before NASA released any telemetry data, I told my wife that I thought the two most likely causes were a stuck or miscontrolled steering thruster, or a thermal burnthru.

This was also before I heard about the tank insulation striking the left wing during the launch phase.

This, plus the telemetry data about sensors progressively dying in the left wing, along with Occam's Razor, would lead me to believe that they had a burnthru due to missing/damaged tiles on the wing. But I could be wrong. It could just be coincidence.

And even if they had known on-orbit that they had a tile problem, it wouldn't have made any difference. With no Arm and no EVA suits, they couldn't have done any thing about it anyway. At one time there was talk about having some sort of tile repair kit onboard, but I don't think they ever did anything. One problem is that each one of the 30,000 time is pretty much custom-cut and shaped for where it is supposed to go. And getting an adhesive that would work in vaccum and the cold of space, and then survive the heat of re-entry wouldn't be easy either.

Seems like I remember that during one of the very early flights (STS-3? The one that landed at White Sands), they were worried about damage to some belly tiles. Without telling the public, they apparently had the Shuttle turn its bottom to space and looked at it with one of the KH-11 spy satellites. With no further explaination, they later said they had determined there was no problem with the tiles.

Thanks for answer. I think, you are right.

What you prognosis about future of Shuttle program? And ISS too? Have NASA now any idea to deliver cargo on orbit by another ways? And what about programs which researches new manners for jump out our “gravitational well”?

SDI satellites watched the Columbia Re-entry and recorded the breakup. I received this info from a non-kook who received it from a non-governmental employee (also a non-kook) who watched it real time from an SDI control facility. Right after the incident they told him "I don't think you are supposed to be here".

He said that the video clearly shows the wing coming off.

Wait for the news media to pick up on this angle.