[Movemout]

"Is there a black box, so to speak, on board the shuttles?? Anyone?? "

There are more than one. They recovered at least one after Challenger as I recall. Also don't forget that there is a constant stream of telemetry downlinked to mission control at JSC. There is very little doubt in my mind that the root cause(s) of this mishap will be identified.

[Airborne Longhorn]

I share your views about the streaming telemetry; it's always captured, uninterrupted, throughout each mission's duration.

In all likelihood, every bit and byte of data, up to the moment of explosion, should be recovered and serve as the most reliable source for nailing down the cause of this tragedy.

And what a wonderful address just now by the President...what a man.

[Joe Hadenuf]

I completely agree. The telemetry data should tell all.

[snopercod]

They recovered at least one after Challenger as I recall You recall correctly. But they are powered by the orbiter main busses, and stop recording as soon as the power goes off.

[Fred Hayek]

"Also don't forget that there is a constant stream of telemetry downlinked to mission control at JSC."

As long as any re-entry vehicle is surrounded by hot plasma during re-entry, no real time data can get through.