[betty boop]

Today is Chinese New Year's.

And also the Jewish Sabbath. The Israeli astronaut piloted the mission against that Bahgdad nuclear reactor back in the late '80s. I don't even want to think about the speculation my fevered little brain seemingly wants to engage in right now.

Officials have been telling us they're pretty confident this catastrophe is not a terrorist event. I think that we can probably rule out the heat-tile scenario. The critical question (at this point anyway) seems to be: What caused the fatal change in flight attitude? But then we are told that the normal blackout of flight data on re-entry may mean we haven't got the means to find out.

God bless our lost crew, and may He comfort their grieving families -- and also the American and Israeli people.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Do you have any specific reasons WHY we can rule out Heat Tile Failure? (I'm curious)

[6ppc]

This is my personal speculation: The object that hit the leading edge of the left wing on takeoff damaged one or more tiles. During reentry this allowed heat to penetrate to the wing surface metal which melted causing more tiles to strip off and more melting metal. The landing gear is in the wing close to the root and the heat penetration caused the tire pressure to rise which led to the tire pressure indication. Finally the video clip I mentioned in an earlier post appears to show the shuttle flying sideways, left side leading, which (I think) would be the way it would act (at least for a short time) if the left wing came off.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"The Israeli astronaut piloted the mission against that Bahgdad nuclear reactor back in the late '80s. I don't even want to think about the speculation my fevered little brain seemingly wants to engage in right now."

The purpose of this forum is to ask those tough questions. No need to put yourself down. Sure. It might be a coincidence. But then again, is it? It's pretty obvious that the Feds never want to say such-and-such was a terrorist attack unless it is as impossible to hide as 9-11. Their denial is sheltering Americans too much. First off, we can't trust the Feds to admit what is or is not terrorism, so we are left to speculate about everything. Secondly, sheltered voters don't know how dangerous terrorism really is.

Of course, I must stress since critics would conveniently forget what I wrote above, there is a good chance this was a coincidence. But when I think of a couple commercial jet 'investigations', how can I be sure the Feds would tell us the truth about this?

FReegards....