[leadpenny]

Morning IG. Howard Fineman and Mike Barnicle will be on Imus later. I'm sure MSNBC would be preempting them if the talk was not centered on the Columbia Disaster.

Where were you when you heard about the Columbia? If you care to say.

[Iowa Granny]

I was in my kitchen,, the TV was blaring away, and I was paying it no mind. Suddenly the weekend FnF guy says 'they've lost contact with Columbia, but there is always a brief disconnect during reentry, it seems they are having trouble re establishing contact."

Next, they said "Columbia is overdue". I stopped what I was doing, and watched. I rearranged my schedule, and spent the rest of the day, glued to the set"

And you? Did you go to the CPAC event? If so, did you get Ann Colter's autograph? (I need the really important information,,,, understand ;~])

[YaYa123]

Good Morning leadpenny, and Congratulations.

Imus asked Robert Bazell my question. Did the astronauts know there was serious concern about their safety during re-entry, because of the possibly missing/damaged tiles?

Bazell says he does not know if the astronauts knew specifically about the inter-NASA memo that detailed the dangers, a memo that was written just two days before re-entry. But Bazell says yes, of course the astronauts knew about what happened on take-off, when tiles were damaged, but he doubts they knew about the existance of a specific memo, that has been exposed by Barbree this morning.