Apollo I occurred in 1967. The Challenger was lost in 1986, and now the Columbia is lost in 2003.
I hate to me clinical about this, but we should probably be prepared for a catastrophic event like this every 15-20 years.
Even worse -- it should be noted when these incidents occurred. Launch pad, then take-off, and now re-entry. At some point there is going to be a harrowing disaster of this sort right on the landing strip, and another one in orbit itself.
The most heart-wrenching one would be an incident in orbit in which everyone on the ground and in the spacecraft was aware of a catastrophic event that would unavoidably unfold over the course of many hours. My understanding is that NASA was prepared for such a thing in 1969 on the first lunar mission, and their protocol at the time would have been to cut all contact off with the crew members even if they were expected to survive for many more hours.
This tracks with the aviation accident data and statistics collected by NTSB. The T/O and landing phase of flight account for a majority of the accidents, cruise phase is about 6%.
The NASA protocol during 1969 (if indeed your understanding of it is correct) is hard to comprehend. At the same time, there are certain things about today’s disaster, and its aftermath, that we don’t need to know, or witness.
The reports of body parts being found, although surely a need-to-know part of the investigation for those whose job it is to decipher what happened and why, are not something about which the average American needs a detailed description (let alone photographs). A small fraction of our populace (the Jerry Springer audience type) may somehow thrive on that type of information. I believe the rest of us would rather be spared it. I, for one, am taking some small comfort in the fact that our seven astronauts most likely had little or no idea that they were about to die. What happened to their physical bodies immediately after the cataclysm is of little importance to all but the investigators.