[Timesink]

BELIEVE IT WAS A TERRORIST ATTACK. In my opinion a missle!! ... What are your thoughts?.

Impossible. There is no technology in existence that can hit an object at such an altitude and speed. The only terrorist scenario even barely possible, much less plausible, would be if someone somehow rigged something on Columbia before launch. And that possiblity would go against Occam's Razor.

[Kip Lange]

Never forget Heinlein's Razor, either (never attribute to human malice what can more easily be attributed to human stupidity).

[alancarp]

Agreed - if anybody wanted to try and shoot down the shuttle, the best/only opportunity would have been during takeoff -- not landing. Or at least not while over Texas. MAYBE Central /East FLorida.

[backhoe]

Impossible. There is no technology in existence that can hit an object at such an altitude and speed

Just FYI, FWIW, I just ran across this:

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What they'll never tell you.......

ARMY TO TEST SATELLITE KILLER A decision to grant the Army permission to finally test their million-watt laser "satellite killer" is near, reports Paul Richter in Monday's LOS ANGELES TIMES. The White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico is home to the project that creates "a white-hot, 6-foot-wide laser beam, generated through a complex reaction." It's housed in a complex that looks like a utility plant. Richter writes: "The Army is poised to fire up a furnace in the New Mexico desert, collect the raging energy on mirrors and focus it into a laser beam aimed to cripple a satellite... A successful trial of the laser would give the military at least theoretical dominance over the realm of satellite reconnaissance." The test would be the most dramatic use of a weapon that was born in the Reagan administration's Star Wars program; it could be used to destroy enemy satellites monitoring U.S. and allied troops and weapons in future wars. The test proposal has reached the Pentagon for final approval and a decision appears to be near, says the paper.

9-21-97.

Six years later, guess who also has them......

China

599 posted on 02/01/2003 1:32 PM EST by USABLUE (And so it begins..........)

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Located here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/833957/posts?page=599#599

[FreeAtlanta]

Impossible. There is no technology in existence that can hit an object at such an altitude and speed. -

Actually, lasers could, but I think we are the main developers of those tools, and I doubt the Islaterrorist will have that ability for a very long time... or never, I hope.

I half expect the conspiracy nuts at DU to start in on that angle.

BTW, how long before the "Pieces"Niks start telling us we can't go to war in the face of such a disaster?